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
Ida (nymph) Ida (nymph) In Greek mythology, Ida or Ide (Ancient Greek: Ἴδη) was one of the nurses of the infant Zeus on Crete. According to Apollodorus, Rhea gave the infant Zeus to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, leader of the Kuretes of Crete, to nurse, and they fed Zeus on the milk of the goat Amalthea. According to Hyginus, Ida and Adrastea (along with Amalthea) were daughters of Oceanus, whom "others say they were the daughters of Melisseus". She was associated with the Cretan Mount Ida. According to the second-century geographer Pausanias, Ida was represented, on the altar