Of all the ironies about Princess Diana, said her brother, Earl Spencer, perhaps the greatest was this: 'a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was in the end the most hunted person of the modern age'.
Perhaps Earl Spencer intended a further irony, but had the good grace not to spell it out.
Does anyone remember what happened to an ancient paparazzo called Actaeion? He didn't have a telephoto lens or a motorbike. But he did have a pack of hounds and an eye for a pretty girl.
The huntress Diana, associated with womanhood and childbirth like her modern counterpart, seemed to have something of a love-hate relationship with huntsmen. She was after all their patron deity. But she didn't like being chased. Chaste, possibly. But chased, certainly not. Especially not for a close-up.
Actaeion caught up with Diana one day when she was bathing, naked, in the privacy of a forest pool. So he did what any self-respecting photographer would have done. He found the most advantageous angle and crept in for a closer look. After all, they didn't have bikinis in those days.
This lady was in the sort of condition in which Di's friend Fergie got herself photographed by the pool with her financial adviser - only more so. Certainly much less modest than the modern Diana.
Well, the goddess was not amused. She was not used to being viewed without her permission. But unlike the late princess, she had the power to do something about it. She turned the poor chap into a stag. Whereupon his hounds turned on him and tore him limb from limb.