DaphneANCIENT_Nonnus
Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 42.387
Nonnus of Panopolis in Egypt (fl. 450-470 AD) composed a remarkable, lengthy (48 books!) Greek hexameter poem on the birth and mission of Dionysus throughout the earth. The excerpt below touches very briefly on the myth of Daphne, casting it in the so-called Arcadian version.
The daughter of Ladon, that venerable river,
despised wedlock's activities;
the nymph transformed bodily into a tree.
Still alive and gasping for breath, upon Apollo's oracular hilltop
she shunned his bed but crowned Phoebus' tresses.
42.387-90:
καὶ θυγάτηρ Λάδωνος, ἀειδομένου ποταμοῖο,
ἔργα γάμων στυγέουσα δέμας δενδρώσατο Νύμφη,
ἔμπνοα συρίζουσα, καὶ ὀμφήεντι κορύμβῳ
Φοίβου λέκτρα φυγοῦσα κόμην ἐστέψατο Φοίβου.