This brief epitome of the plot shows its
simplicity
and its coloring.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
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. ” 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.
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. ” 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.
