Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro, by Giambattista Marino

Today we read Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro, by Giambattista Marino. In the full glory of baroque flourishes, Marino presents here the notorious rape of Daphne by Apollo. And the poem, though offset by the beauty of the language and technique, is brutal. The first quatrain focuses on Daphne, shown in distress, running away, looking for her father, likened to a hunted-down doe. Still, slowly but surely, as she turns into a tree as the last resort to escape from the god, the poet’s sympathy also seems to recede. As if saying: she’s just an object now. And so in the last terzina there is almost no trace of her left. There’s only the triumph of the god: he might have not gotten her fruit, but he will forever adorn his head with the branches of the laurel: her branches. Violence and god’s will prevail in the end, of course. The original: Stanca, anelante a la paterna riva,
qual suol cervetta affaticata in caccia,
correa piangendo e con smarrita faccia
la vergine ritrosa e fuggitiva.

E già l’acceso Dio che la seguiva,
giunta omai del suo corso avea la traccia,
quando fermar le piante, alzar le braccia
ratto la vide, in quel ch’ella fuggiva.

Vede il bel piè radice, e vede (ahi fato!)
che rozza scorza i vaghi membri asconde,
e l’ombra verdeggiar del crine aurato.

Allor l’abbraccia e bacia, e, de le bionde
chiome fregio novel, dal tronco amato
almen, se’l frutto no, coglie le fronde.\ The music in this episode is De Torrente, from Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus (RV 807), played by Cor i Orquestra de música antiga de l’Esmuc, Inés Alonso (soprano solista), Albert Baena (alto solista), Lluís Vila (director) (in the creative commons thanks to the Catalonia College of Music).