What does Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase mean?
The song tells this story from Ovid’s Metamorphosis: the God, Phoebus Apollo, espied and lusted after the beautiful and virtuous nymph Daphne. He pursued her but Daphne ran from him and as she did so, prayed to the chaste Goddess Diana (Apollo’s sister). Diana heard Daphne’s pleas for help and saved her by turning her into a Bay bush. Shakespeare knew the story, for in Taming of the Shrew, he compares Kate to “Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds” (Ind.ii.57-58). In A Midsummer Night’s Dream though, the situation is turned around, for Helena says “Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase” (II.i.
