Handel's lost Hamburg operas Daphne while the other would-be lovers manoeuvre for position. Lycoris assures Apollo that Daphne's abandonment of the wedding was a signal that she favours him. Lycoris also steals Daphne's cloak and, wearing it as a disguise, makes advances to Damon, having first ensured that Florindo overhears. Florindo is enraged by what he believes is Daphne's duplicity, and denounces her. Damon confirms the story. Daphne, bewildered, pleads with her father Peneus to prove her innocence; he responds by transforming her into a laurel tree. Cupid blames Apollo's pride for the fiasco, but gives him the laurel as his "special tree". Florindo
The Wood Nymph to be "really a tone painter and poet" in the mold of the symphonic poems of Liszt. In "The Wood Nymph", Sibelius adheres closely to the narrative structure of Rydberg's poem, so much so that at the 1895 premiere, audience members were provided with copies of the source material, indicating the centrality of Rydberg's plot to the performance. Due to its programmatic qualities, musicologists commonly describe "The Wood Nymph", although in one movement, as consisting of four informal sections or "dramatic "tableaux"", each of which corresponds to one of the poem's four stanzas: Björn, "a tall and handsome lad", is