Apollo

    Apollo is a very interesting Greek god. He is the god of music, poetry, plagues, oracles, archery, plague, healing, prophecy, light, knowledge, harmony, beauty, and agriculture. He rules over music, prophecy, healing, and archery. Apollo is the son of Zeus (the god of the sky, thunder, and lightning) and the Titan Leto, and his the twin brother of Artemis (the goddess of hunting and archery). He is said to be the ideal of kouros, which explains he has a youthful and athletic physique. Apollo is described as a handsome young man with long golden hair without possessing a beard. He’s often said to have a laurel crown resting on his head and always carrying a bow and arrow in his hands.

    Apollo is most known for the interesting tale of his birth and his ill-fallen romance legends. Apollo’s mother (Leto) was Zeus’s first wife, but Hera (his main wife) was very jealous of Leto so she tried to hunt her down to stop her from delivering her twins. Hera was successful in banning Leto from giving birth on land, so Zeus made the island of Delos out of the seawater so Leto could deliver her twin babies safely away from Hera’s wrath. She was in labor for nine days under an olive tree at the foot of Mount Cynthus. Artemis was born first and in the nine days it took for her to deliver Apollo Artemis grew from a baby to a woman and helped her mother deliver her twin brother. Within minutes of being born Apollo was fed ambrosia and he immediately transformed from an infant into a fully grown man after his first taste of ambrosia.

    Apollo’s tales with romance involved seem to all have failed in various ways. The tale of Apollo and Coronis isn’t the most known story but is an interesting one. Coronis was pregnant with Apollo’s son’s child when she fell in love with Ischys, so when Apollo learned of this affair from a white crow he demanded Artemis to kill her for this betrayal. Artemis killed her and burned the feathers of the crow that informed him. It’s said that Crows are been permanently black ever since. A more well-known love story of Apollo is the tale of Apollo and Daphne, Daphne was a nymph who promised Artemis she would stay innocent. Apollo fell for her and persistently stalked her to express his love until she finally had enough. Daphne begged her father to transform her into something else to keep her safe from Apollo. Later when Apollo was about to embrace her, she turned into a laurel tree. Because of this event, he now wears a laurel crown/wreath to represent his unhappy love.

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