A counterargument to the proposition that Daphne and
Mantho are one and the same from
http://www.goddess.org...Pagan Goddesses and Gods of the
Delphi Oracle
by
MaatRaAh
Ovid makes Daphne the daughter of the
river God Peneus, and the blunt (literally of Cupid's revenge)
Apollo chided
Cupid one day for
his use of the bow, and bragged how
his arrow never failed, and how he slew Python with countless darts.
Cupid countered by telling
Apollo "You are far above all creatures living, and by just that distance your glory less than mine".
Cupid then waited for
his revenge. That was not long coming, when
Cupid saw
Apollo approaching the place where Daphne bathed in her father's pool. He drew from
his quiver two different arrows, one gleaming golden and
sharp, the other deadeningly blunt, tipped with lead to drive all love away, and this he used on Daphne, while he shot
Apollo with the stinging
sharp arrow of love, through bone, through marrow, and through the heart, and he loved Daphne. Daphne
had many suitors, bus spurned them and made the marriage torches hateful and criminal to her.
Apollo pursued her, telling her he was lord of
Delphi, Tenedos, Claros and Patara and
Zeus was
his father. But she fled and
Apollo, driven by the superior power of love gave chase. She escaped him at first, but
his relentless pursuit drove her to terror and exhaustion, and seeing the river of her father she cried for
his help. Her father heard and "when her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves, her arms were branches, and her speedy feet roots and held, and her
head became a tree top. Everything gone except her grace, her shining.
Apollo lover her
still. He placed
his hand where he
had hoped and felt the heart
still beating under the bark; and he embraced the branches as if they
still were limbs, and kissed the
wood, and the
wood shrank from
his kisses," and from that time on he loved the Laurel above all trees.
The truth of the matter is, Daphne (laurel) was the daughter of Teiresias, the blind Theban Prophet who gave birth to her during the seven years when he
had been a woman.
His other daughter, Manto [the mother of Mopsus, the seer] he sired after he was a
man again. Daphne and Manto were both taken captive when Thebes fell in the generation before
Troy. Manto was sent to
Ionia where she married Rhacius,
King of
Caria, by whom she
had Mopsus--said to be the son of
Apollo. Daphne remained a virgin and was sent to
Delphi; most likely to add the power of Teiresias to the
Delphi oracle which
had recently (within 100 years) been taken over by the Apollonians. There she became the Sibyl. There are some who say that Manto
had her name changed to Daphne when she was sent to
Delphi, but this is perpetrated by Apollonians who forget that the Sibyl spurned Apollo's love, while Mopsus was the son of
Apollo and Manto.
