La Dafne prominent figure throughout the composition, at times adding to the action of the story and at other times, providing reflective commentary. The prologue is delivered by the poet Ovid as he sings the text: When the opera proper begins, the god Apollo slays the Python, a monster which has been terrifying the Greek island of Delos. Cupid and Venus are unimpressed by Apollo’s boasting and about his conquest and his feelings of being invincible. Because of this, they plot revenge on Apollo. Cupid shoots two arrows, the first of which makes Apollo fall in love with the nymph Daphne, daughter
Thalia (nymph) Thalia (nymph) In Greek mythology, Thalia or Thaleia ( ; "Tháleia" or Θάλια "Thália", "the Joyous, the Flourishing", from θάλλειν / thállein, "to flourish, to be green") is a nymph, the child of Hephaestus. She is also given as an anthropomorphic secondary deity of plant life and shoots, possibly as the culmination of the transmission of knowledge on volcanic ash's use as a fertiliser, characteristic of ancient viticulture in volcanic soils such as those of the island of Santorini. The tradition surrounding her is confused, but she is probably confused with the Muse, Grace or Nereid of the same name.