Claire Fahlman

December 11, 2018

Honors 210 B

Professor Hinds

Daphne, Odysseus and Autonomy: Sexual Dynamics in Classical Poetry

The tale of Daphne and Apollo is remarkable for its portrayal of a scene that may be all

to familiar to the modern reader: a man loves a woman and pursues her, seemingly oblivious to

her repeated pleas for him to leave her alone. The main distinction here is that the man in

question is the god Apollo, and that in the end Daphne transforms into the laurel tree.

Odysseus also shares with Daphne the experience of being the victim of a deity’s unrequited

romantic interests. He is kept captive by the goddess Calypso, although he is eventually taken

pity on by Athena and Zeus and allowed to return to his journey. Both tales speak to the larger

classical theme of sexual exchanges between humans and gods. The interactions between

amorous gods and disinterested humans play out along gender lines, as exhibited by the

interactions between Daphne and Apollo as well as Odysseus and Calypso.

Both Daphne and Odysseus are saved from their divine pursuers by other gods, but their

relationship to these holy saviors are different. Daphne is saved from her fate by the river god

Peneus, who happens to be her father. He wants her to bring him grandchildren, which is

directly against her wish to remain a virgin: “ Her father would say, ‘you owe me a son-in-law,

girl.’/Or he’d say, ‘Child, you owe me some grandchildren.’/As horrified by marriage as by some

crime,/ she’d blush, embarrassed, her pretty face bright,/ throw winning arms around his neck

and cry,/ ‘Dear adorable father, please let me stay a virgin girl always.’” (Ovid, Daphne L. 481-
487) Here her status as a virgin is entirely dependent on the wishes of her father, as he has the

power to marry her off against her will if he so chooses. He does hear her pleas for help but

does not deliver her from being accosted in the same form. True to the theme of

Metamorphosis, she is transformed into a tree. She couldn’t give him what he wants, and

although he did help her, she will not be entirely free either. Odysseus, on the other hand, is

saved by the goddess Athena, who has seemingly taken a liking to him without any

qualifications or family connection. She persuades Zeus to make Calypso let Odysseus go, but

not without an ironic rant about the sexist double-standard regulating god-human sexual

interactions. She lets him go, and unlike Daphne he is free and without reservation: “But first

she bathed him, gave him a scented cloak, / and put on board a skin of dusky wine/ with water

in a bigger skin, and stores–/ boiled meats and other victuals– in a bag.” (Homer, Odyssey L.

273-276) Here, Calypso lets Odysseus go without any change in his form or prerequisites for her

assistance. Instead, she lets him go without pain or suffering and allows him to retain his self-

determination. The difference between these two tales is rooted in the dynamic of power

between men and women. Self-control and self-determination are given to the male

protagonist, Odysseus, after he is freed by the god, but not to the female protagonist, Daphne.

This is due to the male ability to move throughout the world unconstrained by the same social

regulation put on women, which allows them to control not only themselves but the women in

their lives, as Peneus does with both Daphne’s virginity and her physical form.

Both Daphne and Odysseus are powerless to change their own fate, although their level

of distress about becoming the sexual property of these gods varies by gender. Daphne is

caught in a horrifying race against a supernatural being from whom she can’t seem to flee.
Regardless of how fast she runs, she cannot escape Apollo: “But the one spurred by Love is

faster and will not/ let her catch her breath, touches her back as she flees, / and breathes on

the hair flying loose at her neck.” (Ovid, Daphne L. 540-542) Daphne is clearly experiencing

utter terror in this moment. Her only desire in life is to live like her hero, the virgin goddess

Diana. Here it is clear that she would rather lose her human form, if not her life, than

experience that which most horrifies her. Odysseus indeed wants to leave Calypso’s island and

return home to his wife Penelope, and clearly is not staying due to his own choice. In the

meanwhile, however, he does not mind sleeping with the goddess until she lets him go: “Now

as he spoke the sun set, dusk drew on, / and they retired, this pair, to the inner cave/ to revel

and rest softly, side by side.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 234-236) This scene could almost be seen as

cozy were the reader unaware of the relationship dynamic between the two. Of course,

Odysseus would like to go home in the end, but will sleep with Calypso without qualms about

how his wife Penelope would feel were she to find out about his adulterous behavior. The

difference here illustrates what each gender has to lose from sexual exploitation. Men have had

less to fear over the millennia from abduction and sexual trauma, although fear would certainly

have been a rational emotion for them as well. Women like Daphne, however, have been

degraded for thousands of years. What is more, defilement meant not only physical and

emotional trauma, but also diminished marriage prospects due to their non-virgin status. These

two poems, albeit fictional, serve to demonstrate a very real and very modern disparity in

sexual freedom.

The end results of these two stories are different in the level of freedom retained by

each human character, representative of their gender. Daphne not only changes her form, but
also loses her autonomy. Her father may have saved her from sexual defilement by turning her

into the laurel tree, but this begs the question: if Daphne can no longer experience life, is she

truly saved? Although she does remain a virgin as she wished, there is now nothing to stop

Apollo from claiming her as his sacred tree: “The healer was done. The laurel made a sign/ with

her branches, seemed to shake her leafy crown.” (Ovid, Daphne L. 566-567) Here Daphne, now

the laurel, is expressing her distress but finds herself absolutely powerless to stop Apollo from

taking ownership of her form for his own purposes, yet again. Odysseus, however, is free to

leave and go about his journey. Calypso does not want him to go but won’t make him stay

either. She even helps him leave and sets him on his way with a helpful gust of wind: “Then she

conjured a warm landbreeze to blowing– joy for Odysseus when he shook out sail!” (Homer,

Odyssey L. 277-278) Odysseus is still just as able to build a ship, navigate the world and

determine his own future as he was before Calypso took him prisoner: “Come and cut down

high timber for a raft/ or flatboat; make her broad-beamed, and decked over so you can ride

her on the misty sea.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 171-174) He can move freely, build his craft and

make his own decisions about where to travel. Granted, the gods do interfere with his journey,

but he never has to compromise on his autonomy. The difference here can be seen as an

allegory on the disparity in freedom experienced by each gender.

Although both Apollo and Calypso initially act against their human lovers’ desires, their

actions differ when it comes to honoring the wishes of their unwilling paramours. Apollo never

really seems to notice or care what Daphne wants, despite his professed love for her. This is

illustrated by his seemingly confused calls for her to be careful: “The places you’re running are

rough. Run more slowly, / please, don’t flee so fast; I’ll chase more slowly, too.” (Ovid, Daphne
L. 510-511) If Apollo truly wanted Daphne to be secure, he wouldn’t be chasing her in the first

place. This proves, however, that he only wants her to be secure for him, not for herself, and

that her wish to escape him doesn’t even register with him as valid or existent. Conversely,

Calypso eventually gives in and lets Odysseus go, albeit not without asking him why his wishes

differ so starkly from hers: “Son of Laërtês, versatile Odysseus, / after all these years with me,

you still desire/ your old home? Even so, I wish you well.” (Homer, Odyssey L. 212-214) She

doesn’t like his desire to return home, but she accepts that what he wants is different from

what she wants, and Odysseus will leave a free man, even as Calypso lets him go only

begrudgingly. The difference here is between the authority given to male and female agency.

Men are permitted to have desires and pursue them, while women are relegated to be acted

upon, rather than act themselves.

In modern times, women are still restricted in the level of autonomy they are able to

exercise. To simplify a complex issue, women are given two options: they can be mothers, or

they can choose to forgo their societally predetermined role. As a mother, women are expected

to sacrifice their own desires for those of their children and be totally submissive to the needs

and wants of their husbands. Women without children, on the other hand, are often seen as

cold, aggressive and sometimes even mean, the inverse of the maternal stereotype. In fact, by

not meeting the societal standard of motherhood, these women are often confusing to those

who do not question their own preconceived ideas of what it means to be a woman. When

women try to be both a mother and a career woman, for example, society struggles to

understand them. Both Daphne and Calypso can be seen through this lens. Daphne wants only

to be a virgin, clearly preventing her from aspiring to motherhood, and Calypso lashes out
against Zeus for limiting her actions where he wouldn’t limit a male god. Indeed, it is distressing

that society has changed so little over so many thousands of years, and yet somehow it is not at

all shocking.

In ancient Greece, as in modern society, men and women are relegated to different

realms. Men are encouraged to navigate the larger world, while to some degree women are still

expected to stay at home and raise a family in the private sphere. In more modern times

women often find themselves entrapped in the dual expectations of working life and

motherhood, and more often than not find themselves making massive sacrifices in their

working lives to become mothers. For those women who eschew motherhood entirely there

exists a degree of judgment as to why they do not fulfill the duty of motherhood proscribed to

them by millennia of human society. Daphne, who deviates from the societal expectation of

motherhood and marriage, is restricted in her motion and prevented from living in the manner

of her choice. Odysseus, who lives up to the male stereotype of the brave, smart explorer, is

not restrained and instead is able to travel freely throughout the Mediterranean, exploring,

adventuring and experiencing all the trials and triumphs that the gods threw his way. Though

Daphne and Odysseus share unwanted sexual harassment by gods, that is all they have in

common. It is worth reexamining ancient poetry for what it can show modern man, both about

what has changed and what has remained regrettably the same.