Daphne to demonstrate the power of love's arrow. Eros also shot Daphne, but with a leaden-tipped arrow, the effect of which was to make her flee from Apollo. Elated with sudden love, Apollo chased Daphne contuinally. He tried to make her cease her flight by saying he doesn't wish to hurt her. When she continued fleeing, Apollo lamented that even though he had the knowledge of medicinal herbs, he had failed to cure himself from the wound of Cupid's arrow. When Apollo had caught up with her, Daphne prayed for help to her father, the river god Peneus of Thessaly, who
The Wood Nymph life, they experienced a certain type of female sexual adventurousness that their wives could not easily match." He hypothesizes that "The Wood Nymph" and other contemporaneous compositions were Sibelius's method of dealing with the emotional consequences of this and his guilt towards his wife Aino. With its focus on sexual fantasy, "The Wood Nymph" differs sharply from the Rydberg poem "Snöfrid" which Sibelius set in 1900. In "", Gunnar, the patriotic hero, resists a water nymph's sensuous "embrace" to instead "fight the hopeless fight" for his country and "die nameless". The contrast between Björn and Gunnar, Murtomäki argues, reflects Sibelius's