Diana was the equivalent in Roman mythology of the Greek Artemis. She was the daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and the twin sister of Apollo.
Diana was the perpetual virgin goddess of the hunt, associated with wild animals and forests. She was also a moon goddess, and an emblem of chastity. Oak groves were especially sacred to her. She was praised for her strength, athletic grace, beauty and her hunting skills. With two other Roman deities she made up a trinity: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.
Diana was worshipped in a temple on the Aventine Hill and at the city of Ephesus where stood the Temple of Artemis. (At the city of Ephesus Jesus' mother, the virgin Mary, was officially decreed to be the Mother of God). Diana was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens and slaves. Slaves could receive asylum in her temples. She was worshipped at a festival on August 13.
Diana remains an important figure in some modern mythologies. In Freemasonry, she is considered a symbol of imagination, sensibility, and the creative insanity of poets and artists. Those who believe that prehistoric peoples lived in matriarchal societies consider Diana to have originated in a mother goddess worshipped at that time, and she is still worshiped today by women practicing the religion known as Dianic Wicca.
Diana believed her virgin body was very sacred and not for a male's eyes. One day the hunter, Actaeon, was wandering around and stumbled upon Diana bathing. Diana became so angry, she turned Actaeon into a stag. Now he was unable to speak, and so no one would ever hear about Diana's naked body. Actaeon was killed by his own hunting dogs, because he couldn't tell them he was their master.
And from The Classics Pages:
At the funeral of his sister Diana Princess of Wales (September 6th 1997), Charles, Earl Spencer, in his revolutionary address (the most provocative at a funeral since Mark Antony asked the crowd to lend him ears at Caesar's), referred to her immortal namesake: pointing out the irony that Lady Di was invariably the hunted, not the huntress. Perhaps he was not aware of the further irony -- that the goddess, when she found herself hunted and spied on by Actaeon, turned him into a stag who was then torn to pieces and devoured by his own hounds. Just so was Diana pursued by Actaeons -- with long-range lenses -- but despite being a princess, an icon, a symbol and now seemingly a saint and a martyr, she was not an immortal goddess. She did not have the power to destroy her persecutors. Her revenge will be posthumous, and less dramatic -- but the Press will never be the same again. Once more the image that we want to see and yet we know is forbidden enthralls and destroys.
The lush green tones of this image suggest a primeval forest floor -- or a riverbank littered with the fossilized bones of Actaeon -- or a cemetery glade strewn with broken moons.
Or, perhaps, it is just some personal creative insanity leakage...
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