The Wonder the Frogs Missed

Latona had very wonderful twin babies, and Juno, the queen of the gods, was jealous of her because of these little ones. Perhaps Juno had the power to look ahead through the years to the time when Latona’s children would grow up and take their places among the gods on Mount Olympus.

Who were these twins? Oh, that is the end of the story.

Juno, who could work almost any good or evil she desired, decreed that this mother should never have a fixed home to raise her babies. If Latona found shelter in a farmer’s cottage, a drought would dry up his fields, or a hailstorm would destroy his crops. If she stopped with vine dressers, a gale would sweep down on the vineyard and all would flee for their lives.

She was forced to wander up and down the land with her little ones, wrapping her cloak around them to shield them from the weather. She grew very weary and despaired of ever raising her little boy and girl to be the fine man and woman she longed for them to become.

One day in the heat of summer, Latona came to the country of Lycia in Greece. It seemed she could not walk another step. The babies were heavy, and she had found no water for a long time. By chance, she saw a pool of clear water in a valley. Some country people were there gathering reeds and willows to weave baskets. Latona summoned her strength and dragged herself to the pool, kneeling to drink and dip up water to cool the babies’ heads.

“Stop!” the rustics commanded. “You have no right to touch our water!”

“I only wish to drink, kind friends,” Latona explained. “I thought water was free to all. My mouth is so dry I can hardly speak. A drink would be nectar to me. The gods give us sunshine, air, and streams as common property. I only want to share your pool to revive me, not to bathe. See how my babies stretch out their arms to you in pleading!”

It was true; Latona’s little ones held out their arms in supplication, but the rustics turned away. They waded into the pool and stirred up the water with their feet, making it muddy and unfit to drink. As they did this, they laughed at Latona’s plight and jeered at her.

She was a long-suffering mother, but this unkindness was too much. She lifted her hands toward the gods and called for help.

“May these rustics who refuse to help two children of your family be punished!” Latona begged. “May they never leave this pool whose clear waters they have defiled!”

The gods heard Latona’s plea, and one of the strangest things in all mythology happened.

The rustics tried to leave the pool and return to their basket-making, but they found their feet had suddenly grown flat and shapeless and were stuck fast in the mud. They called for help, but their voices were harsh, their throats bloated, and their mouths stretched so they could not form words. Their necks disappeared, and their heads, with great bulging eyes, joined to their backs. Their flesh turned to thick green skin, and they could not stand upright.

It was as Latona had asked. These boorish clowns would never leave the slimy water, for the gods had changed them into the first frogs.

“This is a terrible punishment for ridiculing a stranger,” the people of Lycia said as they visited the pools and heard the hoarse croaking of the frogs. The river god Peneus knew them, as did the lovely nymph Daphne, his daughter, who was never happier than when flying along the edge of a stream with her soft green garments fluttering.

Daphne was more like a spirit of the woods than a girl. She preferred living in the shadow of leaves to a palace roof, and she liked to follow deer and gather wild flowers rather than mingle with village children. But she was unmatched by the most beautiful daughter of all Greece, her long hair loose like a veil, her eyes soft and shining like stars, and her body as graceful as a rare vase.

At that time, a strange youth was seen to haunt the forests and banks of the river god. He was as fair and well shaped as Daphne, and something unusual surrounded him. Wherever he walked, there seemed to be more light. He made the daytime brighter and the golden rays of the sun shine more gloriously. When he stopped with a shepherd, no wolves attacked the flock, and he kept herds safe from mountain lions. He had made a lyre, a musical instrument of many tuneful strings not heard in Greece before. One day, as he touched the strings to a song about the pastures and woods in spring, he suddenly saw the nymph Daphne.

He had seen her before, moving like a green bough blown by the wind along the shores. He thought he had never seen so beautiful a creature, but whenever Daphne caught a glimpse of this strange youth, she was frightened and fled. Now he was determined to catch her. He dropped his lyre and ran after her, but she eluded him, running faster than the wind.

“Stay, daughter of Peneus,” he called. “Do not fly from me as a dove from a hawk. I am no rude peasant, but one of the gods, and I know all things. It is for love that I pursue you. I fear you may fall and hurt yourself on these stones. Pray run slower, and I will follow more slowly!”

But Daphne was deaf to his words. On she sped, the wind blowing her green garments, her hair streaming behind. It was like a hound pursuing a hare; the youth was swifter and gained on her. His panting breath touched her neck. In her terror, she did not understand that he pursued her only because he loved her and meant no harm.

At last she came to the edge of a stream. On one side were croaking frogs, reeds, and deeper waters. On the other side was her pursuer. Daphne called to her father, the river god: “Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to hide me!”

But the god of light and music knew what was better for Daphne. He touched her fair form, and it stiffened; her feet stood firm on the bank. Her body was enclosed in tender bark, her hair became leaves, her arms became long drooping branches, and her face changed to the form of a treetop. There had never been a tree like the one into which Daphne was transformed—the green laurel tree.

The young god looked at her and saw how fair his work was. The tree would never fade but would stretch its green top toward the sky to feel the light he would pour down. When the wind touched the laurel’s leaves, they would sing like his lyre.

“Come and see what beauty I have given to the nymph Daphne, whom I loved,” he called. From the forest came a brave young huntress, a deer walking unafraid at her side. It was Diana, his sister. She hung her quiver of arrows on the laurel tree and led the deer to shelter under its branches.

“This shall be my tree,” he said, putting his hands on the laurel. “I will wear it for my crown. When great Roman conquerors lead their troops in triumph, laurel will be woven into wreaths for their brows. As eternal youth is mine, the laurel shall always be green, and its leaves shall never wither.”

The sun began to sink behind the hills, and the youth saw the light fade in terror. He could give the laurel brightness of day but had no power to keep it safe through the darkness. Just then, a silver ball appeared in the purple sky, rising higher and sending long white beams to brighten the dusk.

“Diana, see, there is a light in the evening sky!” the youth exclaimed, but his sister had disappeared. Diana, the huntress, was now Diana the moon, queen of darkness, shedding her light on the laurel tree that her brother Apollo, the god of the sun, loved so much.

The frogs along the river bank croaked harshly and could not understand any of these wonders that had happened right beside them. They had missed a wonder when they were rustics, too. There are some people like that. They see only a ragged, weary stranger with tired babies, not worth helping, when those little ones might be an Apollo and a Diana, the gods of day and night.