Chastity Vs. Lust
The myth of Apollo and Daphne has been examined as a battle between chastity (Daphne) and sexual desires (Apollo). As Apollo lustfully pursues Daphne, she is saved through her metamorphosis and confinement into the laurel tree which can be seen as an act of eternal chastity. Daphne is forced to sacrifice her body and become the laurel tree as her only form of escape from the pressures of Apollo’s constant sexual desires. Apollo takes Daphne’s eternal chastity and crafts himself a wreath out of her laurel branches turning her symbol of chastity into a cultural symbol for him and other poets and musicians.
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Famous quotes containing the words chastity and/or lust:
“This conflict between the powers of love and chastity ... it ended apparently in the triumph of chastity. Love was suppressed, held in darkness and chains, by fear, conventionality, aversion, or a tremulous yearning to be pure.... But this triumph of chastity was only an apparent, a pyrrhic victory. It would break through the ban of chastity, it would emerge—if in a form so altered as to be unrecognizable.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Even Lust the Master of a hardned Face,
Blushes if thou beest in the place,
To darkness’ Curtains he retires,
In Sympathizing Night he rowls his smoaky Fires.
When, Goddess, thou liftst up thy wakened Head,
Out of the Mornings purple bed,
Thy Quire of Birds about thee play,
And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)