However earnest Apollo might have been in his pursuit of Daphne, he did not
long remain inconsolable, but formed a tender attachment for Leucothoe,
daughter of king Orchamus, and to introduce himself with greater facility,
he assumed the shape and features of her mother. Their happiness was
complete, when Clytie, her sister, who was enamoured of the God, and was
jealous of his amours with Leucothoe, discovered the whole intrigue to her
father, who ordered his daughter to be buried alive. Apollo passing by
accident over the tomb which contained her, heard her last melancholy
cries, but unable to save her from death, he sprinkled nectar and ambrosia
over her tomb, which penetrating as far as the body, changed it into the
beautiful tree that bears the frankincense; while the unhappy Clytie,
tormented by remorse, and disdained by the God, was changed into a
sunflower, the plant which turns itself without ceasing, towards its deity,
the sun.
"On the bare earth she lies, her bosom bare,
Loose her attire, dishevelled is her hair;
Nine times the morn unbarred the gates of light,
As oft were spread the alternate shades of night,
So long no sustenance the mourner knew,
Unless she drank her tears, or sucked the dew,
She turned about, but rose not from the ground,
Turned to the sun still as he rolled his round;
On his bright face hung her desiring eyes,
Till fixed to earth, she strove in vain to rise,
Her looks their paleness in a flower retained,
But here and there, some purple streaks they gained.
Still the loved object the fond leaves pursue,
Still move their root, the moving sun to view
And in the Heliotrope the nymph is true."