Reflection on Daphne and Apollo, 9/13/09

I find the story of Daphne and Apollo, by Ovid, to be very interesting. While reading I have made a number of observations, both about the plot/characters and about Ovid's writing style.

Apollo is very arrogant and conceited, for example in line 456 where he refers to Cupid as "naughty boy" (lascive puer). Cupid's personality is the exact opposite - he is childish and immature as can be seen when he tells Apollo he is about to shoot him with his arrows. I feel that these two characters represent opposite ends of the spectrum, with a spoiled, bratty child on one end and an arrogant, overly proud adult god on the other. I prefer Apollo to Cupid and I am sure anyone reading this story would be inclined to prefer one character over another, especially the one that they are more similar to in personality.

I have noticed two reoccuring trends in Ovid's writing. The first is that he tends to use the 'royal plural' (nostra(s)) a lot in quotes from Apollo and Cupid. It seems that he uses it when a character is saying something and is trying to exclude the person that they are speaking to by lumping everyone else in with himself. An example of this is line 465, "your glory is less than ours" (tanto minor est tua gloria nostra). I've also noticed that Ovid uses a verb once and when translating in English, the verb is said twice, but in the Latin text, the verb only appears once in the sentence. This is different from English con structions, where we say the verb as many times as we use it. Lines 463-464 of the text are an example of this in Latin.

I am excited to read the rest of the story, as the plot is getting very interesting!