In the myth of Daphne and Apollo, Cupid fired two arrows: one causing
flight from love, the other passionate attraction. Cupid aimed his first
arrow at Daphne, a beautiful nymph who loved her freedom; the next
struck Apollo, who lusted after Daphne. Daphne, frightened and intent
upon virginity, fled Apollo but was unable to run fast enough. When her
strength was almost gone, she sought protection in the familiar waters
of her father's river. He answered her prayers: Her hair became leaves,
and her feet, roots growing into the ground; she was transformed into a
laurel tree. Apollo, kissing the sprouting bark, pledged to honor Daphne
by placing a laurel wreath on the head of every hero who won a victory.
Unable to evade the consequences of the arrow that wounded her, Daphne
called upon the river, the creative power of both nature and time-a
symbol of fertility, but also of oblivion-to help her survive when her
strength was gone. Daphne's inner triumph in the face of injury is an
appropriate sym- bol for the types of transformation witnessed by
psychologists. In his book on symbols, Circlot (1962, p. 173) writes
that the crowning of the poet, artist, or conqueror with laurel leaves
"presupposes a series of inner victories over the negative and
dissipative influence of the basest forces. " Further, the tree "denotes
the life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation,
generative, and regenerative processes" (Circlot, 1962, p. 328).