I Will Never Be Yours: An Ace Daphne Confronts Apollo, M. Marullus

Daphne: I’ll Never Be Yours, Apollo

Name: Michele Marullo Tarchaniota Date: 1330 – 1408 CE Region:   Constantinople [modern Turkey] / Volterra [modern Italy] Citation:   Illustrated Myths of Ovid (1580) 17

I am now safe from your divinity,

As a newly transformed bay tree!

I, a maiden who stayed a maiden,

I, who was mean to her stalker.

And now he hugs my naked branches and tells me to rejoice that I am now his.

I may be your tree, but I’ll not be your spouse. [1]

 

Daphne: I’ll Never Be Yours, Apollo

Tuta suis monstris, et iam nova Laurea Daphne:

Aspera amatori sic quoque virgo suo:

Nunc ait, exulta ramos complexus inanes:

Ut tua sim, coniunx non ero nempe tua.

 

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[1] A reference to the famous line of the version in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1.557-558 [“'at, quoniam coniunx mea non potes esse, /  arbor eris certe' dixit 'mea!” / “But since you cannot be my wife, you can be my tree!”].

Michele Marullo Tarcaniota [1458 – 1500 CE, Constantinople, modern Turkey / Volterra, modern Italy] was a famous scholar and author known for his Greco-Roman mythology-themed poetry.