His
originality
was in making
young love grow with the seasons to maturity.
young love grow with the seasons to maturity.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
And Philetas tried to teach the children who
Eros was and what was his power, for Philetas had loved Amaryllis in his
youth. But though Philetas as a wise _praeceptor amoris_ instructed them
thus: “There is no medicine for love, neither meat, nor drink, nor any
charm, but only kissing and embracing and lying side by side,” the
children did not understand his teaching and played this game of love
without fulfillment. And as they exchanged childish kisses, disaster
again broke upon them.
Some young nobles of Methymna put in at the shore in a gallant boat to
make holiday, fishing and hunting with their dogs. When a country fellow
stole the rope that tied up their ship, they carelessly made another of
green withes. Then their dogs while hunting frightened Daphnis’ goats
and drove them down to the shore and some finding no other fodder ate up
the green cable. At that a strong wind off shore blew the boat out to
sea to the great rage of the young Methymnaean owners. They beat up
Daphnis in a fight with the peasants in which they too were wounded and
prosecuted him in court, but Philetas was the presiding judge and
acquitted the goatherd of any wrong. The incensed young nobles made
their way home by land and persuaded Methymna to avenge their injuries
by sending a fleet to the land of Mytilene in an unannounced war. The
army plundered and devastated and right from the sacred cave of the
Nymphs kidnapped Chloe. But such sacrilege was not to be unavenged by
the gods and the Nymphs appearing in a vision to distraught Daphnis
assured him that Pan would protect their votary. And indeed Pan sent
awful omens to the Methymnaeans: the sound of the clashing of unseen
weapons; the sight of ivy sprouting on the horns of Daphnis’ stolen
goats and of a crown of pine placed on Chloe’s head while all her stolen
sheep howled like wolves. And the sea had its marvels: anchors stuck,
oars broke, while a strange military piping filled the air. Finally Pan
appeared to the admiral and demanded the return of the maid stolen from
the altar of the Nymphs and the return of her herds and flocks. So the
terrified commandant put about and restored Chloe to the land. What a
story she had to tell Daphnis! What sacrifices and libations the rustics
offered to Pan and the Nymphs! Philetas too arrived to help them. Lamo
told them the story of the invention of Pan’s pipes which a Sicilian
goatherd had sung to him. And on his own great pipes Philetas played the
different calls for the herds and the song of Dionysus. Daphnis and
Chloe acted out Lamo’s story of Pan and Syrinx. The next day back to
their flocks went the children and they talked now of their love for
each other and took mighty oaths of faithfulness for life and death,
Chloe swearing by the Nymphs, Daphnis by Pan. But since Chloe knew Pan
for an amorous and faithless god, she made Daphnis take a second oath by
the trusty goats that he would match her faithfulness with his.
Now (in the beginning of Book III) war enters the story, for the
Mytilenaeans were incensed at the actions of the Methymnaean fleet and
sent a land expedition under Hippasus for reparations. But this war was
conducted in a manner worthy of the golden age without ravaging of
country, with speedy offer of satisfaction, with cordial adjustment of
terms.
Winter now arrived, more bitter than war to Daphnis and Chloe. Their
flocks were shut in folds; they were secluded in their separate
farm-houses. But while Chloe learned to spin and found no comfort,
Daphnis built a plan on hope. Braving the snow he struggled to a bird
center near Chloe’s home, as if he went fowling. Yet when he had reached
his goal and snared many birds, he dared not approach the farm-house for
lack of excuse. But Dryas chasing a dog who had stolen some meat rushed
out-doors, met Daphnis and brought him home.
Chloe in her glad surprise gave him a kiss; and all made him welcome.
Daphnis was persuaded to spend the night to celebrate with them on the
next day their sacrifice to Dionysus. In the morning the lovers found a
few moments alone in which to renew their troth, and after that Daphnis
came often thither through the winter months.
Then spring came; the flocks were once more sent to pasture. Daphnis and
Chloe crowned their gods with flowers and honored them with piping. They
watched the goats mate and wished to mate too, but knew not how. A city
woman, Lycaenium, married to a swain, heard their childish talk and
being half enamored of Daphnis undertook to complete Philetas’
instruction in the art of love and having had experience she taught him
all. But he put off using his new knowledge. Instead he told Chloe the
story of Echo.
Many suitors now wooed Chloe, and Daphnis in despair told Myrtale, his
foster-mother, how he too longed to wed the girl, but his suit seemed
hopeless until to desperate Daphnis once more the Nymphs appeared and
told him where to find a purse of money that had been cast ashore from
the Methymnaean ship. With the three thousand drachmae in it he won over
Dryas and Nape, who in turn persuaded his father and mother to accept
the match. But Lamo wished the marriage postponed until the lord of the
manor arrived in the autumn to give his consent. Now that they were
affianced Daphnis and Chloe waited happily. Daphnis plucked for Chloe a
golden apple that hung unplucked on top of a tree, the best of all, a
symbol of the victory of love. And in return he received a kiss more
precious even than an apple of gold.
Now (in Book IV) with the autumn and the vintage the lord Dionysophanes
was coming with his wife Clearista to inspect his estate. Lamo’s pride
was the beautiful garden he had made, so it was a major disaster when a
rejected suitor of Chloe, churlish Lampis, devastated it for spite. Lamo
besought Astylus, son of Dionysophanes, to appease his father’s wrath
and this he did.
Astylus had a rascally parasite Gnatho with him who tried to corrupt
Daphnis, but in vain; so hoping for the future he persuaded Astylus to
induce his father to take Daphnis back to the city as his son’s servant.
At this menace Lamo decided he must reveal Daphnis’ origin so he brought
out the tokens he had found with the child. They proved that he was the
son of Dionysophanes and Clearista, exposed by them when they were young
and thoughtless and had too many children. So the young shepherd was
transformed into a prince and almost forgot Chloe. Indeed while he was
celebrating she was carried off by Lampis, the herdsman. Gnatho, seeing
Daphnis’ despair, to reinstate himself, dashed off and rescued Chloe
just in time. Now her foster-parents produced her tokens and her
nobility too was assured. All went to Mytilene to find Chloe’s parents.
The Nymphs and Eros appeared to Dionysophanes in a dream and Eros bade
him to make a great marriage feast and there to display Chloe’s tokens.
This he did and by them Chloe too found noble parents. But Daphnis and
Chloe chose to have a country wedding and went back to the fields to
their rustic friends.
Indeed most of their lives they lived there in the simple way of
shepherds, worshipping the Nymphs, Pan and Eros, possessing great herds
of sheep and goats, and for food liking best of all apples and milk.
There they had a son and daughter whom a goat and a sheep nursed;
Philopoemen and Agelaea were their names. They made the cave into a fair
shrine, set up statues there, raised an altar to Eros the shepherd and
gave to Pan the soldier a temple to dwell in instead of a pine. All this
was long afterwards. Now they had a rustic wedding. The shepherds played
their rude pipes for their Hymenaeus. Daphnis and Chloe slept no more
than the birds that night and Chloe then first learned that all their
love-making in the wood was only the play of children.
This brief epitome of the plot shows its simplicity and its coloring.
The scene is pastoral and a unity of place is observed which
distinguishes the romance. All the action takes place in the country
near Mytilene. Only for the episode of the search for Chloe’s parents do
the characters move to the city and their sojourn there is short. [224]
The main events of the plot are the double exposures, the adoption and
the recognitions of Daphnis and Chloe and their common life as
shepherds. The plot contains the usual features of a romance but
virtually all are adapted to the pastoral tone and there is a change in
their relative importance. The chief interests are the same as in the
other romances: love, adventure, religion. But love is in its
springtime: it buds and blossoms in the lives of two innocent children
as the eternal miracle of nature. [225] The adventures are for the most
part simple country disasters: Daphnis falling into a trap-ditch set for
a wolf; a fair garden wantonly destroyed by a jealous rival. There are
to be sure two kidnappings, but the rescues are speedy and magical.
Daphnis is saved from the Tyrian pirates by the music of a shepherd’s
pipe. Chloe’s return by the Methymnaeans is compelled by Pan himself.
Even war is conducted with noble generosity and given a peaceful
solution as if in a golden age.
Adventure indeed plays a far smaller part in the romance than does
religion. Worship is heartfelt and a part of life. The gods honored are
deities naturally worshipped in the country: the Nymphs, Pan, Dionysus
and Eros. They are ever-present.
Longus in his Preface says that he made these four books as a votive to
Eros, the Nymphs and Pan. The baby girl was exposed, nursed by a sheep
and found by a shepherd in the cave of the Nymphs. [226] At critical
moments in the lives of the hero and heroine the Nymphs appear in
visions to guide or save. In Book I Lamo and Dryas, the foster-fathers,
had the same dream the same night: they saw the Nymphs consign Daphnis
and Chloe to the care of a young winged boy who touched both with the
same arrow and bade each tend the flocks. [227] After Chloe was kidnapped
by the Methymnaeans from the very cave of the Nymphs, the three
goddesses appeared to Daphnis in a vision by night and told him not to
fear, for Pan of the pine-tree would rescue the maid. [228] Again when
for his poverty Daphnis saw that Chloe was to be betrothed to some
richer suitor, the Nymphs appeared and told him where to find a purse of
silver. [229] Finally Chloe’s noble parentage was discovered by the
direction of the Nymphs and Eros who appeared to Dionysophanes in his
sleep and bade him make a wedding feast in Mytilene and at it pass
Chloe’s tokens about to all the guests. [230]
Such solicitous and tender care had been won by Daphnis and Chloe
through devotion. Out on the hills in the morning first of all they
saluted their gods. They gathered flowers to crown their statues. They
made them gifts of grapes and apples or of pipe. They sacrificed to them
kids and lambs, and to the Nymphs and Pan they offered constantly their
prayers and vows. In the cave of the Nymphs Chloe swore to share life
and death with Daphnis. Under the pine Daphnis swore by Pan that he
would not live a single day without Chloe. [231]
Eros is a less familiar god to the children, but through Philetas’
instruction about the merry flying boy they come to be his
votaries. [232] Dionysophanes gives all praise for the care of the
children to the united protection of Pan, the Nymphs and Eros. [233] The
betrothal takes place before the statues of the Nymphs. [234] And all
their lives Daphnis and Chloe worshipped the Nymphs, Pan and Eros for
their very present help in time of trouble. [235] This was no formal
ritual: it was a vital faith offered with clean hands and a pure heart.
The worship of Dionysus also entered into the life of the whole
countryside. The song of the God of Wine is played by Philetas and
danced by Dryas. The festival of Dionysus is celebrated by the sacrifice
of a ram, a feast, libations poured by ivy-crowned worshippers. In the
garden of the great estate of Dionysophanes there are an altar and a
shrine to the god, and the temple had paintings about the life of
Dionysus: Semele his mother, the sleeping Ariadne, the binding of
Lycurgus, the rending of Pentheus, the conquered Indians, the
transformed Tyrians, Pan piping to those treading the wine-press and to
those dancing. [236] On the first day after he arrived at his estate
Dionysophanes made sacrifice to this god for whom he was named along
with the other rural deities, Demeter, Pan, the Nymphs. [237] And Daphnis
for his happiness dedicated his bag and cloak to Dionysus, to Pan his
whistle and his pipe, to the Nymphs his crook and milk-pails. [238] The
god of the vintage must always have his share of honor in the country.
So because the gods are omnipresent in country life, religion is as much
a part of the set of the romance as is locality. For the monotony which
might result from the single background of the great estate near
Mytilene in Lesbos is varied not only by descriptions of fair garden,
pastures, trees, hills, seashore, but by the mystic vicinity of the cave
of the Nymphs, the pine-tree of Pan, the grapevine of Dionysus and over
all the unseen flying Eros shooting his darts.
With such a setting, naturally the order of events follows the seasons.
In spring the story begins when the lad of fifteen and the girl of
thirteen are sent out to tend the flocks in meadows and on hills. Summer
brings the adventures of the trap-ditch and the Tyrian pirates. Autumn
has its vintage and the menace of the Methymnaean roisterers. Winter
houses and separates the lovers until Daphnis makes bold to go fowling.
Spring returning, Daphnis finds a purse and wins his shepherdess’ hand.
Summer passes in tending the flocks and making love. Then as autumn
again brings the vintage the lord of the manor comes to his estate.
There follows the recognition of Daphnis as his son and soon Chloe is
found to be as noble. The weather is still fair, so after a royal feast
in the city, the wedding is celebrated in the country for their hearts
were rural.
Indeed the characters are for the most part country wights: the worthy
foster-parents, Chloe’s suitors, Philetas the wise old herdsman. They
are all serfs and Daphnis and Chloe were given pastoral names by their
foster-parents to make them seem truly theirs. They are noble slaves
full of hospitality and kindness. When corruption menaces and brings
temptation, it comes from the city. Lycaenium is a young bride from the
city. Gnatho is a city parasite. Astylus, the son of Dionysophanes,
although he is a great-hearted youth who pities Lamo for the destruction
of his garden and welcomes his newly found brother Daphnis with open
arms, shows the effects of city life by making his boon companion the
worthless parasite Gnatho whose only thoughts were of eating, drinking
and lechery. Dionysophanes is nobler than his son: though gray-haired,
he is still tall, handsome, able to wrestle with young men, and though
wealthy he is good. Indeed some virtue must be attributed in this
fairy-story even to the villains. Dorco who tried to rape Chloe makes a
beautiful end by giving her his pipe and teaching her how to call the
cattle and Daphnis back from the raiders’ ship. Gnatho redeems himself
by rescuing Chloe from her second kidnapping. And even Lampis, the rough
herdsman, was deemed worthy of forgiveness and invited to the wedding.
Daphnis and Chloe are brave, beautiful and virginal. Chloe keeps her
chastity to the end. Daphnis sins but once, to learn what love is that
he may teach his maid.
Dalmeyda has pointed out another striking feature of the plot beside the
unity of place and the strictly pastoral coloring. This is its two-part
division of which the first might be entitled “the search for love” and
the second “the marriage of Chloe. ” The first part ends with the lesson
of Lycaenium, the second with the country wedding. [239]
Within this two-part division and the unified pastoral scene, the usual
devices are employed for the pattern of the romance, conversation,
soliloquies, oaths, court-room speeches, happy ending, but all are
simplified to a country standard. Typical of what I mean is the
breath-taking conversation that the lovers secure alone after their
winter separation, λόγων ὁµιλία τερπνή. [240]
“Chloe, I came for thy sake. ” “I know it, Daphnis. ” “’Tis long of thee
that I destroy the poor birds. ” “What wilt thou with me? ” “Remember me. ”
“I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in
yonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts. ” “But it
lies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow. ”
“Courage, man; the Sun burns hot. ” “I would it burnt like that fire
which now burns my very heart. ” “You do but gibe and cozen me! ” “I do
not, by the goats by which thou didst once bid me to swear to thee. ”
The soliloquies too are as artless and simple as this talk. At some
emotional crisis the youngsters bemoan to themselves their lot. Chloe,
falling in love with Daphnis when she sees him bathe in the cave of the
Nymphs, laments the pain in her heart that is worse than a
bee-sting. [241] After Daphnis has been recognized as the son of the
great Dionysophanes, Chloe weeps at being forgotten, is sure Daphnis is
breaking his oath of faithfulness and bids him farewell since she will
surely die. [242] Daphnis makes moan more often. When the kiss of Chloe
has set him on fire, he complains that his heart leaps up; his soul is
weakened; he will waste away with his strange malady. [243] Over the
sleeping Chloe he murmurs a soft rhapsody. [244] Shut in alone by winter
he takes counsel with himself on what excuse to end their
separation. [245] And when he hears that Lampis has carried Chloe off, he
seeks solitude in the garden and rails at his bitter loss. [246] Even the
court-room speeches in the prosecution of Daphnis by the Methymnaeans
for the loss of their ship are reduced to short and simple arguments
since a herdsman sat as judge. [247] The trial of course ends happily for
Daphnis as must inevitably the whole story. Of all the love romances
this springtime love in the country is the most joyous.
As we read this pastoral romance, the unknown author becomes to us a
real personality. His delight in the country is spontaneous and real. He
is a cultured person with genuine appreciation of art, music and
literature. Their influence enriches his story. Longus in his preface
tells how a painting which he chanced to see in the grove of the Nymphs
gave the inspiration for the writing of his novel, for the painting
pictured a history of love and he longed to write something that would
correspond to the picture. Paintings again he mentions in his
description of a shrine of Dionysus, paintings telling all the myths of
the god. [248] The images of the Nymphs in the cave are described
carefully by him: cut out of the rock they were, feet unshod, arms bare
to the shoulders, hair falling on their necks, their garments belted, a
smile in their eyes. [249] A statue of Pan stood under his sacred pine
until at the end Daphnis and Chloe built him a shrine. [250] Over and
over these representations are referred to as symbols of very present
gods.
The music that fills the romance is the sound of the shepherds’ pipes
and the voice of song. Daphnis makes a pipe of reeds and teaches Chloe
how to play on it. [251] So well did she learn that on Dorco’s pipe she
could call the cattle back from the raiders’ ship. [252] When spring
brought them out-doors, both Daphnis and Chloe challenged the
nightingales with their piping and the birds answered. [253] Philetas the
old herdsman outdid all in playing on the great organ-pipe of his
father. He played special strains for cows and oxen, for goats, for
sheep. He played too the melody of Dionysus and to it Dryas footed the
dance of the vintage. Daphnis too played on Philetas’ pipe a love-song
and danced with Chloe the story of the origin of the pipe, Pan’s wooing
of the maid Syrinx. [254]
Daphnis displayed his art for his own father and mother, before he was
recognized as their son, to do them pleasure. He blew the call of the
goats; he blew their soft lullaby; he blew their grazing tune; he blew
the alarm for a wolf; he blew the recall. And the goats responded to all
his different strains. [255] After the wedding the shepherds piped the
bride and groom to bed and sang outside their door a rude, harsh song,
no Hymenaeus, but such as they were wont to sing when with their picks
they broke the earth. [256] For country people sang at all their tasks:
the boatman on the river,[257] the herdsman in the pastureland.
More pervasive than all other influences in the romance is the literary.
Theocritus colors the whole story. There are a few reminiscences of
Bion[258] and Moschus,[259] but it was the Sicilian goatherd par
excellence who instructed Longus as he did Lamo in his story. [260]
Calderini shows the various traces of the inspiration which Longus
received from the Alexandrian idyl. There is a continuous alternation of
descriptions of nature with descriptions of emotion all composed with a
certain serenity and restraint. The pain is not too violent; the
descriptions of nature are not too detailed or pedantic. There are many
special similar motives: the descriptions of paintings and statues; the
fear and the protection of Pan and the Nymphs; the vengeance of Eros on
those who scorn him; the young lovers who frequent the gymnasia and the
palestra; love which is born on the day of a festival; the woe of love;
the violent, brutal love of a scorned shepherd; the patron who lives at
a distance. [261] The pastoral name Daphnis is taken from the ideal
shepherd of Theocritus and Vergil. Pastoral setting and pastoral
narrative have the flavor of Theocritus. Episodes are identical: Chloe
plaits a tiny cage for a grasshopper as did the young lad carved on the
bowl of ivy-wood. [262] Daphnis and Chloe as they sit kissing each other
on the hill see a fisherman’s boat passing on the sea and listen to his
song. [263] So in Theocritus lovers on the land embracing look out at the
far distant sea. [264] But above all, Longus saw as Theocritus did that
in the lives of herdsmen lay true romance, and while Theocritus sang his
short lays, closely affiliated with the mimes in their use of the comic,
Longus lifted the love of goatherd and shepherd to the realm of pure
fiction by idealization and tenderness.
His originality was in making
young love grow with the seasons to maturity. The name of his heroine,
Chloe, a young green shoot, is symbolic of this growing life. [265] His
awareness of his unique contribution to romance perhaps appears in his
title: _The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe_.
Sappho too was known and cherished by Longus. There is a possible
reminiscence in the description of Daphnis turning paler than grass in
its season. [266] There is a sure reminiscence of Sappho’s hyacinth on
the mountains crushed by the feet of the passing shepherds in Lamo’s
pity for his flowers trodden down by a marauder. [267] And to Sappho
Longus owes the climax of Daphnis’ wooing at the end of Book III when he
pulls “the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,” saved by
Fortune for a shepherd in love, and putting it in Chloe’s bosom makes it
a symbol of her beauty and his prize. [268]
Drama too had a definite influence on Longus, indeed the word δρᾶµα or
δραµατικόν is applied to these romances by Photius. [269] The two
recognition scenes in which Daphnis and Chloe find parents through the
tokens placed with them when they were exposed as babies are copied from
tragedy. New Comedy furnished at least three characters to the romance,
Gnatho the parasite, Sophrone the nurse who exposed the baby
Daphnis[270] and the city wench, Lycaenium. Elegiac poetry furnished
Philetas, the father perhaps of erotic elegiacs. Echo repeating the name
of Amaryllis suggests Vergil. [271] And Ovid perhaps contributed three
names: Astylus, Dryas and Nape. [272] The influence of the rhetorical
schools is slighter than in the other romances, but appears in the
court-room scene with its speeches and in the use of parallelism and
contrast. Parallelism, as Calderini says,[273] includes all the plot of
the romance and proceeds from the number and selection of the characters
to the variety of the secondary episodes and to the description of the
smallest details. Daphnis and Chloe are both exposed, both rescued by
shepherds. Both are kidnapped. An attack on Chloe is made by Dorco, on
Daphnis by Gnatho. Chloe touches Daphnis when he is bathing and falls in
love. Daphnis kisses Chloe and his heart rises to his lips. Astylus, the
city son of Dionysophanes, is sophisticated, Daphnis is virginal. The
oath of Daphnis is matched by the oath of Chloe. On and on proceeds this
balancing. And the parallelism appears not only in plot, but in details
of phrase and sentence structure: balanced rhythmical phrases set off by
rhymes or alliterations; bipartite or tripartite periods, elaborate in
their rhetorical structure. Sometimes indeed Longus’ Pastorals seem
written in modern verse, indeed they are written in poetic prose. [274]
Out of all these interests in art, music and literature and beyond them
Longus has created a style peculiarly his own and suited to his pastoral
romance. His sentence structure is simple and paratactic. His
comparisons are drawn from the life of shepherds. Chloe is as restive as
a heifer. [275] Dorco claims he is as white as milk but Daphnis says
Dorco is as red as a fox. [276] Daphnis and Chloe run about like dogs
freed from their leashes. [277] Chloe plunders from Daphnis’ mouth a bit
of cake as though she were a young bird being fed. [278]
Description and narration are as vivid as these little similes. We are
made to see Daphnis at his bath: his hair black and thick, his body
sun-burned dark as though colored by the shadow of his hair;[279] the
coming of spring with flowers covering the valleys and the mountains,
bees humming, birds warbling, lambs gamboling; the vintage scene with
the peasants all busy in the vineyard with the wine-presses, the
hogsheads, the baskets, and the grapes;[280] the winter landscape with
the deep snow, the rushing torrents, the ice, the laden trees;[281] the
country wedding with the feast on beds of green boughs before the cave
of the Nymphs, the songs of the reapers and the vintners, the dancing to
the pipes, the goats sharing the feast, the bridal procession with its
piping and singing. [282]
Longus’ art of narration is employed as skillfully as are his
descriptions. This art appears not only in the pattern of the whole
romance, but in the skillful use of stories within the story to
diversify and enliven the longer narrative. After the feast of Dionysus,
the old men, their tongues loosed with wine, fell into reminiscence and
told tales to each other:
“how bravely in their youth they had administered the pasturing of
their flocks and herds, how in their time they had escaped very many
invasions and inroads of pirates and thieves. Here one bragged that he
had killed a wolf, here another that he had bin second to Pan alone in
the skill and art of piping. ”[283]
That last was Philetas, the wise old shepherd who told Daphnis and Chloe
the story of the gay little Eros whom he had found playing in his garden
flying like a nightingale from bough to bough of the myrtles, a lovely
story with a point for Philetas’ _ars amatoria_. [284] The other inset
stories are mostly short myths. So Daphnis tells Chloe how the mourning
dove was once a maid, very proud of her singing and by her song alone
she kept the cows she tended near her in the wood. But a shepherd lad
rivalled her music and piped off eight of her finest cows to his own
herd. And the girl in despair prayed to become a bird. The gods
consented and left her that sweet voice so still she calls the cattle
home. [285]
At the feast of Dionysus Lamo tells a myth which a Sicilian goatherd had
sung to him, a tiny tale of how the girl Syrinx fleeing Pan’s embraces
was changed into a reed and then made by Pan into his pipe, with reeds
of unequal lengths to symbolize their ill-matched love. [286] All these
stories are very short and simple, bits of folk-lore such as peasants
might relate at their feasts or in the open.
Much of the whole narrative is colored by a humor that is as playful and
tender as the spirit of Philetas’ merry child Eros. In the vintage scene
both Daphnis and Chloe are beset with childish jealousy at the
attentions that each other receives. [287] The author’s humor plays
around them from the time when they first herded their flocks together
to the day of their rural wedding. And the plot is set with humor, which
as Wolff observes, turns on “the incongruity between the children’s
innocence and the piquancy of their experiments. ”[288]
It is not strange that Longus’ Pastorals with all their charm of plot,
setting and style were the forerunners of much later literature. Todd
has a paragraph which is a sign-post to the line of his successors. [289]
“Longus invented the pastoral romance, and his influence is found
throughout the pastorals of the modern European literatures: already,
perhaps, at the end of the fifteenth century, in the _Arcadia_ of the
‘Neapolitan Virgil’ Jacopo Sannazaro; in the _Aminta_ of Tasso, in the
_Astrée_ of D’Urfé, in the _Gentle Shepherd_ of Ramsay, in the _Paul
et Virginie_ of Saint-Pierre, and in other writings almost countless. ”
S. L. Wolff’s elaborate study of _The Greek Romances in Elizabethan
Prose Fiction_ analyzes in detail Longus’ influence on Robert Greene in
_Manaphon_ and _Pandost_ and Shakespeare’s use of Longus in the pastoral
setting, the hunt scene, the exposure motif in _The Winter’s Tale_.
There is rich material still left in the study of the Greek Romances for
the young scholar working in Comparative Literature. By them, by all
students of literature _Daphnis and Chloe_ deserves to be read and
reread. For Longus, just as Theocritus did in the Idyl, immortalized in
the realm of fiction the loves and woes of shepherds.
It is strange that a pastoral romance of such honest and simple charm
should have played a dramatic part in a melodrama of the early
nineteenth century. Yet it did, for it almost caused an international
literary warfare; it almost had a French officer shot for desertion; and
it created serious political complications for him with the Bonaparte
family.
Paul Louis Courier (1773-1825) led a bizarre life as a vine-grower, an
officer in the artillery, a liberal pamphleteer, a member of the Legion
of Honor, a prisoner in Sainte-Pélagie, a traveller, a poet, a
Hellenist. Throughout his checkered career, he anticipated Byron in his
romantic passion for the antiquities, the ruins, the beauty of Greece.
In 1811 he wrote from Rome: “The fact is that I wish before I die to see
the lantern of Demosthenes and drink the water of the Ilissus. ”
It was this passion combined with his disgust at the butcheries of
Wagram that made him forget that he was a soldier so that in 1809,
though he was the head of a squadron of artillery, he slipped out of
military life and in Italy devoted all his time to those literary
studies to which before he had given his leisure.
Reared in the country (at Méré in Touraine), he had early become
fascinated with the pastoral romance _Daphnis and Chloe_ and now he was
determined to work on a Thirteenth Century Greek manuscript of it which
was in the Laurentian Library. After some difficulty he obtained
permission from the librarian, Francesco Furia, and his work started
happily. It was to meet with the greatest success and the greatest
disaster. Courier, amateur that he was, discovered that the Laurentian
manuscript contained the text of the great lacuna in Book I (cc. 12-17).
These chapters were lacking in all other manuscripts. Furia who had
worked for years on the manuscript, which was in parts nearly illegible,
had never noticed these hitherto unknown chapters. They contain the
episode of Daphnis tumbling into the trap-ditch, Chloe’s falling in love
with him thereafter, and the contest of Daphnis and Dorco for Chloe’s
kiss.
Close on Courier’s great discovery followed a most unfortunate episode,
for after carefully copying the new chapters Courier obliterated them by
a black ink stain. It was natural that the jealous Furia should believe
that Courier had intentionally upset his ink-pot over them. Courier
himself in a letter to Renouard declared that inadvertently he had used
as a marker some paper which was soaked in ink on the under side, and
that made the blot.
The rage of Furia might itself have hindered the publication of
Courier’s discovery and now a political complication arose as a new
obstacle. Since the fame of his work was spreading, Elisa Bonaparte, the
sister of Napoleon, wished to have Courier’s publication dedicated to
her and the prefect of Florence, the Baron Fauchet, announced her
gracious wish at a formal dinner-party! Courier, who by now hated all
Bonapartes, cut his Gordian knot by rushing out at Florence a Greek
edition in fifty-two copies before the French edition which he was
publishing at Paris appeared in 1810. The deed was done and neither
Furia nor la Bonaparte could undo it.
The fame and scandal of Courier’s work of course came to the ears of the
Ministry of War and orders were sent to General Sorbier, commandant of
the artillery in Italy, to demand from Courier explanations of his
absence from his squadron. Fortunately the general accepted Courier’s
affirmation that he had never thought of deserting so that the Hellenist
escaped being shot then, but fate pursued him.
On April 11, 1825, the body of Paul Louis Courier was found in a wood
near his country home at Véretz. He had been assassinated. It was long
believed that this was a political crime, “a kind of epilogue of secret
vengeance in party politics” as Edmond Pilon puts it. [290] It might also
have been the revenge of a philologist. Actually the shooting was the
result of an embroglio with certain servants on his estate. Courier in
1814 had married Mlle Herminie Clavier, who managed his estate in his
absence. She seems to have betrayed him both in business matters and
affairs of the heart so that Courier separated from her and made new
plans for the management of the estate. Five years after the murder the
Department of Justice found that the assassins were certain servitors of
Courier who had been dismissed because of their connivance with Madame
Courier in her iniquities. Courier, whose dearest dream had been the
pastoral life of Daphnis and Chloe, escaped the dangers of war and of
prison only to be shot in the country he loved for petty personal spite.
Paul Louis Courier would, I am sure, have been happy to have part of his
fame rest on his precious new chapters of the Pastorals, and to know
that his beautiful translation of their four books lives on in one new
edition after another.
VII
_LUCIAN AND HIS SATIRIC ROMANCES: THE_ TRUE HISTORY _AND_ LUCIUS OR ASS
“Lucian of Samosata [was] surnamed ‘The blasphemer,’ because in his
dialogues he alleges that the things told of the gods are absurd. . . .
He was at first an advocate in Antioch, but, having ill success in
that, he turned to the composition of discourses, and his writings are
innumerable. He is said to have been killed by dogs, he having been
rabid against the truth. For in his ‘Life of Peregrinus’ he attacks
Christianity and, wicked man, blasphemes against Christ himself.
Wherefore for his madness he suffered meet punishment in this life,
and hereafter with Satan he will be inheritor of the everlasting
fire. ”[291]
This is the meagre biography by Suidas of the great satirist who through
nearly all of the second century held up the mirror of his frankness to
reflect images of the Greek and Roman world. Suidas’ misrepresentation
of Lucian’s allusions to the Christians and his fanciful picture of the
sophist’s end vilify much of this traditional vita. From Lucian’s own
writings more facts may be assembled.
Syrian by birth, he wrote in Greek and became a master of an Attic prose
style. As a boy he was apprenticed to a sculptor uncle, but quickly left
work with his hands for work with his tongue, studied rhetoric and
oratory, practiced as an advocate at Antioch, became a professional
sophist and travelled in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Gaul;
about A. D. 165 settled at Athens where he lived twenty years, then near
the end of his life took an official post in Egypt under the Emperor and
wrote an Apology for so doing. Suidas’ description of his writings as
“innumerable” seems justified by the eighty-two prose works extant to
say nothing of two mock tragedies and fifty-three epigrams, now
considered spurious.
Though the great bulk of Lucian’s writings consists of Platonic and
satiric dialogues, he enters into the scope of this book as a writer of
the satiric or parody romance. For two of his writings, the _True
History_ and _Lucius or Ass_, establish for us this new type of Greek
romance. His _True History_ is a parody of all travellers’ tales from
Odysseus’ to such as those of Antonius Diogenes in _The Wonderful Things
beyond Thule_. Probably this work of Lucian had more literary influence
than any of his other writings. His other romance, of which we have only
an epitome, _Lucius or Ass_, is, I believe, a parody of the romance
motivated mainly by religion. Its greatest value in its present
syncopated form is that it outlines a contemporary Greek counterpart of
the famous Latin novel, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_, and furnishes us with
a touchstone for testing the pure gold of Apuleius’ originality.
Before, however, we can discuss Lucian’s art of narration in his two
romances, we must reconstruct from his own writings his literary
autobiography and his conceptions of his literary art. Only then when we
have met the critic self-criticized will we be competent to appreciate
his brilliant imaginative flights in his novels.
A dangerous temptation at once assails any one who starts to write on
any subject connected with Lucian. That is to attempt to cover the whole
field of his life and works because of the brilliancy of the many-sided
facets of his genius. A forcible deterrent is the fact that a masterly
appreciation of _La vie et les œuvres de Lucien_ has already been
written by Maurice Croiset in his _Essai_[292] which in richness and
style alike is worthy of its great theme. All subsequent studies of
Lucian are inevitably founded on M. Croiset’s appreciation.
Gildersleeve, following Croiset, pointed out that Lucian’s life must be
reconstructed from his own writings. And this within the scope of a
brief essay Gildersleeve did brilliantly for English readers fifty years
ago. [293] From another angle I am attempting to do this same thing now
in order to make us acquainted before we read his stories with Lucian
the story-teller. [294]
Lucian’s early life is pictured in a brief speech called _The Dream_.
This was probably delivered in his native Syria on his return after his
European lecture-tour which made him famous as a Sophist. In a whimsical
mixture of fact and fancy he describes his choice of a career. As a
young lad when he had just finished school, Lucian was apprenticed to
his mother’s brother, a sculptor, to learn to be “a good stone-cutter,
mason and sculptor. ” On his first day he struck a slab of marble so hard
that he shattered it. Whereat his uncle gave him such a violent beating
that he ran home to his mother for comfort. That night he had a vision.
Two women were struggling to get possession of him. They were vastly
different in appearance and in the appeals they made to him, for they
were Sculpture and Education. Sculpture, unkempt, speaking haltingly and
like a barbarian, told Lucian that if he came to her, he would live
well, have strong shoulders, would never go abroad, but would gain such
fame as surrounded Phidias, Polyclitus, Myron, Praxiteles. Education in
her turn assured him that even if he became a famous sculptor, he would
be only a mechanic, living by his hands; she herself has much more to
offer him.
“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show you many works of
men of old, tell you their wondrous deeds and words, and make you
conversant with almost all knowledge, and I shall ornament your soul,
which concerns you most, with many noble adornments—temperance,
justice, piety, kindliness, reasonableness, understanding,
steadfastness, love of all that is beautiful, ardour towards all that
is sublime; for these are the truly flawless jewels of the soul.
Nothing that came to pass of old will escape you, and nothing that
must now come to pass; nay, you will even foresee the future with me.
In a word, I shall speedily teach you everything that there is,
whether it pertains to the gods or to man. ”[295]
Moreover, he will dress with distinction, will speak with eloquence.
Finally he may became as famous as Demosthenes or Aeschines. He must
recall that Socrates left sculpture for philosophy.
Lucian on hearing these two appeals gave himself to Education, who then
took him in a car with winged horses and from the air showed him the
cities and peoples of the world. After this vision she clothed him
suitably and returned him to his home. Lucian says he has told this
dream “in order that those who are young may take the better direction
and cleave to education, above all if poverty is making any one of them
faint-hearted. ”[296]
Now although this choice of Lucian is based on the choice of
Hercules[297] and although facts are clothed in fantasy, the picture of
Lucian’s early apprenticeship may well be true, for the boy’s delight in
modelling little figures of wax seems to forecast Lucian’s life-long
interest in sculpture and other art forms.
The next crisis in Lucian’s literary life is depicted in _The Double
Indictment_, a dialogue composed when the author was forty. In it Lucian
appears in court to answer two charges: one of the rhetoricians, for
giving up speech-making and essay-writing; the other of the
philosophers, for using their sacred Platonic dialogue for satire.
Lucian’s trial takes place on the Areopagus with Justice presiding, but
the dialogue opens in heaven with a long complaint by Zeus about the
hard life of the gods especially his own, no time for anything. Hermes
who is listening tells him frankly that there are many complaints among
mortals on earth because of the slowness of the law courts. Zeus then
sends Hermes down to proclaim a session and orders Justice to preside at
it.
At this court, after various cases have been wittily disposed of, the
Syrian is called to face two indictments: Oratory versus the Syrian for
neglect, Dialogue versus the Syrian for maltreatment. Oratory first
relates how she found the plaintiff as a lad wandering in Ionia,
speaking with a foreign accent, dressed as a Syrian. She educated him
and at his eager request married him although all his dowry was
wonderful speeches. Next she had him made a citizen and then went
travelling with him to Greece, Ionia, Italy and Gaul. As he became
famous, he grew indifferent to her, for he was enamored of a bearded
man, Dialogue, said to be the son of Philosophy. Now he no longer makes
speeches, but has a strange way of using short questions. She sues him
for desertion. The Syrian replies that all her facts are true, but there
are others; she lost her modesty, made up like a courtesan, flirted
indiscriminately with many lovers. So he separated from her and went to
live with a respectable gentleman, Dialogue. The Syrian won the case.
Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic mask
have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate with
Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for
mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally
too even with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not
homogeneous but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits
which he had bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to
clean up, to smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the
Syrian will not indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The
Syrian declares that he has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put
him into barbarian garb: Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek
costume. The Syrian was unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the
audience. This mock-trial picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from
writing the philosophical dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric
dialogue, influenced successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old
Attic Comedy. [298] Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style
of satire-dialogue which he created.
With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes
now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues
is _The Professor of Oratory_, _Nigrinus_, _Philosophies for Sale_, _The
Fisherman_.
In _The Professor of Oratory_ ironic advice is given to a young man on
how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to
success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on
the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither
two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an
easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present
themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the
hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how
severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the
simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past.
The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed,
with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can
become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance,
boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and
always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a
few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your
discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always
beginning with stories from the Iliad.
Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your
audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must
live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a
deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will
be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the
winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out
of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path.
This picture of _The Perfect Rhetorician_ has been thought by some
critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer
Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any
pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities
and superficial training.
At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had
rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against
rhetoric, he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus,
a philosopher unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to
Nigrinus may be set as a companion piece to the mocking praise of _The
Perfect Rhetorician_. The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter
in which Lucian tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in
offering him this book as if to display his use of words, but he is
sending it in thanks for Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man
relates to another how by talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead
of a slave, poor instead of rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and
the freedom it gives and ridiculed what men in general exalt: wealth,
fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised Athens because there Poverty and
Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life is free, noble, harmonious.
Rome is the city for those who love wealth and luxury, wine and women.
The Romans have given themselves over to the pleasures of the senses and
have every means of gratifying them. So Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of
retirement, conversing with Philosophy and with Plato, reflecting on the
ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-philosophers, the
will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus and the
baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.
The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in _Alexander the
False Prophet_,[299] might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or
the other of these philosophical schools.
Eros was and what was his power, for Philetas had loved Amaryllis in his
youth. But though Philetas as a wise _praeceptor amoris_ instructed them
thus: “There is no medicine for love, neither meat, nor drink, nor any
charm, but only kissing and embracing and lying side by side,” the
children did not understand his teaching and played this game of love
without fulfillment. And as they exchanged childish kisses, disaster
again broke upon them.
Some young nobles of Methymna put in at the shore in a gallant boat to
make holiday, fishing and hunting with their dogs. When a country fellow
stole the rope that tied up their ship, they carelessly made another of
green withes. Then their dogs while hunting frightened Daphnis’ goats
and drove them down to the shore and some finding no other fodder ate up
the green cable. At that a strong wind off shore blew the boat out to
sea to the great rage of the young Methymnaean owners. They beat up
Daphnis in a fight with the peasants in which they too were wounded and
prosecuted him in court, but Philetas was the presiding judge and
acquitted the goatherd of any wrong. The incensed young nobles made
their way home by land and persuaded Methymna to avenge their injuries
by sending a fleet to the land of Mytilene in an unannounced war. The
army plundered and devastated and right from the sacred cave of the
Nymphs kidnapped Chloe. But such sacrilege was not to be unavenged by
the gods and the Nymphs appearing in a vision to distraught Daphnis
assured him that Pan would protect their votary. And indeed Pan sent
awful omens to the Methymnaeans: the sound of the clashing of unseen
weapons; the sight of ivy sprouting on the horns of Daphnis’ stolen
goats and of a crown of pine placed on Chloe’s head while all her stolen
sheep howled like wolves. And the sea had its marvels: anchors stuck,
oars broke, while a strange military piping filled the air. Finally Pan
appeared to the admiral and demanded the return of the maid stolen from
the altar of the Nymphs and the return of her herds and flocks. So the
terrified commandant put about and restored Chloe to the land. What a
story she had to tell Daphnis! What sacrifices and libations the rustics
offered to Pan and the Nymphs! Philetas too arrived to help them. Lamo
told them the story of the invention of Pan’s pipes which a Sicilian
goatherd had sung to him. And on his own great pipes Philetas played the
different calls for the herds and the song of Dionysus. Daphnis and
Chloe acted out Lamo’s story of Pan and Syrinx. The next day back to
their flocks went the children and they talked now of their love for
each other and took mighty oaths of faithfulness for life and death,
Chloe swearing by the Nymphs, Daphnis by Pan. But since Chloe knew Pan
for an amorous and faithless god, she made Daphnis take a second oath by
the trusty goats that he would match her faithfulness with his.
Now (in the beginning of Book III) war enters the story, for the
Mytilenaeans were incensed at the actions of the Methymnaean fleet and
sent a land expedition under Hippasus for reparations. But this war was
conducted in a manner worthy of the golden age without ravaging of
country, with speedy offer of satisfaction, with cordial adjustment of
terms.
Winter now arrived, more bitter than war to Daphnis and Chloe. Their
flocks were shut in folds; they were secluded in their separate
farm-houses. But while Chloe learned to spin and found no comfort,
Daphnis built a plan on hope. Braving the snow he struggled to a bird
center near Chloe’s home, as if he went fowling. Yet when he had reached
his goal and snared many birds, he dared not approach the farm-house for
lack of excuse. But Dryas chasing a dog who had stolen some meat rushed
out-doors, met Daphnis and brought him home.
Chloe in her glad surprise gave him a kiss; and all made him welcome.
Daphnis was persuaded to spend the night to celebrate with them on the
next day their sacrifice to Dionysus. In the morning the lovers found a
few moments alone in which to renew their troth, and after that Daphnis
came often thither through the winter months.
Then spring came; the flocks were once more sent to pasture. Daphnis and
Chloe crowned their gods with flowers and honored them with piping. They
watched the goats mate and wished to mate too, but knew not how. A city
woman, Lycaenium, married to a swain, heard their childish talk and
being half enamored of Daphnis undertook to complete Philetas’
instruction in the art of love and having had experience she taught him
all. But he put off using his new knowledge. Instead he told Chloe the
story of Echo.
Many suitors now wooed Chloe, and Daphnis in despair told Myrtale, his
foster-mother, how he too longed to wed the girl, but his suit seemed
hopeless until to desperate Daphnis once more the Nymphs appeared and
told him where to find a purse of money that had been cast ashore from
the Methymnaean ship. With the three thousand drachmae in it he won over
Dryas and Nape, who in turn persuaded his father and mother to accept
the match. But Lamo wished the marriage postponed until the lord of the
manor arrived in the autumn to give his consent. Now that they were
affianced Daphnis and Chloe waited happily. Daphnis plucked for Chloe a
golden apple that hung unplucked on top of a tree, the best of all, a
symbol of the victory of love. And in return he received a kiss more
precious even than an apple of gold.
Now (in Book IV) with the autumn and the vintage the lord Dionysophanes
was coming with his wife Clearista to inspect his estate. Lamo’s pride
was the beautiful garden he had made, so it was a major disaster when a
rejected suitor of Chloe, churlish Lampis, devastated it for spite. Lamo
besought Astylus, son of Dionysophanes, to appease his father’s wrath
and this he did.
Astylus had a rascally parasite Gnatho with him who tried to corrupt
Daphnis, but in vain; so hoping for the future he persuaded Astylus to
induce his father to take Daphnis back to the city as his son’s servant.
At this menace Lamo decided he must reveal Daphnis’ origin so he brought
out the tokens he had found with the child. They proved that he was the
son of Dionysophanes and Clearista, exposed by them when they were young
and thoughtless and had too many children. So the young shepherd was
transformed into a prince and almost forgot Chloe. Indeed while he was
celebrating she was carried off by Lampis, the herdsman. Gnatho, seeing
Daphnis’ despair, to reinstate himself, dashed off and rescued Chloe
just in time. Now her foster-parents produced her tokens and her
nobility too was assured. All went to Mytilene to find Chloe’s parents.
The Nymphs and Eros appeared to Dionysophanes in a dream and Eros bade
him to make a great marriage feast and there to display Chloe’s tokens.
This he did and by them Chloe too found noble parents. But Daphnis and
Chloe chose to have a country wedding and went back to the fields to
their rustic friends.
Indeed most of their lives they lived there in the simple way of
shepherds, worshipping the Nymphs, Pan and Eros, possessing great herds
of sheep and goats, and for food liking best of all apples and milk.
There they had a son and daughter whom a goat and a sheep nursed;
Philopoemen and Agelaea were their names. They made the cave into a fair
shrine, set up statues there, raised an altar to Eros the shepherd and
gave to Pan the soldier a temple to dwell in instead of a pine. All this
was long afterwards. Now they had a rustic wedding. The shepherds played
their rude pipes for their Hymenaeus. Daphnis and Chloe slept no more
than the birds that night and Chloe then first learned that all their
love-making in the wood was only the play of children.
This brief epitome of the plot shows its simplicity and its coloring.
The scene is pastoral and a unity of place is observed which
distinguishes the romance. All the action takes place in the country
near Mytilene. Only for the episode of the search for Chloe’s parents do
the characters move to the city and their sojourn there is short. [224]
The main events of the plot are the double exposures, the adoption and
the recognitions of Daphnis and Chloe and their common life as
shepherds. The plot contains the usual features of a romance but
virtually all are adapted to the pastoral tone and there is a change in
their relative importance. The chief interests are the same as in the
other romances: love, adventure, religion. But love is in its
springtime: it buds and blossoms in the lives of two innocent children
as the eternal miracle of nature. [225] The adventures are for the most
part simple country disasters: Daphnis falling into a trap-ditch set for
a wolf; a fair garden wantonly destroyed by a jealous rival. There are
to be sure two kidnappings, but the rescues are speedy and magical.
Daphnis is saved from the Tyrian pirates by the music of a shepherd’s
pipe. Chloe’s return by the Methymnaeans is compelled by Pan himself.
Even war is conducted with noble generosity and given a peaceful
solution as if in a golden age.
Adventure indeed plays a far smaller part in the romance than does
religion. Worship is heartfelt and a part of life. The gods honored are
deities naturally worshipped in the country: the Nymphs, Pan, Dionysus
and Eros. They are ever-present.
Longus in his Preface says that he made these four books as a votive to
Eros, the Nymphs and Pan. The baby girl was exposed, nursed by a sheep
and found by a shepherd in the cave of the Nymphs. [226] At critical
moments in the lives of the hero and heroine the Nymphs appear in
visions to guide or save. In Book I Lamo and Dryas, the foster-fathers,
had the same dream the same night: they saw the Nymphs consign Daphnis
and Chloe to the care of a young winged boy who touched both with the
same arrow and bade each tend the flocks. [227] After Chloe was kidnapped
by the Methymnaeans from the very cave of the Nymphs, the three
goddesses appeared to Daphnis in a vision by night and told him not to
fear, for Pan of the pine-tree would rescue the maid. [228] Again when
for his poverty Daphnis saw that Chloe was to be betrothed to some
richer suitor, the Nymphs appeared and told him where to find a purse of
silver. [229] Finally Chloe’s noble parentage was discovered by the
direction of the Nymphs and Eros who appeared to Dionysophanes in his
sleep and bade him make a wedding feast in Mytilene and at it pass
Chloe’s tokens about to all the guests. [230]
Such solicitous and tender care had been won by Daphnis and Chloe
through devotion. Out on the hills in the morning first of all they
saluted their gods. They gathered flowers to crown their statues. They
made them gifts of grapes and apples or of pipe. They sacrificed to them
kids and lambs, and to the Nymphs and Pan they offered constantly their
prayers and vows. In the cave of the Nymphs Chloe swore to share life
and death with Daphnis. Under the pine Daphnis swore by Pan that he
would not live a single day without Chloe. [231]
Eros is a less familiar god to the children, but through Philetas’
instruction about the merry flying boy they come to be his
votaries. [232] Dionysophanes gives all praise for the care of the
children to the united protection of Pan, the Nymphs and Eros. [233] The
betrothal takes place before the statues of the Nymphs. [234] And all
their lives Daphnis and Chloe worshipped the Nymphs, Pan and Eros for
their very present help in time of trouble. [235] This was no formal
ritual: it was a vital faith offered with clean hands and a pure heart.
The worship of Dionysus also entered into the life of the whole
countryside. The song of the God of Wine is played by Philetas and
danced by Dryas. The festival of Dionysus is celebrated by the sacrifice
of a ram, a feast, libations poured by ivy-crowned worshippers. In the
garden of the great estate of Dionysophanes there are an altar and a
shrine to the god, and the temple had paintings about the life of
Dionysus: Semele his mother, the sleeping Ariadne, the binding of
Lycurgus, the rending of Pentheus, the conquered Indians, the
transformed Tyrians, Pan piping to those treading the wine-press and to
those dancing. [236] On the first day after he arrived at his estate
Dionysophanes made sacrifice to this god for whom he was named along
with the other rural deities, Demeter, Pan, the Nymphs. [237] And Daphnis
for his happiness dedicated his bag and cloak to Dionysus, to Pan his
whistle and his pipe, to the Nymphs his crook and milk-pails. [238] The
god of the vintage must always have his share of honor in the country.
So because the gods are omnipresent in country life, religion is as much
a part of the set of the romance as is locality. For the monotony which
might result from the single background of the great estate near
Mytilene in Lesbos is varied not only by descriptions of fair garden,
pastures, trees, hills, seashore, but by the mystic vicinity of the cave
of the Nymphs, the pine-tree of Pan, the grapevine of Dionysus and over
all the unseen flying Eros shooting his darts.
With such a setting, naturally the order of events follows the seasons.
In spring the story begins when the lad of fifteen and the girl of
thirteen are sent out to tend the flocks in meadows and on hills. Summer
brings the adventures of the trap-ditch and the Tyrian pirates. Autumn
has its vintage and the menace of the Methymnaean roisterers. Winter
houses and separates the lovers until Daphnis makes bold to go fowling.
Spring returning, Daphnis finds a purse and wins his shepherdess’ hand.
Summer passes in tending the flocks and making love. Then as autumn
again brings the vintage the lord of the manor comes to his estate.
There follows the recognition of Daphnis as his son and soon Chloe is
found to be as noble. The weather is still fair, so after a royal feast
in the city, the wedding is celebrated in the country for their hearts
were rural.
Indeed the characters are for the most part country wights: the worthy
foster-parents, Chloe’s suitors, Philetas the wise old herdsman. They
are all serfs and Daphnis and Chloe were given pastoral names by their
foster-parents to make them seem truly theirs. They are noble slaves
full of hospitality and kindness. When corruption menaces and brings
temptation, it comes from the city. Lycaenium is a young bride from the
city. Gnatho is a city parasite. Astylus, the son of Dionysophanes,
although he is a great-hearted youth who pities Lamo for the destruction
of his garden and welcomes his newly found brother Daphnis with open
arms, shows the effects of city life by making his boon companion the
worthless parasite Gnatho whose only thoughts were of eating, drinking
and lechery. Dionysophanes is nobler than his son: though gray-haired,
he is still tall, handsome, able to wrestle with young men, and though
wealthy he is good. Indeed some virtue must be attributed in this
fairy-story even to the villains. Dorco who tried to rape Chloe makes a
beautiful end by giving her his pipe and teaching her how to call the
cattle and Daphnis back from the raiders’ ship. Gnatho redeems himself
by rescuing Chloe from her second kidnapping. And even Lampis, the rough
herdsman, was deemed worthy of forgiveness and invited to the wedding.
Daphnis and Chloe are brave, beautiful and virginal. Chloe keeps her
chastity to the end. Daphnis sins but once, to learn what love is that
he may teach his maid.
Dalmeyda has pointed out another striking feature of the plot beside the
unity of place and the strictly pastoral coloring. This is its two-part
division of which the first might be entitled “the search for love” and
the second “the marriage of Chloe. ” The first part ends with the lesson
of Lycaenium, the second with the country wedding. [239]
Within this two-part division and the unified pastoral scene, the usual
devices are employed for the pattern of the romance, conversation,
soliloquies, oaths, court-room speeches, happy ending, but all are
simplified to a country standard. Typical of what I mean is the
breath-taking conversation that the lovers secure alone after their
winter separation, λόγων ὁµιλία τερπνή. [240]
“Chloe, I came for thy sake. ” “I know it, Daphnis. ” “’Tis long of thee
that I destroy the poor birds. ” “What wilt thou with me? ” “Remember me. ”
“I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in
yonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts. ” “But it
lies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow. ”
“Courage, man; the Sun burns hot. ” “I would it burnt like that fire
which now burns my very heart. ” “You do but gibe and cozen me! ” “I do
not, by the goats by which thou didst once bid me to swear to thee. ”
The soliloquies too are as artless and simple as this talk. At some
emotional crisis the youngsters bemoan to themselves their lot. Chloe,
falling in love with Daphnis when she sees him bathe in the cave of the
Nymphs, laments the pain in her heart that is worse than a
bee-sting. [241] After Daphnis has been recognized as the son of the
great Dionysophanes, Chloe weeps at being forgotten, is sure Daphnis is
breaking his oath of faithfulness and bids him farewell since she will
surely die. [242] Daphnis makes moan more often. When the kiss of Chloe
has set him on fire, he complains that his heart leaps up; his soul is
weakened; he will waste away with his strange malady. [243] Over the
sleeping Chloe he murmurs a soft rhapsody. [244] Shut in alone by winter
he takes counsel with himself on what excuse to end their
separation. [245] And when he hears that Lampis has carried Chloe off, he
seeks solitude in the garden and rails at his bitter loss. [246] Even the
court-room speeches in the prosecution of Daphnis by the Methymnaeans
for the loss of their ship are reduced to short and simple arguments
since a herdsman sat as judge. [247] The trial of course ends happily for
Daphnis as must inevitably the whole story. Of all the love romances
this springtime love in the country is the most joyous.
As we read this pastoral romance, the unknown author becomes to us a
real personality. His delight in the country is spontaneous and real. He
is a cultured person with genuine appreciation of art, music and
literature. Their influence enriches his story. Longus in his preface
tells how a painting which he chanced to see in the grove of the Nymphs
gave the inspiration for the writing of his novel, for the painting
pictured a history of love and he longed to write something that would
correspond to the picture. Paintings again he mentions in his
description of a shrine of Dionysus, paintings telling all the myths of
the god. [248] The images of the Nymphs in the cave are described
carefully by him: cut out of the rock they were, feet unshod, arms bare
to the shoulders, hair falling on their necks, their garments belted, a
smile in their eyes. [249] A statue of Pan stood under his sacred pine
until at the end Daphnis and Chloe built him a shrine. [250] Over and
over these representations are referred to as symbols of very present
gods.
The music that fills the romance is the sound of the shepherds’ pipes
and the voice of song. Daphnis makes a pipe of reeds and teaches Chloe
how to play on it. [251] So well did she learn that on Dorco’s pipe she
could call the cattle back from the raiders’ ship. [252] When spring
brought them out-doors, both Daphnis and Chloe challenged the
nightingales with their piping and the birds answered. [253] Philetas the
old herdsman outdid all in playing on the great organ-pipe of his
father. He played special strains for cows and oxen, for goats, for
sheep. He played too the melody of Dionysus and to it Dryas footed the
dance of the vintage. Daphnis too played on Philetas’ pipe a love-song
and danced with Chloe the story of the origin of the pipe, Pan’s wooing
of the maid Syrinx. [254]
Daphnis displayed his art for his own father and mother, before he was
recognized as their son, to do them pleasure. He blew the call of the
goats; he blew their soft lullaby; he blew their grazing tune; he blew
the alarm for a wolf; he blew the recall. And the goats responded to all
his different strains. [255] After the wedding the shepherds piped the
bride and groom to bed and sang outside their door a rude, harsh song,
no Hymenaeus, but such as they were wont to sing when with their picks
they broke the earth. [256] For country people sang at all their tasks:
the boatman on the river,[257] the herdsman in the pastureland.
More pervasive than all other influences in the romance is the literary.
Theocritus colors the whole story. There are a few reminiscences of
Bion[258] and Moschus,[259] but it was the Sicilian goatherd par
excellence who instructed Longus as he did Lamo in his story. [260]
Calderini shows the various traces of the inspiration which Longus
received from the Alexandrian idyl. There is a continuous alternation of
descriptions of nature with descriptions of emotion all composed with a
certain serenity and restraint. The pain is not too violent; the
descriptions of nature are not too detailed or pedantic. There are many
special similar motives: the descriptions of paintings and statues; the
fear and the protection of Pan and the Nymphs; the vengeance of Eros on
those who scorn him; the young lovers who frequent the gymnasia and the
palestra; love which is born on the day of a festival; the woe of love;
the violent, brutal love of a scorned shepherd; the patron who lives at
a distance. [261] The pastoral name Daphnis is taken from the ideal
shepherd of Theocritus and Vergil. Pastoral setting and pastoral
narrative have the flavor of Theocritus. Episodes are identical: Chloe
plaits a tiny cage for a grasshopper as did the young lad carved on the
bowl of ivy-wood. [262] Daphnis and Chloe as they sit kissing each other
on the hill see a fisherman’s boat passing on the sea and listen to his
song. [263] So in Theocritus lovers on the land embracing look out at the
far distant sea. [264] But above all, Longus saw as Theocritus did that
in the lives of herdsmen lay true romance, and while Theocritus sang his
short lays, closely affiliated with the mimes in their use of the comic,
Longus lifted the love of goatherd and shepherd to the realm of pure
fiction by idealization and tenderness.
His originality was in making
young love grow with the seasons to maturity. The name of his heroine,
Chloe, a young green shoot, is symbolic of this growing life. [265] His
awareness of his unique contribution to romance perhaps appears in his
title: _The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe_.
Sappho too was known and cherished by Longus. There is a possible
reminiscence in the description of Daphnis turning paler than grass in
its season. [266] There is a sure reminiscence of Sappho’s hyacinth on
the mountains crushed by the feet of the passing shepherds in Lamo’s
pity for his flowers trodden down by a marauder. [267] And to Sappho
Longus owes the climax of Daphnis’ wooing at the end of Book III when he
pulls “the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,” saved by
Fortune for a shepherd in love, and putting it in Chloe’s bosom makes it
a symbol of her beauty and his prize. [268]
Drama too had a definite influence on Longus, indeed the word δρᾶµα or
δραµατικόν is applied to these romances by Photius. [269] The two
recognition scenes in which Daphnis and Chloe find parents through the
tokens placed with them when they were exposed as babies are copied from
tragedy. New Comedy furnished at least three characters to the romance,
Gnatho the parasite, Sophrone the nurse who exposed the baby
Daphnis[270] and the city wench, Lycaenium. Elegiac poetry furnished
Philetas, the father perhaps of erotic elegiacs. Echo repeating the name
of Amaryllis suggests Vergil. [271] And Ovid perhaps contributed three
names: Astylus, Dryas and Nape. [272] The influence of the rhetorical
schools is slighter than in the other romances, but appears in the
court-room scene with its speeches and in the use of parallelism and
contrast. Parallelism, as Calderini says,[273] includes all the plot of
the romance and proceeds from the number and selection of the characters
to the variety of the secondary episodes and to the description of the
smallest details. Daphnis and Chloe are both exposed, both rescued by
shepherds. Both are kidnapped. An attack on Chloe is made by Dorco, on
Daphnis by Gnatho. Chloe touches Daphnis when he is bathing and falls in
love. Daphnis kisses Chloe and his heart rises to his lips. Astylus, the
city son of Dionysophanes, is sophisticated, Daphnis is virginal. The
oath of Daphnis is matched by the oath of Chloe. On and on proceeds this
balancing. And the parallelism appears not only in plot, but in details
of phrase and sentence structure: balanced rhythmical phrases set off by
rhymes or alliterations; bipartite or tripartite periods, elaborate in
their rhetorical structure. Sometimes indeed Longus’ Pastorals seem
written in modern verse, indeed they are written in poetic prose. [274]
Out of all these interests in art, music and literature and beyond them
Longus has created a style peculiarly his own and suited to his pastoral
romance. His sentence structure is simple and paratactic. His
comparisons are drawn from the life of shepherds. Chloe is as restive as
a heifer. [275] Dorco claims he is as white as milk but Daphnis says
Dorco is as red as a fox. [276] Daphnis and Chloe run about like dogs
freed from their leashes. [277] Chloe plunders from Daphnis’ mouth a bit
of cake as though she were a young bird being fed. [278]
Description and narration are as vivid as these little similes. We are
made to see Daphnis at his bath: his hair black and thick, his body
sun-burned dark as though colored by the shadow of his hair;[279] the
coming of spring with flowers covering the valleys and the mountains,
bees humming, birds warbling, lambs gamboling; the vintage scene with
the peasants all busy in the vineyard with the wine-presses, the
hogsheads, the baskets, and the grapes;[280] the winter landscape with
the deep snow, the rushing torrents, the ice, the laden trees;[281] the
country wedding with the feast on beds of green boughs before the cave
of the Nymphs, the songs of the reapers and the vintners, the dancing to
the pipes, the goats sharing the feast, the bridal procession with its
piping and singing. [282]
Longus’ art of narration is employed as skillfully as are his
descriptions. This art appears not only in the pattern of the whole
romance, but in the skillful use of stories within the story to
diversify and enliven the longer narrative. After the feast of Dionysus,
the old men, their tongues loosed with wine, fell into reminiscence and
told tales to each other:
“how bravely in their youth they had administered the pasturing of
their flocks and herds, how in their time they had escaped very many
invasions and inroads of pirates and thieves. Here one bragged that he
had killed a wolf, here another that he had bin second to Pan alone in
the skill and art of piping. ”[283]
That last was Philetas, the wise old shepherd who told Daphnis and Chloe
the story of the gay little Eros whom he had found playing in his garden
flying like a nightingale from bough to bough of the myrtles, a lovely
story with a point for Philetas’ _ars amatoria_. [284] The other inset
stories are mostly short myths. So Daphnis tells Chloe how the mourning
dove was once a maid, very proud of her singing and by her song alone
she kept the cows she tended near her in the wood. But a shepherd lad
rivalled her music and piped off eight of her finest cows to his own
herd. And the girl in despair prayed to become a bird. The gods
consented and left her that sweet voice so still she calls the cattle
home. [285]
At the feast of Dionysus Lamo tells a myth which a Sicilian goatherd had
sung to him, a tiny tale of how the girl Syrinx fleeing Pan’s embraces
was changed into a reed and then made by Pan into his pipe, with reeds
of unequal lengths to symbolize their ill-matched love. [286] All these
stories are very short and simple, bits of folk-lore such as peasants
might relate at their feasts or in the open.
Much of the whole narrative is colored by a humor that is as playful and
tender as the spirit of Philetas’ merry child Eros. In the vintage scene
both Daphnis and Chloe are beset with childish jealousy at the
attentions that each other receives. [287] The author’s humor plays
around them from the time when they first herded their flocks together
to the day of their rural wedding. And the plot is set with humor, which
as Wolff observes, turns on “the incongruity between the children’s
innocence and the piquancy of their experiments. ”[288]
It is not strange that Longus’ Pastorals with all their charm of plot,
setting and style were the forerunners of much later literature. Todd
has a paragraph which is a sign-post to the line of his successors. [289]
“Longus invented the pastoral romance, and his influence is found
throughout the pastorals of the modern European literatures: already,
perhaps, at the end of the fifteenth century, in the _Arcadia_ of the
‘Neapolitan Virgil’ Jacopo Sannazaro; in the _Aminta_ of Tasso, in the
_Astrée_ of D’Urfé, in the _Gentle Shepherd_ of Ramsay, in the _Paul
et Virginie_ of Saint-Pierre, and in other writings almost countless. ”
S. L. Wolff’s elaborate study of _The Greek Romances in Elizabethan
Prose Fiction_ analyzes in detail Longus’ influence on Robert Greene in
_Manaphon_ and _Pandost_ and Shakespeare’s use of Longus in the pastoral
setting, the hunt scene, the exposure motif in _The Winter’s Tale_.
There is rich material still left in the study of the Greek Romances for
the young scholar working in Comparative Literature. By them, by all
students of literature _Daphnis and Chloe_ deserves to be read and
reread. For Longus, just as Theocritus did in the Idyl, immortalized in
the realm of fiction the loves and woes of shepherds.
It is strange that a pastoral romance of such honest and simple charm
should have played a dramatic part in a melodrama of the early
nineteenth century. Yet it did, for it almost caused an international
literary warfare; it almost had a French officer shot for desertion; and
it created serious political complications for him with the Bonaparte
family.
Paul Louis Courier (1773-1825) led a bizarre life as a vine-grower, an
officer in the artillery, a liberal pamphleteer, a member of the Legion
of Honor, a prisoner in Sainte-Pélagie, a traveller, a poet, a
Hellenist. Throughout his checkered career, he anticipated Byron in his
romantic passion for the antiquities, the ruins, the beauty of Greece.
In 1811 he wrote from Rome: “The fact is that I wish before I die to see
the lantern of Demosthenes and drink the water of the Ilissus. ”
It was this passion combined with his disgust at the butcheries of
Wagram that made him forget that he was a soldier so that in 1809,
though he was the head of a squadron of artillery, he slipped out of
military life and in Italy devoted all his time to those literary
studies to which before he had given his leisure.
Reared in the country (at Méré in Touraine), he had early become
fascinated with the pastoral romance _Daphnis and Chloe_ and now he was
determined to work on a Thirteenth Century Greek manuscript of it which
was in the Laurentian Library. After some difficulty he obtained
permission from the librarian, Francesco Furia, and his work started
happily. It was to meet with the greatest success and the greatest
disaster. Courier, amateur that he was, discovered that the Laurentian
manuscript contained the text of the great lacuna in Book I (cc. 12-17).
These chapters were lacking in all other manuscripts. Furia who had
worked for years on the manuscript, which was in parts nearly illegible,
had never noticed these hitherto unknown chapters. They contain the
episode of Daphnis tumbling into the trap-ditch, Chloe’s falling in love
with him thereafter, and the contest of Daphnis and Dorco for Chloe’s
kiss.
Close on Courier’s great discovery followed a most unfortunate episode,
for after carefully copying the new chapters Courier obliterated them by
a black ink stain. It was natural that the jealous Furia should believe
that Courier had intentionally upset his ink-pot over them. Courier
himself in a letter to Renouard declared that inadvertently he had used
as a marker some paper which was soaked in ink on the under side, and
that made the blot.
The rage of Furia might itself have hindered the publication of
Courier’s discovery and now a political complication arose as a new
obstacle. Since the fame of his work was spreading, Elisa Bonaparte, the
sister of Napoleon, wished to have Courier’s publication dedicated to
her and the prefect of Florence, the Baron Fauchet, announced her
gracious wish at a formal dinner-party! Courier, who by now hated all
Bonapartes, cut his Gordian knot by rushing out at Florence a Greek
edition in fifty-two copies before the French edition which he was
publishing at Paris appeared in 1810. The deed was done and neither
Furia nor la Bonaparte could undo it.
The fame and scandal of Courier’s work of course came to the ears of the
Ministry of War and orders were sent to General Sorbier, commandant of
the artillery in Italy, to demand from Courier explanations of his
absence from his squadron. Fortunately the general accepted Courier’s
affirmation that he had never thought of deserting so that the Hellenist
escaped being shot then, but fate pursued him.
On April 11, 1825, the body of Paul Louis Courier was found in a wood
near his country home at Véretz. He had been assassinated. It was long
believed that this was a political crime, “a kind of epilogue of secret
vengeance in party politics” as Edmond Pilon puts it. [290] It might also
have been the revenge of a philologist. Actually the shooting was the
result of an embroglio with certain servants on his estate. Courier in
1814 had married Mlle Herminie Clavier, who managed his estate in his
absence. She seems to have betrayed him both in business matters and
affairs of the heart so that Courier separated from her and made new
plans for the management of the estate. Five years after the murder the
Department of Justice found that the assassins were certain servitors of
Courier who had been dismissed because of their connivance with Madame
Courier in her iniquities. Courier, whose dearest dream had been the
pastoral life of Daphnis and Chloe, escaped the dangers of war and of
prison only to be shot in the country he loved for petty personal spite.
Paul Louis Courier would, I am sure, have been happy to have part of his
fame rest on his precious new chapters of the Pastorals, and to know
that his beautiful translation of their four books lives on in one new
edition after another.
VII
_LUCIAN AND HIS SATIRIC ROMANCES: THE_ TRUE HISTORY _AND_ LUCIUS OR ASS
“Lucian of Samosata [was] surnamed ‘The blasphemer,’ because in his
dialogues he alleges that the things told of the gods are absurd. . . .
He was at first an advocate in Antioch, but, having ill success in
that, he turned to the composition of discourses, and his writings are
innumerable. He is said to have been killed by dogs, he having been
rabid against the truth. For in his ‘Life of Peregrinus’ he attacks
Christianity and, wicked man, blasphemes against Christ himself.
Wherefore for his madness he suffered meet punishment in this life,
and hereafter with Satan he will be inheritor of the everlasting
fire. ”[291]
This is the meagre biography by Suidas of the great satirist who through
nearly all of the second century held up the mirror of his frankness to
reflect images of the Greek and Roman world. Suidas’ misrepresentation
of Lucian’s allusions to the Christians and his fanciful picture of the
sophist’s end vilify much of this traditional vita. From Lucian’s own
writings more facts may be assembled.
Syrian by birth, he wrote in Greek and became a master of an Attic prose
style. As a boy he was apprenticed to a sculptor uncle, but quickly left
work with his hands for work with his tongue, studied rhetoric and
oratory, practiced as an advocate at Antioch, became a professional
sophist and travelled in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Gaul;
about A. D. 165 settled at Athens where he lived twenty years, then near
the end of his life took an official post in Egypt under the Emperor and
wrote an Apology for so doing. Suidas’ description of his writings as
“innumerable” seems justified by the eighty-two prose works extant to
say nothing of two mock tragedies and fifty-three epigrams, now
considered spurious.
Though the great bulk of Lucian’s writings consists of Platonic and
satiric dialogues, he enters into the scope of this book as a writer of
the satiric or parody romance. For two of his writings, the _True
History_ and _Lucius or Ass_, establish for us this new type of Greek
romance. His _True History_ is a parody of all travellers’ tales from
Odysseus’ to such as those of Antonius Diogenes in _The Wonderful Things
beyond Thule_. Probably this work of Lucian had more literary influence
than any of his other writings. His other romance, of which we have only
an epitome, _Lucius or Ass_, is, I believe, a parody of the romance
motivated mainly by religion. Its greatest value in its present
syncopated form is that it outlines a contemporary Greek counterpart of
the famous Latin novel, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_, and furnishes us with
a touchstone for testing the pure gold of Apuleius’ originality.
Before, however, we can discuss Lucian’s art of narration in his two
romances, we must reconstruct from his own writings his literary
autobiography and his conceptions of his literary art. Only then when we
have met the critic self-criticized will we be competent to appreciate
his brilliant imaginative flights in his novels.
A dangerous temptation at once assails any one who starts to write on
any subject connected with Lucian. That is to attempt to cover the whole
field of his life and works because of the brilliancy of the many-sided
facets of his genius. A forcible deterrent is the fact that a masterly
appreciation of _La vie et les œuvres de Lucien_ has already been
written by Maurice Croiset in his _Essai_[292] which in richness and
style alike is worthy of its great theme. All subsequent studies of
Lucian are inevitably founded on M. Croiset’s appreciation.
Gildersleeve, following Croiset, pointed out that Lucian’s life must be
reconstructed from his own writings. And this within the scope of a
brief essay Gildersleeve did brilliantly for English readers fifty years
ago. [293] From another angle I am attempting to do this same thing now
in order to make us acquainted before we read his stories with Lucian
the story-teller. [294]
Lucian’s early life is pictured in a brief speech called _The Dream_.
This was probably delivered in his native Syria on his return after his
European lecture-tour which made him famous as a Sophist. In a whimsical
mixture of fact and fancy he describes his choice of a career. As a
young lad when he had just finished school, Lucian was apprenticed to
his mother’s brother, a sculptor, to learn to be “a good stone-cutter,
mason and sculptor. ” On his first day he struck a slab of marble so hard
that he shattered it. Whereat his uncle gave him such a violent beating
that he ran home to his mother for comfort. That night he had a vision.
Two women were struggling to get possession of him. They were vastly
different in appearance and in the appeals they made to him, for they
were Sculpture and Education. Sculpture, unkempt, speaking haltingly and
like a barbarian, told Lucian that if he came to her, he would live
well, have strong shoulders, would never go abroad, but would gain such
fame as surrounded Phidias, Polyclitus, Myron, Praxiteles. Education in
her turn assured him that even if he became a famous sculptor, he would
be only a mechanic, living by his hands; she herself has much more to
offer him.
“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show you many works of
men of old, tell you their wondrous deeds and words, and make you
conversant with almost all knowledge, and I shall ornament your soul,
which concerns you most, with many noble adornments—temperance,
justice, piety, kindliness, reasonableness, understanding,
steadfastness, love of all that is beautiful, ardour towards all that
is sublime; for these are the truly flawless jewels of the soul.
Nothing that came to pass of old will escape you, and nothing that
must now come to pass; nay, you will even foresee the future with me.
In a word, I shall speedily teach you everything that there is,
whether it pertains to the gods or to man. ”[295]
Moreover, he will dress with distinction, will speak with eloquence.
Finally he may became as famous as Demosthenes or Aeschines. He must
recall that Socrates left sculpture for philosophy.
Lucian on hearing these two appeals gave himself to Education, who then
took him in a car with winged horses and from the air showed him the
cities and peoples of the world. After this vision she clothed him
suitably and returned him to his home. Lucian says he has told this
dream “in order that those who are young may take the better direction
and cleave to education, above all if poverty is making any one of them
faint-hearted. ”[296]
Now although this choice of Lucian is based on the choice of
Hercules[297] and although facts are clothed in fantasy, the picture of
Lucian’s early apprenticeship may well be true, for the boy’s delight in
modelling little figures of wax seems to forecast Lucian’s life-long
interest in sculpture and other art forms.
The next crisis in Lucian’s literary life is depicted in _The Double
Indictment_, a dialogue composed when the author was forty. In it Lucian
appears in court to answer two charges: one of the rhetoricians, for
giving up speech-making and essay-writing; the other of the
philosophers, for using their sacred Platonic dialogue for satire.
Lucian’s trial takes place on the Areopagus with Justice presiding, but
the dialogue opens in heaven with a long complaint by Zeus about the
hard life of the gods especially his own, no time for anything. Hermes
who is listening tells him frankly that there are many complaints among
mortals on earth because of the slowness of the law courts. Zeus then
sends Hermes down to proclaim a session and orders Justice to preside at
it.
At this court, after various cases have been wittily disposed of, the
Syrian is called to face two indictments: Oratory versus the Syrian for
neglect, Dialogue versus the Syrian for maltreatment. Oratory first
relates how she found the plaintiff as a lad wandering in Ionia,
speaking with a foreign accent, dressed as a Syrian. She educated him
and at his eager request married him although all his dowry was
wonderful speeches. Next she had him made a citizen and then went
travelling with him to Greece, Ionia, Italy and Gaul. As he became
famous, he grew indifferent to her, for he was enamored of a bearded
man, Dialogue, said to be the son of Philosophy. Now he no longer makes
speeches, but has a strange way of using short questions. She sues him
for desertion. The Syrian replies that all her facts are true, but there
are others; she lost her modesty, made up like a courtesan, flirted
indiscriminately with many lovers. So he separated from her and went to
live with a respectable gentleman, Dialogue. The Syrian won the case.
Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic mask
have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate with
Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for
mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally
too even with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not
homogeneous but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits
which he had bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to
clean up, to smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the
Syrian will not indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The
Syrian declares that he has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put
him into barbarian garb: Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek
costume. The Syrian was unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the
audience. This mock-trial picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from
writing the philosophical dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric
dialogue, influenced successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old
Attic Comedy. [298] Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style
of satire-dialogue which he created.
With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes
now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues
is _The Professor of Oratory_, _Nigrinus_, _Philosophies for Sale_, _The
Fisherman_.
In _The Professor of Oratory_ ironic advice is given to a young man on
how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to
success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on
the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither
two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an
easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present
themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the
hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how
severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the
simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past.
The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed,
with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can
become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance,
boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and
always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a
few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your
discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always
beginning with stories from the Iliad.
Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your
audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must
live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a
deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will
be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the
winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out
of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path.
This picture of _The Perfect Rhetorician_ has been thought by some
critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer
Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any
pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities
and superficial training.
At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had
rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against
rhetoric, he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus,
a philosopher unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to
Nigrinus may be set as a companion piece to the mocking praise of _The
Perfect Rhetorician_. The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter
in which Lucian tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in
offering him this book as if to display his use of words, but he is
sending it in thanks for Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man
relates to another how by talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead
of a slave, poor instead of rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and
the freedom it gives and ridiculed what men in general exalt: wealth,
fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised Athens because there Poverty and
Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life is free, noble, harmonious.
Rome is the city for those who love wealth and luxury, wine and women.
The Romans have given themselves over to the pleasures of the senses and
have every means of gratifying them. So Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of
retirement, conversing with Philosophy and with Plato, reflecting on the
ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-philosophers, the
will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus and the
baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.
The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in _Alexander the
False Prophet_,[299] might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or
the other of these philosophical schools.
