#Python greek mythology

[gingermintpepper]

The Return I

“Apollo?!” 

He ambles past his sister, mind still fogged from the burning stench of poisoned ichor. He’s covered in it, that stained black-gold which stuck his fingers to the curve of his bow and weighed at his hair until it was nearly stuck slick to his neck and shoulders. 

“Apollo, you’re not going to greet Mother like that.” 

Artemis’ grip lacks the bite it usually has. Once she touches the sickly lifeblood, immediately it scalds her palm with a soft sizzle and she recoils, unused to the tooth of poison. Absently, Apollo tries to find her face, vision dull and blurred to uselessness from the fumes. Artemis touches him again, this time, more deliberately and she doesn’t so much as hiss when the poison begins to eat at her skin. 

“You’re coming with me,” and sure as anything, she begins to lead him away from their camp, further down to the shore. She holds him by the shoulder as she guides him, never tries to hold his hand or take the bow from his death grip. He wonders if she can tell that his flesh has long since melted into the wood. Artemis is smart like that.

[amiti-art]

The fact that Python is Apollo's greatest enemy and snake is Asclepius' sacred animal will always be funny

Part 2

[s-c-r-ee-ch]

Apollo vanquishing the serpent Python

Sculpture by Dominique Lefebvre (1703)

Versailles (France), Château - National Estate of Versailles

[illustratus]

Apollo and Diana Slaying the Python by Marcantonio Franceschini

[1ndivara]

Apollo raising the vapours

he is dancing!! are the vapours of delphi? is he raising the sick or having a vision?? or is it just dance night with the muses plus artemis (who knows)!

[fullofobsessions]

*When Apollo stopped Python in the middle of the prophecy*

Percy: "ARE YOU TELLING ME WE COULD HAVE JUST DONE THAT THIS WHOLE TIME?!"

[tinyabbey]

☀️Apollo Phoibos, the far shooter ☀️

[murasaki-cha]

"Apollo defeating Python" quick concept art I did for a competition and took a pic of

I didn't win but here's the drawing

[lesbianbanana]

Hera's relationship with Apollo is something that should be studied, in this essay I-

[apollon-quotes]

"Hië, Hië, Paeëon, we hear – since this refrain did the Delphian folk first invent, what time thou [Apollo] didst display the archery of they golden bow. As thou wert going down to Pytho, there met thee a beast unearthly, a dread snake. And him thou didst slay, shooting swift arrows one upon the other; and the folk cried “Hië, Hië, Paeëon, shoot an arrow!” A helper from the first thy mother bare thee, and ever since that is thy praise."

- Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo

[gingermintpepper]

"…Do you like snakes?" The question is innocent, natural. It sprouts up from the well of Ares' mind and passes through his lips like pollen on a careless breeze. Apollo isn't angry at it. He isn't even a bit surprised. It doesn't stop his instinctual flinch, doesn't stop that phantom scent of venom and stale blood from clogging up his nose. "I'm actually rather afraid of them." Ares looks up from where he's beating his brush into the marble, his frown more a pout as he glares at Apollo, "I thought you couldn't lie? Everyone knows you're not afraid of snakes." He sniffs, annoyed and testy, bangs his brush against the marble again ruining its sable brush-hairs for good this time, "You don't have to make up nonsense to try and make me feel better." Apollo very patiently does not bang Ares' head into the marble for destroying one of his most precious paintbrushes. As a child who has not yet partaken in the hunt, he knows not the skill it takes to capture a mink, nor the labour that goes into plucking their hairs, nor the artistry that comes from binding those fine hairs to a suitable piece of etched birch. Instead, he dips his own paintbrush in the setting salve and pointedly paints in large, obvious and even strokes, "It's not nonsense. I do not like snakes." "But you killed Python." Ares digs into the salve and spills thick globs of it about the floor like a boar at the trough. Apollo graciously notes that next time, he'll endeavour to put old linens down so as to skip the hard work of scraping sealant off his tiles. "You weren't afraid then. You bathed in her blood. You enjoyed it. I felt it."

"Yes," the wet squelch of the salve is as bubbling blood in his ear. He'd shot her full of arrows then flayed her open on their points. Black from head to toe, that's how he'd returned. His hair dark with her venom, his skin soaked in her guts. His smile black with her death. "I suppose I did enjoy it." Apollo puts his paintbrush down, takes a step back to gauge the breadth of work that remains before them. "I do not think I'd enjoy such a thing now." Ares' eyes are hot on his cheek. He's rolling Apollo's words around in his head, contemplating them with a graveness he rarely lets the others observe. Apollo just wishes his gaze wasn't so probing, so snake-like in its intent. Almost predatory. "You can't change what you were born to be, Phoebus. None of us can." "On the contrary," he meets Ares' dark stare - viper versus cobra, two snakes in their little circular pot, "I have it on good authority that change is necessary for living."

[persephonequeenoftheunderworls]

Apollo paper art 🩷

I’m really proud of this one

[lodgeofthecat]

Blessed are the Greek (they invented Gayness)

[illustratus]

Apollo kills Python by Virgil Solis for Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book I

[go-rocksquadsfan]

"On the trail we blaze" but it's young Artemis and Apollo going on their own to Olympus for the first time

[leafymajorarts]

☀️APOLLO vs PYTHON 🐍