Diana (mythology) the goddess of the woods, would bathe and rest after a hunt. Actaeon, a young hunter, stumbled across the grotto and accidentally witnessed the goddess bathing without invitation. In retaliation, Diana splashed him with water from the pool, cursing him, and he transformed into a deer. His own hunting dogs caught his scent, and tore him apart. Ovid's version of the myth of Actaeon differs from most earlier sources. Unlike earlier myths about Artemis, Actaeon is killed for an innocent mistake, glimpsing Diana bathing. An earlier variant of this myth, known as the Bath of Pallas, had the hunter intentionally
Diana and Actaeon the transformation still in progress; like many depictions the head is shown transformed, but most of the body remains human. Less often Actaeon is fully transformed when caught by his dogs. The story was popular on Italian Renaissance maiolica. The origins of the "Diana and Actaeon Pas de Deux," a "divertissement" created for a 1935 version of "La Esmeralda," lie in two earlier ballet productions. The first of these was "Tsar Kandavl" (aka "Le Roi Candaule"), premiered in 1868 by the Imperial Russian Ballet in Saint Petersburg. Based on a story told by Herodotus in his "Histories," this four-act ballet,