'Apollo & Daphne' is based on the classic Greek myth of the ill-fated love of the sun god Apollo for Daphne, a river nymph and alleged daughter of the river god Peneus. Sworn never to marry, Daphne rebuffs Apollo's advances and desperately begs her father (or perhaps Gaia, the Earth Mother) to intervene. She is then transformed into a laurel bush whose leaves have become symbolic of a victory that may be bittersweet.