”
The title-page of the 1657 translation by “Geo.
The title-page of the 1657 translation by “Geo.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
Indeed she is so magnetic that the kisses she
was pleased to bestow on him stirred him. [161] She knew what she wanted
and how to get it. During four months she had to woo Clitophon though
she was rich and young and her husband has been lost at sea. Finally
since Clitophon was convinced that Leucippe was really dead, he yielded
and agreed to marry her, though on condition that they should not be
united until they arrived at Ephesus. She was as passionate as Clitophon
was cold. On the ship she made ardent love to him while he begged her to
philosophize on love’s nature. After Clitophon secretly received
Leucippe’s letter, he had to pretend illness to postpone the fulfillment
of her desires. Then Melitte sent for her so-called Thessalian slave
Lacaena (really Leucippe) and begged her to concoct a philtre that would
arouse Clitophon’s feeling. She is very outspoken about the fact that
Clitophon seems made of iron or wood; that indeed she seemed to love a
statue. [162] And she had the ability to express to Clitophon every
feeling she had without inhibition and in most picturesque language. At
her wedding breakfast in Alexandria she punned merrily about the
postponement of their union. “I’ve heard of a cenotaph but never before
of a cenogam. ”[163] The bellying sail on the ship she compared to a
pregnant woman’s body; indeed she converted the whole ship into symbols
of marriage. [164] She also compared herself to thirsty Tantalus standing
by a river but not allowed to drink. She could match Clitophon’s
arguments and his quibbles did not deceive her: “You are playing the
sophist, dearest! ” she commented. When from the discovery of Leucippe’s
letter to Clitophon and her husband’s safe return she knew that she had
lost Clitophon, she visited him secretly in prison and poured out on him
all her wrath and all her passion. Her denunciation of him as eunuch,
hermaphrodite, senile nonentity shifted to adoration; and passion
finally concentrated into so ardent and well argued an appeal for one
embrace that she was victorious. Clitophon admitted ironically that love
had taught her rhetoric and that he was vanquished, so he gave the
remedy to a sick soul and even on the prison floor enjoyed her! [165]
Melitte was no less subtle and plausible in the speech in which she made
her peace with her enraged husband Thersander: Clitophon was only one of
many refugees whom she aided in memory of her husband lost at sea;
indeed she had helped Clitophon to find his wife. [166] When Thersander
challenged her by the ordeal of the water of the Styx, Melitte at once
accepted the test on a quibble because her husband had demanded from her
an oath that she had not fulfilled the rites of Aphrodite with the
stranger _during the time while he himself was abroad_. And it was just
that unfortunate stipulation which makes her last appearance in the
romance unforgettable. She is led out of the water of the Styx by the
judge, proved by indisputable ordeal a chaste woman! Achilles Tatius has
won his readers by this time to rejoice in Melitte’s vindication. For
besides charm and cleverness he has given her humanity and generosity.
She was always merciful to her slaves and was kindness itself to
Lacaena-Leucippe. [167] After she had won her desire, she contrived the
escape of Clitophon from prison dressed in her clothes, and financed by
her. She did not even forget the jailer, but gave him money to go away
for a time to avoid punishment. [168] Clitophon omitted in his final
narrative of his adventures his succumbing to Melitte[169] but he had
the grace to admit to himself her charms.
It is clear that in the ethics of the romance there is a new point of
view. Achilles Tatius is definitely less idealistic than Chariton in his
treatment of the erotic theme. As Rattenbury has pointed out:
“Achilles Tatius seems to have felt that the fetish of chastity in the
average romance was absurd, and tries to humanize romance by creating
characters that are reasonably, not unreasonably, moral. . . . Leucippe
comes through safe and sound, it is true, but it was by good luck rather
than by good intention. ” Clitophon is chaste as far as men can be and
succumbs to Melitte only once. “Achilles Tatius,” continues Rattenbury,
“did not exactly parody his predecessors, but it is suggested that by
attempting to humanize romance he not only showed up the absurdities of
the usual stories, but was also responsible for the overthrow of the
literary form. . . . Achilles Tatius seems to have been to Greek Romance
what Euripides was to Greek Tragedy. He broke down the conventions, and
drove the essential and permanent elements to seek refuge elsewhere. The
erotic element did not die, but found an outlet in ‘Love-Letters,’ a
contemporary literary form of which Aristaenetus was an exponent in the
fifth century, but the idealized love story of a superhumanly modest
hero and heroine vanished, and Greek Romance hibernated until it was
revived some centuries later by the Byzantine writers. ”[170]
Not inconsistent with Tatius’ slightly ironic treatment of amours is his
emphasis on the virtue of pity and his tendency to introduce long
philosophical discussions of conduct or the nature of love. Clitophon’s
story moves an Egyptian general to pity, tears and aid, for
“When a man hears of another’s misfortune, he is inclined towards
pity, and pity is often the introduction to friendship; the heart is
softened by grief for what it hears, and gradually feeling the same
emotions at the mournful story converts its commiseration into
friendship and the grief into pity. ”[171]
In the midst of Thersander’s attempt to rape the weeping Leucippe, there
is a long digression on tears and the pity they arouse. [172] Clinias
appeals to the court not to put to death “a man who deserves pity rather
than punishment. ”[173] Leucippe, disguised as a slave, begs Melitte as a
woman to pity a woman and to pity one once free, now through Fortune’s
will a slave. [174]
Tatius has presented also in Callisthenes a picture of a noble young
hero who was converted from the wildness of youth to self-control,
respect, patriotism and service by chivalrous love. [175] And this
portrait of Callisthenes becomes an embodiment of an ideal latent in the
philosophical discussions of love which flavor the romance. “Love,” says
Clitophon, “inspired by beauty enters the heart through the eyes. ”[176]
Later Clinias tells Clitophon that he is greatly fortunate in being able
to see his lady, for when eyes of lovers meet, the emanations of their
beauty wed in a spiritual union that transcends bodily embrace. [177]
Clitophon, wooing Leucippe in a fair garden, discourses to her on the
power of love over birds, creeping things, plants, even iron which
responds to the magnet, over water (for Arethusa and Alpheus wed). [178]
To cheer up Menelaus and Clinias on ship-board and divert them from
their sorrows, Clitophon starts a philosophic discussion on love of
women compared with love of men, untranslatable in its openness. [179]
Menelaus takes up the cudgels for the love of men, probably much to
Clinias’ satisfaction for he had previously denounced to his dear
Charicles the love of women who, if they love, kill and had arraigned
for his indictment Eriphyle, Philomela, Sthenoboea, Chryseis, Briseis,
Candaules’ wife, Helen, Penelope, Phaedra, Clytemnestra! [180]
The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic
charm breathed on the lover’s lips[181] and a fantastic assertion that
if a maiden’s kiss is stolen, the maid is raped. [182] Moreover a code of
love is presented, almost as detailed as Ovid’s _Ars Amatoria_, in
instructions given by Clinias to Clitophon,[183] by the slave Satyrus to
Clitophon,[184] by Clitophon in discussion with Menelaus. [185] A
delightful part of this Art of Love is telling the Lady love-stories,
for all womankind is fond of myths. [186] Magic too plays its part in the
technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a lover;[187]
philtres may bewitch the indifferent;[188] and ordeals test
chastity. [189]
Closely akin to the philosophical discussions of love, its power, its
art, its magic is the worship of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Yet
there are few references to her cult. Her dominance is hinted:
initiation into love makes Aphrodite the most powerful of gods. [190]
Melitte wishes to have her nuptials on the sea, for Aphrodite is the
sea’s daughter and she wishes to propitiate her as the goddess of
marriage by thus honoring the sea, her mother. [191] Clitophon at the end
of his separation from Leucippe prays to Lady Aphrodite to forgive the
long delay in their union, for it was due to no insult to her and he
begs her blessing on their marriage. [192] The story of the ordeal by the
water of the Styx[193] is a merry tale of rivalry between Artemis and
Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite made young
Rhodopis break her oath of chastity but Artemis changed her into a
spring in the very cave where she lost her virginity. Yet Achilles
Tatius presents no such deep-seated reverence for the goddess of Love as
that which permeates Chariton’s romance.
Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She
appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father. [194] In her
name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of
the Virgin Goddess. [195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a
sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter. [196]
Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at
last she and Clitophon are reunited. [197] Here the villain of the piece
Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon. [198] Thersander’s lawyer in court
makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe
probably defiled the temple by an amour there. [199] But Artemis is
proved to be no liar, and there is implicit recognition of her
protection of Leucippe though Achilles Tatius does not end with
thanksgiving to her. Her cult forms an objective background of religious
tradition for the action. No deep religious feeling for her is
manifested.
There is no more aspiration to god in the other cults which are
mentioned incidentally: of Apollo, Hercules of Tyre, the god of the
lower world, Pan. And the cruel goddess Fortune is berated only
occasionally. Superstition recognizes omens in the world of nature: the
eagle stealing the sacrifice, the hawk pursuing the swallow. [200]
Oracles are respected. [201] And the ordeals of Pan’s pipes and the
Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to the gods are
celebrated. [202] But religion seems rather a matter of scrupulous regard
for ritual than communion with god or relief to the soul.
As we compare the romances of Chariton and Achilles Tatius we find that
not only has the main interest shifted from love and worship to
incidents and adventures. An even greater change has come about in the
style. Homeric simplicity has given way to rhetorical elaboration.
Tatius may well have been a ῥήτωρ as the scholiast Thomas Magister
states, for his whole style is dyed in the rhetoric of the schools and
the speeches delivered in the various lawsuits in the plot are
masterpieces of rhetoric.
Among his acknowledged literary debts, however, he credits most to epic,
for he quotes Homer once[203] and alludes to him five times[204] and he
refers to Hesiod twice. [205] The messenger speeches in tragedy
undoubtedly suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of
Charicles in a riding accident. [206] Both the New and the Old Attic
Comedy contributed much to his humor: the New in the comic literary
contest of the slaves Conops and Satyrus who deride each other under
cover of fables;[207] and the Old in the Aristophanic priest of Artemis
who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as good at quip and gibe as the
plays of Aristophanes. ”[208] But the training of the rhetorical schools
outweighs all other influences. About half of Books VII and VIII is
devoted to the trial of Clitophon for adultery and self-confessed
murder. The court sits in Ephesus with a jury and a presiding judge, but
their functions are vague. The prosecution speaks first, Thersander and
his ten lawyers, whose speeches fortunately are not reported. Clitophon
answers them by a false narrative accusing himself of the murder of
Leucippe and involving Melitte. Clinias gets the floor and tells the
true story: that Clitophon desires only to die, that he deserves pity
rather than condemnation and must be regarded as insane.
In the wild confusion that follows, Thersander’s counsel shouts for a
sentence of murder, Melitte offers her slaves to be questioned on her
innocence and demands that her husband produce Sosthenes who is probably
the murderer. Thersander in a long speech answers Melitte’s challenge
about Sosthenes with the result that the presiding officer pronounces
sentence of death on Clitophon but postpones Melitte’s case. Clitophon
is just on the point of being tortured for evidence when the arrival of
a sacred embassy to Artemis postpones the case of Melitte and the
execution of Clitophon.
Only after the work of the embassy is finished is the case resumed. Then
Thersander speaks first, demanding the execution of the sentence. He
condemns the priest who has released Clitophon and says he has usurped
the function of giving refuge to criminals which belongs to Artemis. He
adds foul personal abuse. He presents a second charge against Melitte
for adultery and a third against his slave girl Leucippe and her father.
The priest in his reply deserves the epithet “Aristophanic” which he has
won, for he pays Thersander back in his own coin of abuse only clothing
it in the wit of Aristophanes with all his double-meaning of words, his
biting attack. And his own arguments point the irony of the situation:
Thersander clapped Clitophon in jail before he was allowed to defend
himself. He charged him with murdering Leucippe but the young lady is
alive!
Sopater, counsel for Thersander, next hurls insulting invective at the
priest and whitewashes his noble client who has been betrayed by a
faithless wife. Thersander then presents a formal challenge to Melitte
and Leucippe to prove their chastity and on their acceptance of it, the
court adjourns. Next day all reassemble at the cave of Pan and the
spring of the Styx. The ladies are proved innocent. Thersander flees and
then is sentenced to banishment. Clitophon—and Melitte—are acquitted.
This summary of the procedure of the court in Ephesus shows what
opportunity Achilles Tatius made for presenting the rhetorical speeches
which he cherished. They are many. They are full of specious argument,
personal attack, appeal to the emotions, attempted pathos which becomes
bathos and genuine ἦθος. The speakers are true to type: the impassioned
lover, the leal friend, the haughty, imperious, lustful noble, his
sophistical lawyer, the Aristophanic priest. Such agonistic scenes must
have entertained the reader of the time as much as they did the author.
Actually this same favorite rhetorical style is also assigned to the
characters in private life: Melitte in her impassioned speech to
Clitophon in prison talks like a sophist, for Eros teaches even
arguments! [209]
Long mythological narratives are another feature of Tatius’ style. The
sight of a painting makes it necessary for him to relate the whole story
of Procne and Philomela to Leucippe. [210] The stories of the origins of
the two ordeals to prove chastity are told with equal detail. The
discovery of wine is elaborately related in the Tyrian version on the
occasion of the festival of Dionysus. [211] These are a few out of many
illustrations.
Descriptive writing is employed as much as, perhaps more than, forensic
or narrative. Indeed the purple patches almost overbalance plot,
conversation and oratory. Works of art, setting for scenes, natural
phenomena, the wonders of the world are introduced in highly colored
digressions which are clearly the ekphraseis which the students of
rhetoric were taught to compose and deliver.
Achilles Tatius apparently was enamored of wall-paintings. He describes
with gusto five and alludes to another. The subjects of all are myths.
Two are familiar types in the frescoes found at Pompeii: Perseus and
Andromeda, Achilles in women’s clothes among the daughters of King
Lycomedes. One description of a painting opens the romance, a votive
painting of Europa in the temple of Astarte at Sidon. [212] Sidon is the
first word of the novel and this story is introduced as a tribute to the
city where the first scene was laid, for the stemma on the coins of
Sidon is Europa on the bull, pictured almost as Tatius presents her. The
picture is described in vivid detail even to the flowers in the meadow
and the shifting colors of the sea. Posture and garb of Europa are
vividly sketched in words for he sees her “seated on the bull like a
vessel under way, using the veil as a sail. ” The keynote of the picture
and the point of its application for Tatius is the little flying Eros
who leads the bull and laughs back at the transformed Zeus. “Look,” said
Clitophon, “how that imp dominates over land and sea. ” A young man
standing by exclaims that he too has suffered much from love. These
exclamations are the point of departure for the recounting of love
adventures.
In Book III there is an equally long description of a painting by
Evanthes in the temple of Zeus Casius. [213] The subjects are Andromeda
and Prometheus and they seem to have been paired because both were
chained to rocks, menaced by beasts and rescued by Argive heroes,
Perseus and Hercules. Design, color, emotion are all described vividly
and charmingly, but there is no point in the introduction of the
paintings. The description of them is simply a purple patch of fine
writing.
In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape
of Philomela had “a hidden significance. ”[214] The whole story was
represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus,
and the cutting out of her tongue . . . the tapestry, Tereus himself, and
the fatal table. ” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the
treatment. The hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is
a bad omen threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his
journey to Pharos. The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story
of Philomela to Leucippe, for all women love myths.
Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a
rock-crystal goblet carved in a grape-vine,[215] a jewelled
necklace. [216] These enrich the setting as scattered flowers enrich the
backgrounds of Renaissance tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius
like Corinthian potters or Renaissance artists had such an _horror
vacui_ that empty spaces in design were intolerable and interstices had
to be crowded with beautiful small objects. This is due in part to an
observant eye that saw and recorded detail. The specific and the graphic
are his tools for clarity. The story of the attempted amour of Clitophon
and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the house as clear as the drawn
plans in many modern detective stories. [217] The garden in which
Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described elaborately with its
porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds. [218] The storm at
sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its
effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true
psychology of terror and panic. [219]
The long description of the storm is justified by the vital significance
of the shipwreck for the plot, but what of the write-ups of the wonders
of the world which are constantly introduced? The beautiful description
of Alexandria with its pharos is brief and pardonable as this was the
birthplace of the author. But only the love of novelty of the times and
bad taste seem to explain the perpetrations of wordy descriptions of the
Nile, the phoenix, the hippopotamus, the elephant and the
crocodile! [220] The romance at times tends to become a natural history.
Wolff becomes so out of patience with “the damnable iteration” of
irrelevancies in _Clitophon and Leucippe_ that he can hardly calm
himself to analyze them in suggestive groups: irrelevancies of plot, of
characterization, of setting, of science and pseudo-science. The only
justification for such irrelevancies Wolff finds in “a common basis with
paradox. Both defeat expectation. . . . In both its phases,—irrelevancy and
paradox—this element of _the unexpected_, prominent in the form as in
the matter of the Greek Romances, deserves attention. To turn aside to
the irrelevant; to strain suspense by retarding the expected outcome; to
introduce by the way—all unlooked for—as many bizarre, ironical,
paradoxical situations and dazzling phrases as possible; and finally to
‘spring’ an issue which is itself a surprising combination of
opposites—all these would seem to be consistent results of adopting the
unexpected as the principle of the genre. ”[221]
After all this is said in criticism of Achilles Tatius’ exuberant style
and unlimited digressions, we go back to his fundamentals: a clear plot,
living human beings, vivid settings for them, and exciting adventures.
Achilles Tatius knew his age and for its disillusions he wrote with
ironic tolerance of human frailty and for its weariness he emphasized
the excitement of adventure and the stimulus of the unexpected. To me
his successes chalk up to a longer list than his failures and I end with
Phillimore:
“What a strange thought—that an Alexandrian with the names of Achilles
Tatius (what a pair! ), atticizing _con furore_ in the reign of
Diocletian, should write a story which delighted the Byzantine Middle
Ages and can still be read with interest and amusement! ”[222]
VI
THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE
_BY LONGUS_
The very title of Longus’ romance shows a new departure. These Lesbian
Pastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that is
extant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique in
type, characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervading
influence. Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Even
the young hero and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the end
they are recognized as children of the great. City life plays little
part in the plot. The changing seasons make the set. Only a few
adventures disturb the serenity of the hills and pasturelands: an onset
of pirates, a local war and (of course! ) the usual kidnappings. Country
gods are worshipped. The music of Pan’s pipes is the accompaniment of
the story.
Of the author we know nothing. Longus “is not mentioned by any other
writer before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical name
or event. ”[223] From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knew
Mytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and with
works of art; he had received a sophist’s training in the rhetorical
schools. He wrote probably in the second century A. D. , before Achilles
Tatius.
The early editions and translations show why Longus was so influential
in Elizabethan England and indeed in the modern European literatures.
The first edition of the Greek text was published by the Junta Press in
Florence in 1598, but before that the romance had received its first
printing in Amyot’s French translation in 1559 and in the first English
translation by Angell Daye in 1587. This “earliest English version”
which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth was more of an adaptation than a
translation. Its title-page demands perusal:
“Daphnis and Chloe excellently describing the weight of affection, the
simplicitie of love, the purport of honest meaning, the resolution of
men, and disposition of Fate, finished in a Pastorall, and interlaced
with the praises of a most peerlesse Princesse, wonderfull in
Maiestie, and rare in perfection, celebrated within the same
Pastorall, and therefore termed by the name of The Shepheards
Holidaie. By Angell Daye. Altior fortuna virtus.
”
The title-page of the 1657 translation by “Geo. Thornley, Gent. ” was
dubbed “Daphnis and Chloe a most sweet and pleasant pastoral romance for
young ladies” and it too bore a Latin motto: “Humili casa nihil
antiquius nihil nobilius. —Sen. Philos. ”
It is this delightful old translation which J. M. Edmonds “revised and
augmented” in his version for _The Loeb Classical Library_ and in his
introduction there Edmonds says that this seems to have been George
Thornley’s only publication. He was a sizar in Christ’s College and
received his Bachelor in Arts from the University of Cambridge. It is
this translation of Edmonds-Thornley which I shall use in my quotations.
Longus wrote a Prooimion to his romance which reveals the occasion and
the purpose of his writing. While hunting in Lesbos he saw in a fair
grove of the Nymphs a painted picture which told a tale of ancient love.
“There were figured in it young women, in the posture, some of
teeming, others of swaddling, little children; babes exposed, and ewes
giving them suck; shepherds taking up foundlings, young persons
plighting their troth; an incursion of thieves, an inroad of armed
men. ”
And on studying the painting Longus says:
“I had a mighty instigation to write something as to answer that
picture. And therefore, when I had carefully sought and found an
interpreter of the image, I drew up these four books, an oblation to
Love and to Pan and to the Nymphs, and a delightful possession even
for all men. For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that
is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has
not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could
escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty
shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write
the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right
wits. ”
With this delightful prayer, our humorous nympholept Longus begins his
story. We must now outline briefly his four books of Pastorals.
The characters are:
_Daphnis_, a young goatherd
_Lamo_, foster-father of Daphnis
_Myrtale_, foster-mother of Daphnis
_Chloe_, a young shepherdess
_Dryas_, foster-father of Chloe
_Nape_, foster-mother of Chloe
_Dorco_, an oxherd
_Philetas_, an aged shepherd and a famous piper
_Lycaenium_, a city chit married to a swain
_Dionysophanes_, lord of the manor
_Clearista_, his wife
_Astylus_, his son
_Gnatho_, a parasite of Astylus
_Lampis_, a herdsman
Tyrian pirates
Young nobles of Methymna
In Lesbos near Mytilene there was a great estate of a great noble. On it
once strange things happened for a goatherd Lamo found a fine baby boy
being nursed by a she-goat. Purple was his cloak and near him was a
little golden sword with an ivory handle. Lamo and his wife Myrtale
reared the child and named him Daphnis. Two years later another shepherd
Dryas found in a cave sacred to the nymphs and carved with pictures of
them a baby girl being nursed by a sheep. And beside her were little
possessions, a girdle embroidered in gold, gilded shoes, golden anklets.
Dryas and his wife reared the child and named her Chloe. These are our
hero and heroine.
Now when Daphnis was fifteen and Chloe thirteen, one night both Lamo and
Dryas had the same dream. The nymphs of the cave appeared and gave
Daphnis and Chloe to a certain little winged boy with bow and arrow who
touched them with an arrow and ordered that Daphnis tend a flock of
goats and Chloe a flock of sheep. Their parents were disappointed that
they too were to become herdsmen, for they had given the children a good
education, but they offered sacrifice in the cave to the Boy and obeyed.
The year was at the spring. Birds were singing, lambs gamboling, flowers
blooming. The children too sang and danced together and made garlands of
flowers for the Nymphs. All their joy and work they shared. But into
this paradise came danger. Trap-ditches had been set to catch a
marauding wolf and into one, as he pursued a he-goat, fell Daphnis. He
was drawn up all bloody and must needs wash in the cave of the Nymphs.
Chloe as she washed his back thought she had never seen any-one so fair
or touched anything so soft. Love began here though she knew it not.
Another danger menaced. Dorco an oxherd who had helped draw Daphnis from
the pit fell in love with Chloe (he was a full-grown lad) and when he
could not get her by gifts, he and Daphnis held a contest of words for
beauty and Chloe was umpire. When their speeches were finished, Chloe at
once gave to Daphnis her prize—a kiss—and that kiss made Daphnis fall in
love though he did not know what love was.
Defeated Dorco next appealed to Dryas for Chloe as a wife, but Dryas
rejected him. Then he tried a base trick. He dressed up in a wolf-skin
and hid near the spring where the beasts watered, hoping to meet Chloe
alone there. This he did, but the sheep-dogs caught him first and would
have killed him had not Chloe and Daphnis saved him. They thought
Dorco’s disguise was only a game, for they never dreamed of rape in
their innocence.
So through spring and summer Daphnis and Chloe tended their flocks and
played the pipes together. But in the autumn Tyrian pirates descended on
the shore to raven. They wounded Dorco and stole his cows and kidnapped
Daphnis. Dorco dying gave his pipe to Chloe for one kiss at last and
bade her pipe his cows off the ship. And the cows on hearing the call of
the pipe jumped overboard and swam ashore with Daphnis charioted between
two holding to their horns. The boat was upset and the pirates who were
all in armor drowned. Daphnis and Chloe went to poor Dorco’s funeral.
They dedicated his pipe to the Nymphs. They cheered their flocks who lay
mourning for Daphnis on the hills. And all went on as before except that
Daphnis’ heart ached,—why he did not know.
Now (in Book II) came the time of vintage. These charming children
helped pick the grapes, tread the wine-press, fill the vats with the new
wine. That work done, back to their flocks went Daphnis and Chloe. There
old Philetas met them and sitting down told them a bright story of how
Eros had appeared to him in his garden, a little winged boy flitting
birdlike from tree to tree. 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.
was pleased to bestow on him stirred him. [161] She knew what she wanted
and how to get it. During four months she had to woo Clitophon though
she was rich and young and her husband has been lost at sea. Finally
since Clitophon was convinced that Leucippe was really dead, he yielded
and agreed to marry her, though on condition that they should not be
united until they arrived at Ephesus. She was as passionate as Clitophon
was cold. On the ship she made ardent love to him while he begged her to
philosophize on love’s nature. After Clitophon secretly received
Leucippe’s letter, he had to pretend illness to postpone the fulfillment
of her desires. Then Melitte sent for her so-called Thessalian slave
Lacaena (really Leucippe) and begged her to concoct a philtre that would
arouse Clitophon’s feeling. She is very outspoken about the fact that
Clitophon seems made of iron or wood; that indeed she seemed to love a
statue. [162] And she had the ability to express to Clitophon every
feeling she had without inhibition and in most picturesque language. At
her wedding breakfast in Alexandria she punned merrily about the
postponement of their union. “I’ve heard of a cenotaph but never before
of a cenogam. ”[163] The bellying sail on the ship she compared to a
pregnant woman’s body; indeed she converted the whole ship into symbols
of marriage. [164] She also compared herself to thirsty Tantalus standing
by a river but not allowed to drink. She could match Clitophon’s
arguments and his quibbles did not deceive her: “You are playing the
sophist, dearest! ” she commented. When from the discovery of Leucippe’s
letter to Clitophon and her husband’s safe return she knew that she had
lost Clitophon, she visited him secretly in prison and poured out on him
all her wrath and all her passion. Her denunciation of him as eunuch,
hermaphrodite, senile nonentity shifted to adoration; and passion
finally concentrated into so ardent and well argued an appeal for one
embrace that she was victorious. Clitophon admitted ironically that love
had taught her rhetoric and that he was vanquished, so he gave the
remedy to a sick soul and even on the prison floor enjoyed her! [165]
Melitte was no less subtle and plausible in the speech in which she made
her peace with her enraged husband Thersander: Clitophon was only one of
many refugees whom she aided in memory of her husband lost at sea;
indeed she had helped Clitophon to find his wife. [166] When Thersander
challenged her by the ordeal of the water of the Styx, Melitte at once
accepted the test on a quibble because her husband had demanded from her
an oath that she had not fulfilled the rites of Aphrodite with the
stranger _during the time while he himself was abroad_. And it was just
that unfortunate stipulation which makes her last appearance in the
romance unforgettable. She is led out of the water of the Styx by the
judge, proved by indisputable ordeal a chaste woman! Achilles Tatius has
won his readers by this time to rejoice in Melitte’s vindication. For
besides charm and cleverness he has given her humanity and generosity.
She was always merciful to her slaves and was kindness itself to
Lacaena-Leucippe. [167] After she had won her desire, she contrived the
escape of Clitophon from prison dressed in her clothes, and financed by
her. She did not even forget the jailer, but gave him money to go away
for a time to avoid punishment. [168] Clitophon omitted in his final
narrative of his adventures his succumbing to Melitte[169] but he had
the grace to admit to himself her charms.
It is clear that in the ethics of the romance there is a new point of
view. Achilles Tatius is definitely less idealistic than Chariton in his
treatment of the erotic theme. As Rattenbury has pointed out:
“Achilles Tatius seems to have felt that the fetish of chastity in the
average romance was absurd, and tries to humanize romance by creating
characters that are reasonably, not unreasonably, moral. . . . Leucippe
comes through safe and sound, it is true, but it was by good luck rather
than by good intention. ” Clitophon is chaste as far as men can be and
succumbs to Melitte only once. “Achilles Tatius,” continues Rattenbury,
“did not exactly parody his predecessors, but it is suggested that by
attempting to humanize romance he not only showed up the absurdities of
the usual stories, but was also responsible for the overthrow of the
literary form. . . . Achilles Tatius seems to have been to Greek Romance
what Euripides was to Greek Tragedy. He broke down the conventions, and
drove the essential and permanent elements to seek refuge elsewhere. The
erotic element did not die, but found an outlet in ‘Love-Letters,’ a
contemporary literary form of which Aristaenetus was an exponent in the
fifth century, but the idealized love story of a superhumanly modest
hero and heroine vanished, and Greek Romance hibernated until it was
revived some centuries later by the Byzantine writers. ”[170]
Not inconsistent with Tatius’ slightly ironic treatment of amours is his
emphasis on the virtue of pity and his tendency to introduce long
philosophical discussions of conduct or the nature of love. Clitophon’s
story moves an Egyptian general to pity, tears and aid, for
“When a man hears of another’s misfortune, he is inclined towards
pity, and pity is often the introduction to friendship; the heart is
softened by grief for what it hears, and gradually feeling the same
emotions at the mournful story converts its commiseration into
friendship and the grief into pity. ”[171]
In the midst of Thersander’s attempt to rape the weeping Leucippe, there
is a long digression on tears and the pity they arouse. [172] Clinias
appeals to the court not to put to death “a man who deserves pity rather
than punishment. ”[173] Leucippe, disguised as a slave, begs Melitte as a
woman to pity a woman and to pity one once free, now through Fortune’s
will a slave. [174]
Tatius has presented also in Callisthenes a picture of a noble young
hero who was converted from the wildness of youth to self-control,
respect, patriotism and service by chivalrous love. [175] And this
portrait of Callisthenes becomes an embodiment of an ideal latent in the
philosophical discussions of love which flavor the romance. “Love,” says
Clitophon, “inspired by beauty enters the heart through the eyes. ”[176]
Later Clinias tells Clitophon that he is greatly fortunate in being able
to see his lady, for when eyes of lovers meet, the emanations of their
beauty wed in a spiritual union that transcends bodily embrace. [177]
Clitophon, wooing Leucippe in a fair garden, discourses to her on the
power of love over birds, creeping things, plants, even iron which
responds to the magnet, over water (for Arethusa and Alpheus wed). [178]
To cheer up Menelaus and Clinias on ship-board and divert them from
their sorrows, Clitophon starts a philosophic discussion on love of
women compared with love of men, untranslatable in its openness. [179]
Menelaus takes up the cudgels for the love of men, probably much to
Clinias’ satisfaction for he had previously denounced to his dear
Charicles the love of women who, if they love, kill and had arraigned
for his indictment Eriphyle, Philomela, Sthenoboea, Chryseis, Briseis,
Candaules’ wife, Helen, Penelope, Phaedra, Clytemnestra! [180]
The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic
charm breathed on the lover’s lips[181] and a fantastic assertion that
if a maiden’s kiss is stolen, the maid is raped. [182] Moreover a code of
love is presented, almost as detailed as Ovid’s _Ars Amatoria_, in
instructions given by Clinias to Clitophon,[183] by the slave Satyrus to
Clitophon,[184] by Clitophon in discussion with Menelaus. [185] A
delightful part of this Art of Love is telling the Lady love-stories,
for all womankind is fond of myths. [186] Magic too plays its part in the
technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a lover;[187]
philtres may bewitch the indifferent;[188] and ordeals test
chastity. [189]
Closely akin to the philosophical discussions of love, its power, its
art, its magic is the worship of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Yet
there are few references to her cult. Her dominance is hinted:
initiation into love makes Aphrodite the most powerful of gods. [190]
Melitte wishes to have her nuptials on the sea, for Aphrodite is the
sea’s daughter and she wishes to propitiate her as the goddess of
marriage by thus honoring the sea, her mother. [191] Clitophon at the end
of his separation from Leucippe prays to Lady Aphrodite to forgive the
long delay in their union, for it was due to no insult to her and he
begs her blessing on their marriage. [192] The story of the ordeal by the
water of the Styx[193] is a merry tale of rivalry between Artemis and
Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite made young
Rhodopis break her oath of chastity but Artemis changed her into a
spring in the very cave where she lost her virginity. Yet Achilles
Tatius presents no such deep-seated reverence for the goddess of Love as
that which permeates Chariton’s romance.
Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She
appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father. [194] In her
name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of
the Virgin Goddess. [195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a
sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter. [196]
Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at
last she and Clitophon are reunited. [197] Here the villain of the piece
Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon. [198] Thersander’s lawyer in court
makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe
probably defiled the temple by an amour there. [199] But Artemis is
proved to be no liar, and there is implicit recognition of her
protection of Leucippe though Achilles Tatius does not end with
thanksgiving to her. Her cult forms an objective background of religious
tradition for the action. No deep religious feeling for her is
manifested.
There is no more aspiration to god in the other cults which are
mentioned incidentally: of Apollo, Hercules of Tyre, the god of the
lower world, Pan. And the cruel goddess Fortune is berated only
occasionally. Superstition recognizes omens in the world of nature: the
eagle stealing the sacrifice, the hawk pursuing the swallow. [200]
Oracles are respected. [201] And the ordeals of Pan’s pipes and the
Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to the gods are
celebrated. [202] But religion seems rather a matter of scrupulous regard
for ritual than communion with god or relief to the soul.
As we compare the romances of Chariton and Achilles Tatius we find that
not only has the main interest shifted from love and worship to
incidents and adventures. An even greater change has come about in the
style. Homeric simplicity has given way to rhetorical elaboration.
Tatius may well have been a ῥήτωρ as the scholiast Thomas Magister
states, for his whole style is dyed in the rhetoric of the schools and
the speeches delivered in the various lawsuits in the plot are
masterpieces of rhetoric.
Among his acknowledged literary debts, however, he credits most to epic,
for he quotes Homer once[203] and alludes to him five times[204] and he
refers to Hesiod twice. [205] The messenger speeches in tragedy
undoubtedly suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of
Charicles in a riding accident. [206] Both the New and the Old Attic
Comedy contributed much to his humor: the New in the comic literary
contest of the slaves Conops and Satyrus who deride each other under
cover of fables;[207] and the Old in the Aristophanic priest of Artemis
who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as good at quip and gibe as the
plays of Aristophanes. ”[208] But the training of the rhetorical schools
outweighs all other influences. About half of Books VII and VIII is
devoted to the trial of Clitophon for adultery and self-confessed
murder. The court sits in Ephesus with a jury and a presiding judge, but
their functions are vague. The prosecution speaks first, Thersander and
his ten lawyers, whose speeches fortunately are not reported. Clitophon
answers them by a false narrative accusing himself of the murder of
Leucippe and involving Melitte. Clinias gets the floor and tells the
true story: that Clitophon desires only to die, that he deserves pity
rather than condemnation and must be regarded as insane.
In the wild confusion that follows, Thersander’s counsel shouts for a
sentence of murder, Melitte offers her slaves to be questioned on her
innocence and demands that her husband produce Sosthenes who is probably
the murderer. Thersander in a long speech answers Melitte’s challenge
about Sosthenes with the result that the presiding officer pronounces
sentence of death on Clitophon but postpones Melitte’s case. Clitophon
is just on the point of being tortured for evidence when the arrival of
a sacred embassy to Artemis postpones the case of Melitte and the
execution of Clitophon.
Only after the work of the embassy is finished is the case resumed. Then
Thersander speaks first, demanding the execution of the sentence. He
condemns the priest who has released Clitophon and says he has usurped
the function of giving refuge to criminals which belongs to Artemis. He
adds foul personal abuse. He presents a second charge against Melitte
for adultery and a third against his slave girl Leucippe and her father.
The priest in his reply deserves the epithet “Aristophanic” which he has
won, for he pays Thersander back in his own coin of abuse only clothing
it in the wit of Aristophanes with all his double-meaning of words, his
biting attack. And his own arguments point the irony of the situation:
Thersander clapped Clitophon in jail before he was allowed to defend
himself. He charged him with murdering Leucippe but the young lady is
alive!
Sopater, counsel for Thersander, next hurls insulting invective at the
priest and whitewashes his noble client who has been betrayed by a
faithless wife. Thersander then presents a formal challenge to Melitte
and Leucippe to prove their chastity and on their acceptance of it, the
court adjourns. Next day all reassemble at the cave of Pan and the
spring of the Styx. The ladies are proved innocent. Thersander flees and
then is sentenced to banishment. Clitophon—and Melitte—are acquitted.
This summary of the procedure of the court in Ephesus shows what
opportunity Achilles Tatius made for presenting the rhetorical speeches
which he cherished. They are many. They are full of specious argument,
personal attack, appeal to the emotions, attempted pathos which becomes
bathos and genuine ἦθος. The speakers are true to type: the impassioned
lover, the leal friend, the haughty, imperious, lustful noble, his
sophistical lawyer, the Aristophanic priest. Such agonistic scenes must
have entertained the reader of the time as much as they did the author.
Actually this same favorite rhetorical style is also assigned to the
characters in private life: Melitte in her impassioned speech to
Clitophon in prison talks like a sophist, for Eros teaches even
arguments! [209]
Long mythological narratives are another feature of Tatius’ style. The
sight of a painting makes it necessary for him to relate the whole story
of Procne and Philomela to Leucippe. [210] The stories of the origins of
the two ordeals to prove chastity are told with equal detail. The
discovery of wine is elaborately related in the Tyrian version on the
occasion of the festival of Dionysus. [211] These are a few out of many
illustrations.
Descriptive writing is employed as much as, perhaps more than, forensic
or narrative. Indeed the purple patches almost overbalance plot,
conversation and oratory. Works of art, setting for scenes, natural
phenomena, the wonders of the world are introduced in highly colored
digressions which are clearly the ekphraseis which the students of
rhetoric were taught to compose and deliver.
Achilles Tatius apparently was enamored of wall-paintings. He describes
with gusto five and alludes to another. The subjects of all are myths.
Two are familiar types in the frescoes found at Pompeii: Perseus and
Andromeda, Achilles in women’s clothes among the daughters of King
Lycomedes. One description of a painting opens the romance, a votive
painting of Europa in the temple of Astarte at Sidon. [212] Sidon is the
first word of the novel and this story is introduced as a tribute to the
city where the first scene was laid, for the stemma on the coins of
Sidon is Europa on the bull, pictured almost as Tatius presents her. The
picture is described in vivid detail even to the flowers in the meadow
and the shifting colors of the sea. Posture and garb of Europa are
vividly sketched in words for he sees her “seated on the bull like a
vessel under way, using the veil as a sail. ” The keynote of the picture
and the point of its application for Tatius is the little flying Eros
who leads the bull and laughs back at the transformed Zeus. “Look,” said
Clitophon, “how that imp dominates over land and sea. ” A young man
standing by exclaims that he too has suffered much from love. These
exclamations are the point of departure for the recounting of love
adventures.
In Book III there is an equally long description of a painting by
Evanthes in the temple of Zeus Casius. [213] The subjects are Andromeda
and Prometheus and they seem to have been paired because both were
chained to rocks, menaced by beasts and rescued by Argive heroes,
Perseus and Hercules. Design, color, emotion are all described vividly
and charmingly, but there is no point in the introduction of the
paintings. The description of them is simply a purple patch of fine
writing.
In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape
of Philomela had “a hidden significance. ”[214] The whole story was
represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus,
and the cutting out of her tongue . . . the tapestry, Tereus himself, and
the fatal table. ” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the
treatment. The hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is
a bad omen threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his
journey to Pharos. The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story
of Philomela to Leucippe, for all women love myths.
Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a
rock-crystal goblet carved in a grape-vine,[215] a jewelled
necklace. [216] These enrich the setting as scattered flowers enrich the
backgrounds of Renaissance tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius
like Corinthian potters or Renaissance artists had such an _horror
vacui_ that empty spaces in design were intolerable and interstices had
to be crowded with beautiful small objects. This is due in part to an
observant eye that saw and recorded detail. The specific and the graphic
are his tools for clarity. The story of the attempted amour of Clitophon
and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the house as clear as the drawn
plans in many modern detective stories. [217] The garden in which
Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described elaborately with its
porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds. [218] The storm at
sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its
effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true
psychology of terror and panic. [219]
The long description of the storm is justified by the vital significance
of the shipwreck for the plot, but what of the write-ups of the wonders
of the world which are constantly introduced? The beautiful description
of Alexandria with its pharos is brief and pardonable as this was the
birthplace of the author. But only the love of novelty of the times and
bad taste seem to explain the perpetrations of wordy descriptions of the
Nile, the phoenix, the hippopotamus, the elephant and the
crocodile! [220] The romance at times tends to become a natural history.
Wolff becomes so out of patience with “the damnable iteration” of
irrelevancies in _Clitophon and Leucippe_ that he can hardly calm
himself to analyze them in suggestive groups: irrelevancies of plot, of
characterization, of setting, of science and pseudo-science. The only
justification for such irrelevancies Wolff finds in “a common basis with
paradox. Both defeat expectation. . . . In both its phases,—irrelevancy and
paradox—this element of _the unexpected_, prominent in the form as in
the matter of the Greek Romances, deserves attention. To turn aside to
the irrelevant; to strain suspense by retarding the expected outcome; to
introduce by the way—all unlooked for—as many bizarre, ironical,
paradoxical situations and dazzling phrases as possible; and finally to
‘spring’ an issue which is itself a surprising combination of
opposites—all these would seem to be consistent results of adopting the
unexpected as the principle of the genre. ”[221]
After all this is said in criticism of Achilles Tatius’ exuberant style
and unlimited digressions, we go back to his fundamentals: a clear plot,
living human beings, vivid settings for them, and exciting adventures.
Achilles Tatius knew his age and for its disillusions he wrote with
ironic tolerance of human frailty and for its weariness he emphasized
the excitement of adventure and the stimulus of the unexpected. To me
his successes chalk up to a longer list than his failures and I end with
Phillimore:
“What a strange thought—that an Alexandrian with the names of Achilles
Tatius (what a pair! ), atticizing _con furore_ in the reign of
Diocletian, should write a story which delighted the Byzantine Middle
Ages and can still be read with interest and amusement! ”[222]
VI
THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE
_BY LONGUS_
The very title of Longus’ romance shows a new departure. These Lesbian
Pastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that is
extant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique in
type, characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervading
influence. Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Even
the young hero and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the end
they are recognized as children of the great. City life plays little
part in the plot. The changing seasons make the set. Only a few
adventures disturb the serenity of the hills and pasturelands: an onset
of pirates, a local war and (of course! ) the usual kidnappings. Country
gods are worshipped. The music of Pan’s pipes is the accompaniment of
the story.
Of the author we know nothing. Longus “is not mentioned by any other
writer before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical name
or event. ”[223] From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knew
Mytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and with
works of art; he had received a sophist’s training in the rhetorical
schools. He wrote probably in the second century A. D. , before Achilles
Tatius.
The early editions and translations show why Longus was so influential
in Elizabethan England and indeed in the modern European literatures.
The first edition of the Greek text was published by the Junta Press in
Florence in 1598, but before that the romance had received its first
printing in Amyot’s French translation in 1559 and in the first English
translation by Angell Daye in 1587. This “earliest English version”
which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth was more of an adaptation than a
translation. Its title-page demands perusal:
“Daphnis and Chloe excellently describing the weight of affection, the
simplicitie of love, the purport of honest meaning, the resolution of
men, and disposition of Fate, finished in a Pastorall, and interlaced
with the praises of a most peerlesse Princesse, wonderfull in
Maiestie, and rare in perfection, celebrated within the same
Pastorall, and therefore termed by the name of The Shepheards
Holidaie. By Angell Daye. Altior fortuna virtus.
”
The title-page of the 1657 translation by “Geo. Thornley, Gent. ” was
dubbed “Daphnis and Chloe a most sweet and pleasant pastoral romance for
young ladies” and it too bore a Latin motto: “Humili casa nihil
antiquius nihil nobilius. —Sen. Philos. ”
It is this delightful old translation which J. M. Edmonds “revised and
augmented” in his version for _The Loeb Classical Library_ and in his
introduction there Edmonds says that this seems to have been George
Thornley’s only publication. He was a sizar in Christ’s College and
received his Bachelor in Arts from the University of Cambridge. It is
this translation of Edmonds-Thornley which I shall use in my quotations.
Longus wrote a Prooimion to his romance which reveals the occasion and
the purpose of his writing. While hunting in Lesbos he saw in a fair
grove of the Nymphs a painted picture which told a tale of ancient love.
“There were figured in it young women, in the posture, some of
teeming, others of swaddling, little children; babes exposed, and ewes
giving them suck; shepherds taking up foundlings, young persons
plighting their troth; an incursion of thieves, an inroad of armed
men. ”
And on studying the painting Longus says:
“I had a mighty instigation to write something as to answer that
picture. And therefore, when I had carefully sought and found an
interpreter of the image, I drew up these four books, an oblation to
Love and to Pan and to the Nymphs, and a delightful possession even
for all men. For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that
is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has
not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could
escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty
shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write
the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right
wits. ”
With this delightful prayer, our humorous nympholept Longus begins his
story. We must now outline briefly his four books of Pastorals.
The characters are:
_Daphnis_, a young goatherd
_Lamo_, foster-father of Daphnis
_Myrtale_, foster-mother of Daphnis
_Chloe_, a young shepherdess
_Dryas_, foster-father of Chloe
_Nape_, foster-mother of Chloe
_Dorco_, an oxherd
_Philetas_, an aged shepherd and a famous piper
_Lycaenium_, a city chit married to a swain
_Dionysophanes_, lord of the manor
_Clearista_, his wife
_Astylus_, his son
_Gnatho_, a parasite of Astylus
_Lampis_, a herdsman
Tyrian pirates
Young nobles of Methymna
In Lesbos near Mytilene there was a great estate of a great noble. On it
once strange things happened for a goatherd Lamo found a fine baby boy
being nursed by a she-goat. Purple was his cloak and near him was a
little golden sword with an ivory handle. Lamo and his wife Myrtale
reared the child and named him Daphnis. Two years later another shepherd
Dryas found in a cave sacred to the nymphs and carved with pictures of
them a baby girl being nursed by a sheep. And beside her were little
possessions, a girdle embroidered in gold, gilded shoes, golden anklets.
Dryas and his wife reared the child and named her Chloe. These are our
hero and heroine.
Now when Daphnis was fifteen and Chloe thirteen, one night both Lamo and
Dryas had the same dream. The nymphs of the cave appeared and gave
Daphnis and Chloe to a certain little winged boy with bow and arrow who
touched them with an arrow and ordered that Daphnis tend a flock of
goats and Chloe a flock of sheep. Their parents were disappointed that
they too were to become herdsmen, for they had given the children a good
education, but they offered sacrifice in the cave to the Boy and obeyed.
The year was at the spring. Birds were singing, lambs gamboling, flowers
blooming. The children too sang and danced together and made garlands of
flowers for the Nymphs. All their joy and work they shared. But into
this paradise came danger. Trap-ditches had been set to catch a
marauding wolf and into one, as he pursued a he-goat, fell Daphnis. He
was drawn up all bloody and must needs wash in the cave of the Nymphs.
Chloe as she washed his back thought she had never seen any-one so fair
or touched anything so soft. Love began here though she knew it not.
Another danger menaced. Dorco an oxherd who had helped draw Daphnis from
the pit fell in love with Chloe (he was a full-grown lad) and when he
could not get her by gifts, he and Daphnis held a contest of words for
beauty and Chloe was umpire. When their speeches were finished, Chloe at
once gave to Daphnis her prize—a kiss—and that kiss made Daphnis fall in
love though he did not know what love was.
Defeated Dorco next appealed to Dryas for Chloe as a wife, but Dryas
rejected him. Then he tried a base trick. He dressed up in a wolf-skin
and hid near the spring where the beasts watered, hoping to meet Chloe
alone there. This he did, but the sheep-dogs caught him first and would
have killed him had not Chloe and Daphnis saved him. They thought
Dorco’s disguise was only a game, for they never dreamed of rape in
their innocence.
So through spring and summer Daphnis and Chloe tended their flocks and
played the pipes together. But in the autumn Tyrian pirates descended on
the shore to raven. They wounded Dorco and stole his cows and kidnapped
Daphnis. Dorco dying gave his pipe to Chloe for one kiss at last and
bade her pipe his cows off the ship. And the cows on hearing the call of
the pipe jumped overboard and swam ashore with Daphnis charioted between
two holding to their horns. The boat was upset and the pirates who were
all in armor drowned. Daphnis and Chloe went to poor Dorco’s funeral.
They dedicated his pipe to the Nymphs. They cheered their flocks who lay
mourning for Daphnis on the hills. And all went on as before except that
Daphnis’ heart ached,—why he did not know.
Now (in Book II) came the time of vintage. These charming children
helped pick the grapes, tread the wine-press, fill the vats with the new
wine. That work done, back to their flocks went Daphnis and Chloe. There
old Philetas met them and sitting down told them a bright story of how
Eros had appeared to him in his garden, a little winged boy flitting
birdlike from tree to tree. 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.
