Apollo is the Greek god of music, prophecy, disease, healing and archery. His  symbols are commonly a bow and a quiver of arrows, a lyre, the sun, and as for animals: a swan or a raven. He is commonly represented as a young beardless man, with longer hair, a wreath or a branch of laurel.  

The laurel actually comes from a myth about him and the Nymph Daphne. Eros, also known as Cupid, was firing arrows at people for them to fall in love and ended up shooting two arrows, one gold-tipped and the other lead-tipped. The golden arrow shot Apollo right through his heart which caused the latter to fall madly in love with Daphne, a river Nymph from Thessalia. The second arrow had a different effect, the lead making the person renounce and run away from any love, it shot right through Daphne.  

The god, being madly in love with Daphne, tried to persuade her and kept pursuing despite her constant rejections. At one point, she ran from him, desperate to run away and keep her maidenhood. Right when he was about to overtake her, she prayed to Gaia (also known as Mother Nature) for help. She was heard and was transformed into a plant we know as laurel,  “daphne” in Greek.  

A statue sculped by Gian Lorenzo Bernini is currently stored at the Galleria Borghese in Italy, Rome, which represents the exact moment and expressions of the two beings as Daphne morphs into a tree and is absorbed by Nature.

 par Danielle Wierieszczinskaja