The story of Apollo and Daphne was written around the year zero by Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Ovid was a trainee lawyer and student of rhetoric. In the story, a woman named Daphne becomes a laurel tree to escape the unwanted advances of the sun god, Apollo.
It’s part of a collection of his stories in which humans transform into plants and animals (and vice-versa) amid the mountains and woodlands of early Greece. But I believe it must be reviewed in the era of #MeToo – a period marked by widespread awareness, activism and accountability around sexual harassment and assault.
