Cupid "Metamorphoses". When Apollo taunts Cupid as the lesser archer, Cupid shoots him with the golden arrow, but strikes the object of his desire, the nymph Daphne, with the lead. Trapped by Apollo's unwanted advances, Daphne prays to her father, the river god Peneus, who turns her into a laurel, the tree sacred to Apollo. It is the first of several unsuccessful or tragic love affairs for Apollo. A variation is found in "The Kingis Quair", a 15th-century poem attributed to James I of Scotland, in which Cupid has three arrows: gold, for a gentle "smiting" that is easily cured; the
Palace of Daphne Palace of Daphne The Palace of Daphne () was one of the major wings of the Great Palace of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (modern Istanbul, Turkey). According to George Codinus, it was named after a statue of the nymph Daphne, brought from Rome. The exact layout and appearance of the palace is unclear, since it lies under the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, and the only surviving evidence comes from literary sources. Bardill, however, has suggested that the peristyle with mosaics adjoining an apsed hall, excavated by the Walker Trust excavations in 1935-7 and 1952-4, could be the Augusteus