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Centuripe, province in Enna, Sicily, Italy

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by samjsn

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Hey folks, this image of Apollo was done for a private commission. Xoxo

The following text is reposted from my previous Apollo Olympians image.

“Phoebus, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the eddying river Peneus; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel, holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last…And so hail to you, lord! I seek your favor with my song.”  (-Homeric Hymn, translated by H.G. Evelyn white)

APOLLO (uh-PAH-low), God of prophecy, oracles, music, art, protector of and disease of boys and men, and archery. Just as his twin sister Artemis is patron to women and girls, Apollo is both protector, and killer from disease of boys and men. In my Illustration the god holds his bow and arrows behind, while he strums the lyre gifted to him by trickster Hermes. Near the sun flies his ally and divine messenger, a white raven. The column on the right is capped with a cow, representing his sacred animal as a god of herds. The serpent Python sits dead at his feet, killed by Apollo’s arrow so that the god could take over the Delphi temple location. The temple complex sits beneath the god, while on the far right, the Pythia (Apollo’s oracle priestess) sits upon a tripod, breathing the hallucinatory gasses seeping up from the earth to get her prophecies which she bestows upon visitors.

The laurel tree has associations with Apollo because the god, chasing a Naiad (water nymph) named Daphne call out to Gaia (mother earth) for help, who transformed the nymph into a laurel tree, which the god adopted as his sacred tree. In book 1 of the Iliad, Apollo supports the Trojans by raining down a plague on the Greeks, and later helping Paris to kill Achilles. Apollo’s cruelty is shown in Ovid’s mythical lyre contest with the inventor of the flute; a satyr named Marsyas. When Apollo suggested they play their instruments upside down, the satyr lost, and was flayed (skinned) alive as punishment for his hubris. 

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Bird lands on a page about itself.

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happiness comes in waves, it’ll find you again.

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