Table of contents:
1. Determines the subject of the text
Expression of the pain that the author feels when remembering that he has lost his beloved
2. Explain the structure of the text
This text is organized according to the canons of a sonnet. It consists of two general parts:
– The first, which takes place in the first two quatrains, tells through a description how Daphne's transformation into a tree is taking place.
– In the second part, it is told how the tears caused by Apollo's suffering after the tragedy make Daphne's transformation faster because she is watering it.
The last stanza serves as the author's conclusion comparing his own sentiment with that of Apollo
3. Content Summary
Dafne, the person with whom Apollo is madly in love, is turned into a tree as divine punishment. Apollo cannot bear this loss of her and keeps hugging her and crying, causing this transformation to speed up even more
4. Critical Comment
Garcilaso de la Vega is explaining with this poem the famous Greek mythology story of Daphne and Apollo. In it, the madness generated by love in Apollo makes Dafne ask her father for help and ends up transforming her into a tree.
This is a clear example of how love can affect people, as Apolo goes from absolute euphoria to extreme sufferinglosing the person who made him feel such a strong and positive feeling.
As scientists have explained with their studies, it is true that humans experience a physiological change when we are in love caused by a chemical reaction that makes us generate serotonin, the so-called happiness hormone, and for this reason when we are in this state everything seems more positive, we are happier throughout the day, problems and worries disappear, etc.
But this myth transcends much more, because if we look at the role of Dafne and not that of Apollo, who is the one who is in love, the meaning of the poem changes radically, since Dafne did not love Apollo, her only objective was to escape from him and not to serve as his sexual object, so, in this sense, Dafne is a character who is suffering such great agony, despair and anguish that in the end she has no other consolation than be turned into a laurel.
Currently, unfortunately, this character appears more than we would like in our society and it is rare that, on the news, a case of sexist violence does not appear in which the story is always the same: the man is so madly in love with that woman that, due to the jealousy he has felt in some cases, he has preferred to end her life instead of being abandoned by her. Despicable.
Whatever it is, love, like any chemical reaction, has secondary effects that can sometimes be the desired ones but in others, everythingotherwise.
