Be thou the prize of honor and renown;
The deathless poet and the poem crown:
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
But after poets be by victors worn.”
—Dryden.
INTERPRETATION.
Daphne is a personification of the morning dew which vanishes beneath the sun’s hot rays and leaves no trace of its passage except in luxuriant verdure.
ART.
This remarkable group was executed by Bernini—sometimes called Michael Angelo the second—when he was but eighteen years old, and is now in the Villa Borghese, Rome. Near the close of his long life Bernini declared that he had made little progress after its production.
The flying nymph is seized by the young god and is already being changed into a laurel tree. The upraised hands are terminated by twigs and leaves instead of fingers. The wonderful manner in which the lower limbs are barked about is difficult to describe.