Parnasso in festa his own love life, when, enamoured of the nymph Daphne, he pursued her with lustful intent, but she prayed to the gods to be spared and was transformed into a laurel tree. As if embarrassed by this story, Apollo invites all to join him in drinking in praise of Bacchus. Mars, god of war, leads everyone in a drinking song, and Clio joins in the spirit of things so much that she begins to feel inebriated, much to the amusement of Orpheus' mother, Calliope, muse of epic poetry, and the chorus. The muses sing in turn in praise of Orpheus'
Acantha Acantha Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, English translation: "thorny") is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the "Acanthus" plant. The tale goes that Acantha was a nymph loved by the god Apollo. Acantha however rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. The story has, over the years, been retold in books, encyclopedias, and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance the first edition of John Lemprière's "Bibliotheca Classica", an early encyclopaedia of