Book I (l. 488-511) Christian and Amy - 8/21

...He yields to that, but your beauty itself prohibits that which is desired, and your beauty denies your prayer: Phoebus loves Daphne and having seen her, desires marriage, he hopes for that which he desires, and his own oracular powers deceive him, just as the light stubble of grain having been removed is destroyed by fire, as hedges burn by torch, which a traveler by chance either drew exceedingly near, or left behind now under daylight (at daybreak), so the god was consumed in flames, so his whole heart burns and feeds his fruitless love on hope. He looks at her unadorned hair hanging down her neck and said: "What if it was embellished?" He sees her eyes glittering like the brightness of the stars, sees her lips, which is not enough to just have seen; he praises her fingers and hands and wrists, and her arms bare to the shoulder; if what lies hidden he believes better. But she flees swifter than the nimble air and resists these words calling her back: "Nymph, I implore you, daughter of Peneus, stay! I, following, am no enemy. Nymph, stay! So the lamb flees from the wolf, so the deer from the lion, so doves with fluttering wings from the eagle, they all flee their enemies: love is to me a cause to follow! My misery! I am afraid that you may fall, or that the cruel thorns my mark or harm your limbs and might be causing pain to you! These are rough places which you hurry through: slow down, I ask you, stop your running and fleeing, and I too will follow more slowly."

I. 466-487 (Maya and David)

He spoke, and striking the air fiercely with beating wings, he landed on the shady peak of Parnassus, and took two arrows with opposite effects from his full quiver: one kindles love, the other dispels it. The one that kindles is golden with a sharp glistening print, the one that dispels is blunt with lead beneath its shaft. With the second he transfixed Peneus' daughter, but with the first he wounded Apollo, piercing him to the marrow of his bones; at once he loves the other, but the other flees at the name of the lover and rejoices in the forest lairs and in the spoils of captive beasts, the rival of the virgin Diana: a hair band bound her hair, having been placed in her hair without order. Many sought her, she turned away those who were seeking, she was both not enduring and not experienced in the ways of men- she roams around the pathless forest free of the men, and she does not care (to learn) about Hymen, or love, or marriage. Many times her father said "Oh daughter, you owe me a son-in-law," many times her father said "You owe me, daughter, grandchildren;" As if hating the sin of the nuptial torch that beautiful face had bashfully welled up with redness. Clinging to his shoulder, coaxing him with her arms around his neck she said, "My dearest father, allow me to enjoy being a virgin forever, the father of Diana allowed this before." 

I. 553-567

Even in this way Phoebus loved her and placed upon the trunk his right hand,
observed her heart even now fluttering beneath her chest
and as in friendship her branches embraced and places
his lips on the wood; then the wood fled from his lips.
To this the god "but, if then my wife you cannot be,
my tree you will be certainly!" he said. "Always will be
my hair, the lyre, the quiver adorned with you, laurel;
you will crown Latin generals, when happy Triumph
voices call and long processions ascend the Capitol;
at Augustan gates you will be a trustworthy guardian
before the crown of the faithful citizen keeping watch,
and as my uncut hair is eternally young on my head,
you will always give the honor of your leaves perpetually!"
Paean finished: the laurel moved its new-formed branches
and seemed to nod her head in the fullest agreement.