Essays on the Greek Romances
VI THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE _BY LONGUS_
The very title of Longus' romance shows a new departure. These LesbianPastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that isextant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique intype, characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervadinginfluence. Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Eventhe young hero and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the endthey are recognized as children of the great. City life plays littlepart in the plot. The changing seasons make the set. Only a fewadventures disturb the serenity of the hills and pasturelands: an onsetof pirates, a local war and (of course!) the usual kidnappings. Countrygods are worshipped. The music of Pan's pipes is the accompaniment ofthe story.
Of the author we know nothing. Longus "is not mentioned by any otherwriter before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical nameor event."[223] From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knewMytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and withworks of art; he had received a sophist's training in the rhetoricalschools. He wrote probably in the second century A.D., before AchillesTatius.
The early editions and translations show why Longus was so influentialin Elizabethan England and indeed in the modern European literatures.The first edition of the Greek text was published by the Junta Press inFlorence in 1598, but before that the romance had received its firstprinting in Amyot's French translation in 1559 and in the first Englishtranslation by Angell Daye in 1587. This "earliest English version"which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth was more of an adaptation than atranslation. 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." wasdubbed "Daphnis and Chloe a most sweet and pleasant pastoral romance foryoung ladies" and it too bore a Latin motto: "Humili casa nihilantiquius nihil nobilius.--Sen. Philos."
It is this delightful old translation which J. M. Edmonds "revised andaugmented" in his version for _The Loeb Classical Library_ and in hisintroduction there Edmonds says that this seems to have been GeorgeThornley's only publication. He was a sizar in Christ's College andreceived his Bachelor in Arts from the University of Cambridge. It isthis translation of Edmonds-Thornley which I shall use in my quotations.
Longus wrote a Prooimion to his romance which reveals the occasion andthe purpose of his writing. While hunting in Lesbos he saw in a fairgrove 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 hisstory. 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 itonce strange things happened for a goatherd Lamo found a fine baby boybeing nursed by a she-goat. Purple was his cloak and near him was alittle golden sword with an ivory handle. Lamo and his wife Myrtalereared the child and named him Daphnis. Two years later another shepherdDryas found in a cave sacred to the nymphs and carved with pictures ofthem a baby girl being nursed by a sheep. And beside her were littlepossessions, a girdle embroidered in gold, gilded shoes, golden anklets.Dryas and his wife reared the child and named her Chloe. These are ourhero and heroine.
Now when Daphnis was fifteen and Chloe thirteen, one night both Lamo andDryas had the same dream. The nymphs of the cave appeared and gaveDaphnis and Chloe to a certain little winged boy with bow and arrow whotouched them with an arrow and ordered that Daphnis tend a flock ofgoats and Chloe a flock of sheep. Their parents were disappointed thatthey too were to become herdsmen, for they had given the children a goodeducation, but they offered sacrifice in the cave to the Boy and obeyed.
The year was at the spring. Birds were singing, lambs gamboling, flowersblooming. The children too sang and danced together and made garlands offlowers for the Nymphs. All their joy and work they shared. But intothis paradise came danger. Trap-ditches had been set to catch amarauding wolf and into one, as he pursued a he-goat, fell Daphnis. Hewas 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 fairor touched anything so soft. Love began here though she knew it not.
Another danger menaced. Dorco an oxherd who had helped draw Daphnis fromthe pit fell in love with Chloe (he was a full-grown lad) and when hecould not get her by gifts, he and Daphnis held a contest of words forbeauty and Chloe was umpire. When their speeches were finished, Chloe atonce gave to Daphnis her prize--a kiss--and that kiss made Daphnis fallin love though he did not know what love was.
Defeated Dorco next appealed to Dryas for Chloe as a wife, but Dryasrejected him. Then he tried a base trick. He dressed up in a wolf-skinand hid near the spring where the beasts watered, hoping to meet Chloealone there. This he did, but the sheep-dogs caught him first and wouldhave killed him had not Chloe and Daphnis saved him. They thoughtDorco's disguise was only a game, for they never dreamed of rape intheir innocence.
So through spring and summer Daphnis and Chloe tended their flocks andplayed the pipes together. But in the autumn Tyrian pirates descended onthe shore to raven. They wounded Dorco and stole his cows and kidnappedDaphnis. Dorco dying gave his pipe to Chloe for one kiss at last andbade her pipe his cows off the ship. And the cows on hearing the call ofthe pipe jumped overboard and swam ashore with Daphnis charioted betweentwo holding to their horns. The boat was upset and the pirates who wereall in armor drowned. Daphnis and Chloe went to poor Dorco's funeral.They dedicated his pipe to the Nymphs. They cheered their flocks who laymourning for Daphnis on the hills. And all went on as before except thatDaphnis' heart ached,--why he did not know.
Now (in Book II) came the time of vintage. These charming childrenhelped pick the grapes, tread the wine-press, fill the vats with the newwine. That work done, back to their flocks went Daphnis and Chloe. Thereold Philetas met them and sitting down told them a bright story of howEros had appeared to him in his garden, a little winged boy flittingbirdlike from tree to tree. And Philetas tried to teach the children whoEros was and what was his power, for Philetas had loved
Amaryllis in hisyouth. But though Philetas as a wise _praeceptor amoris_ instructed themthus: "There is no medicine for love, neither meat, nor drink, nor anycharm, but only kissing and embracing and lying side by side," thechildren did not understand his teaching and played this game of lovewithout fulfillment. And as they exchanged childish kisses, disasteragain broke upon them.
Some young nobles of Methymna put in at the shore in a gallant boat tomake holiday, fishing and hunting with their dogs. When a country fellowstole the rope that tied up their ship, they carelessly made another ofgreen withes. Then their dogs while hunting frightened Daphnis' goatsand drove them down to the shore and some finding no other fodder ate upthe green cable. At that a strong wind off shore blew the boat out tosea to the great rage of the young Methymnaean owners. They beat upDaphnis in a fight with the peasants in which they too were wounded andprosecuted him in court, but Philetas was the presiding judge andacquitted the goatherd of any wrong. The incensed young nobles madetheir way home by land and persuaded Methymna to avenge their injuriesby sending a fleet to the land of Mytilene in an unannounced war. Thearmy plundered and devastated and right from the sacred cave of theNymphs kidnapped Chloe. But such sacrilege was not to be unavenged bythe gods and the Nymphs appearing in a vision to distraught Daphnisassured him that Pan would protect their votary. And indeed Pan sentawful omens to the Methymnaeans: the sound of the clashing of unseenweapons; the sight of ivy sprouting on the horns of Daphnis' stolengoats and of a crown of pine placed on Chloe's head while all her stolensheep howled like wolves. And the sea had its marvels: anchors stuck,oars broke, while a strange military piping filled the air. Finally Panappeared to the admiral and demanded the return of the maid stolen fromthe altar of the Nymphs and the return of her herds and flocks. So theterrified commandant put about and restored Chloe to the land. What astory she had to tell Daphnis! What sacrifices and libations the rusticsoffered to Pan and the Nymphs! Philetas too arrived to help them. Lamotold them the story of the invention of Pan's pipes which a Siciliangoatherd had sung to him. And on his own great pipes Philetas played thedifferent calls for the herds and the song of Dionysus. Daphnis andChloe acted out Lamo's story of Pan and Syrinx. The next day back totheir flocks went the children and they talked now of their love foreach other and took mighty oaths of faithfulness for life and death,Chloe swearing by the Nymphs, Daphnis by Pan. But since Chloe knew Panfor an amorous and faithless god, she made Daphnis take a second oath bythe trusty goats that he would match her faithfulness with his.
Now (in the beginning of Book III) war enters the story, for theMytilenaeans were incensed at the actions of the Methymnaean fleet andsent a land expedition under Hippasus for reparations. But this war wasconducted in a manner worthy of the golden age without ravaging ofcountry, with speedy offer of satisfaction, with cordial adjustment ofterms.
Winter now arrived, more bitter than war to Daphnis and Chloe. Theirflocks were shut in folds; they were secluded in their separatefarm-houses. But while Chloe learned to spin and found no comfort,Daphnis built a plan on hope. Braving the snow he struggled to a birdcenter near Chloe's home, as if he went fowling. Yet when he had reachedhis goal and snared many birds, he dared not approach the farm-house forlack of excuse. But Dryas chasing a dog who had stolen some meat rushedout-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 thenext day their sacrifice to Dionysus. In the morning the lovers found afew moments alone in which to renew their troth, and after that Daphniscame often thither through the winter months.
Then spring came; the flocks were once more sent to pasture. Daphnis andChloe crowned their gods with flowers and honored them with piping. Theywatched the goats mate and wished to mate too, but knew not how. A citywoman, Lycaenium, married to a swain, heard their childish talk andbeing half enamored of Daphnis undertook to complete Philetas'instruction in the art of love and having had experience she taught himall. But he put off using his new knowledge. Instead he told Chloe thestory of Echo.
Many suitors now wooed Chloe, and Daphnis in despair told Myrtale, hisfoster-mother, how he too longed to wed the girl, but his suit seemedhopeless until to desperate Daphnis once more the Nymphs appeared andtold him where to find a purse of money that had been cast ashore fromthe Methymnaean ship. With the three thousand drachmae in it he won overDryas and Nape, who in turn persuaded his father and mother to acceptthe match. But Lamo wished the marriage postponed until the lord of themanor arrived in the autumn to give his consent. Now that they wereaffianced Daphnis and Chloe waited happily. Daphnis plucked for Chloe agolden apple that hung unplucked on top of a tree, the best of all, asymbol of the victory of love. And in return he received a kiss moreprecious even than an apple of gold.
Now (in Book IV) with the autumn and the vintage the lord Dionysophaneswas coming with his wife Clearista to inspect his estate. Lamo's pridewas the beautiful garden he had made, so it was a major disaster when arejected suitor of Chloe, churlish Lampis, devastated it for spite. Lamobesought Astylus, son of Dionysophanes, to appease his father's wrathand this he did.
Astylus had a rascally parasite Gnatho with him who tried to corruptDaphnis, but in vain; so hoping for the future he persuaded Astylus toinduce 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 broughtout the tokens he had found with the child. They proved that he was theson of Dionysophanes and Clearista, exposed by them when they were youngand thoughtless and had too many children. So the young shepherd wastransformed into a prince and almost forgot Chloe. Indeed while he wascelebrating she was carried off by Lampis, the herdsman. Gnatho, seeingDaphnis' despair, to reinstate himself, dashed off and rescued Chloejust in time. Now her foster-parents produced her tokens and hernobility too was assured. All went to Mytilene to find Chloe's parents.The Nymphs and Eros appeared to Dionysophanes in a dream and Eros badehim 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 andChloe chose to have a country wedding and went back to the fields totheir rustic friends.
Indeed most of their lives they lived there in the simple way ofshepherds, worshipping the Nymphs, Pan and Eros, possessing great herdsof 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 fairshrine, set up statues there, raised an altar to Eros the shepherd andgave to Pan the soldier a temple to dwell in instead of a pine. All thiswas long afterwards. Now they had a rustic wedding. The shepherds playedtheir rude pipes for their Hymenaeus. Daphnis and Chloe slept no morethan the birds that night and Chloe then first learned that all theirlove-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 whichdistinguishes the romance. All the action takes place in the countrynear Mytilene. Only for the episode of the search for Chloe's parents dothe characters move to the city and their sojourn there is short.[224]The main events of the plot are the double exposures, the adoption andthe recognitions of Daphnis and Chloe and their common life asshepherds. The plot contains the usual features of a romance butvirtually all are adapted to the pastoral tone and there is a change intheir relative importance. The chief interests are the same as in theother romances: love, adventure, religion. But love is in itsspringtime: it buds and blossoms in the lives of two innocent childrenas the eternal miracle of nature.[225] The adventures are for the mostpart simple country disasters: Daphnis falling into a trap-ditch set fora wolf; a fair garden wantonly destroyed by a jealous rival. There areto be sure two kidnappings, but the rescues are speedy and magical.Daphnis is saved from the Tyrian pirates by the music of a shepherd'spipe. Chloe's return by the Methymnaeans is compelled by Pan himself.Even war is conducted with
noble generosity and given a peacefulsolution as if in a golden age.
Adventure indeed plays a far smaller part in the romance than doesreligion. Worship is heartfelt and a part of life. The gods honored aredeities naturally worshipped in the country: the Nymphs, Pan, Dionysusand Eros. They are ever-present.
Longus in his Preface says that he made these four books as a votive toEros, the Nymphs and Pan. The baby girl was exposed, nursed by a sheepand found by a shepherd in the cave of the Nymphs.[226] At criticalmoments in the lives of the hero and heroine the Nymphs appear invisions 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 Daphnisand Chloe to the care of a young winged boy who touched both with thesame arrow and bade each tend the flocks.[227] After Chloe was kidnappedby the Methymnaeans from the very cave of the Nymphs, the threegoddesses appeared to Daphnis in a vision by night and told him not tofear, for Pan of the pine-tree would rescue the maid.[228] Again whenfor his poverty Daphnis saw that Chloe was to be betrothed to somericher suitor, the Nymphs appeared and told him where to find a purse ofsilver.[229] Finally Chloe's noble parentage was discovered by thedirection of the Nymphs and Eros who appeared to Dionysophanes in hissleep and bade him make a wedding feast in Mytilene and at it passChloe's tokens about to all the guests.[230]
Such solicitous and tender care had been won by Daphnis and Chloethrough devotion. Out on the hills in the morning first of all theysaluted their gods. They gathered flowers to crown their statues. Theymade them gifts of grapes and apples or of pipe. They sacrificed to themkids and lambs, and to the Nymphs and Pan they offered constantly theirprayers and vows. In the cave of the Nymphs Chloe swore to share lifeand death with Daphnis. Under the pine Daphnis swore by Pan that hewould 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 hisvotaries.[232] Dionysophanes gives all praise for the care of thechildren to the united protection of Pan, the Nymphs and Eros.[233] Thebetrothal takes place before the statues of the Nymphs.[234] And alltheir lives Daphnis and Chloe worshipped the Nymphs, Pan and Eros fortheir very present help in time of trouble.[235] This was no formalritual: it was a vital faith offered with clean hands and a pure heart.
The worship of Dionysus also entered into the life of the wholecountryside. The song of the God of Wine is played by Philetas anddanced by Dryas. The festival of Dionysus is celebrated by the sacrificeof a ram, a feast, libations poured by ivy-crowned worshippers. In thegarden of the great estate of Dionysophanes there are an altar and ashrine to the god, and the temple had paintings about the life ofDionysus: Semele his mother, the sleeping Ariadne, the binding ofLycurgus, the rending of Pentheus, the conquered Indians, thetransformed Tyrians, Pan piping to those treading the wine-press and tothose dancing.[236] On the first day after he arrived at his estateDionysophanes made sacrifice to this god for whom he was named alongwith the other rural deities, Demeter, Pan, the Nymphs.[237] And Daphnisfor his happiness dedicated his bag and cloak to Dionysus, to Pan hiswhistle and his pipe, to the Nymphs his crook and milk-pails.[238] Thegod 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 mucha part of the set of the romance as is locality. For the monotony whichmight result from the single background of the great estate nearMytilene in Lesbos is varied not only by descriptions of fair garden,pastures, trees, hills, seashore, but by the mystic vicinity of the caveof the Nymphs, the pine-tree of Pan, the grapevine of Dionysus and overall 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 ofthirteen are sent out to tend the flocks in meadows and on hills. Summerbrings the adventures of the trap-ditch and the Tyrian pirates. Autumnhas its vintage and the menace of the Methymnaean roisterers. Winterhouses 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 autumnagain brings the vintage the lord of the manor comes to his estate.There follows the recognition of Daphnis as his son and soon Chloe isfound to be as noble. The weather is still fair, so after a royal feastin the city, the wedding is celebrated in the country for their heartswere rural.
Indeed the characters are for the most part country wights: the worthyfoster-parents, Chloe's suitors, Philetas the wise old herdsman. Theyare all serfs and Daphnis and Chloe were given pastoral names by theirfoster-parents to make them seem truly theirs. They are noble slavesfull of hospitality and kindness. When corruption menaces and bringstemptation, it comes from the city. Lycaenium is a young bride from thecity. Gnatho is a city parasite. Astylus, the son of Dionysophanes,although he is a great-hearted youth who pities Lamo for the destructionof his garden and welcomes his newly found brother Daphnis with openarms, shows the effects of city life by making his boon companion theworthless parasite Gnatho whose only thoughts were of eating, drinkingand lechery. Dionysophanes is nobler than his son: though gray-haired,he is still tall, handsome, able to wrestle with young men, and thoughwealthy he is good. Indeed some virtue must be attributed in thisfairy-story even to the villains. Dorco who tried to rape Chloe makes abeautiful end by giving her his pipe and teaching her how to call thecattle and Daphnis back from the raiders' ship. Gnatho redeems himselfby rescuing Chloe from her second kidnapping. And even Lampis, the roughherdsman, was deemed worthy of forgiveness and invited to the wedding.Daphnis and Chloe are brave, beautiful and virginal. Chloe keeps herchastity to the end. Daphnis sins but once, to learn what love is thathe may teach his maid.
Dalmeyda has pointed out another striking feature of the plot beside theunity of place and the strictly pastoral coloring. This is its two-partdivision of which the first might be entitled "the search for love" andthe second "the marriage of Chloe." The first part ends with the lessonof Lycaenium, the second with the country wedding.[239]
Within this two-part division and the unified pastoral scene, the usualdevices are employed for the pattern of the romance, conversation,soliloquies, oaths, court-room speeches, happy ending, but all aresimplified to a country standard. Typical of what I mean is thebreath-taking conversation that the lovers secure alone after theirwinter separation, {logon homilia terpne}.[240]
"Chloe, I came for thy sake." "I know it, Daphnis." "'Tis long of theethat I destroy the poor birds." "What wilt thou with me?" "Remember me.""I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn inyonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts." "But itlies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow.""Courage, man; the Sun burns hot." "I would it burnt like that firewhich now burns my very heart." "You do but gibe and cozen me!" "I donot, 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 someemotional crisis the youngsters bemoan to themselves their lot. Chloe,falling in love with Daphnis when she sees him bathe in the cave of theNymphs, laments the pain in her heart that is worse than abee-sting.[241] After Daphnis has been recognized as the son of thegreat Dionysophanes, Chloe weeps at being forgotten, is sure Daphnis isbreaking his oath of faithfulness and bids him farewell since she willsurely die.[242] Daphnis makes moan more often. When the kiss of Chloehas set him on fire, he complains that his heart leaps up; his soul isweakened; he will waste away with his strange malady.[243] Over thesleeping Chloe he murmurs a soft rhapsody.[244] Shut in alone by winterhe takes counsel with himself on what excuse to end theirseparation.[245] And when he hears that Lampis has carried Chloe off, heseeks solitude in the garden and rails at his bitter loss.[246] Even thecourt-room speeches in the prosecution of Daphnis by the Methymnaeansfor the loss of their ship are reduced to short and simple argumentssince a herdsman sat as judge.[247] The trial of course ends happily forDaphnis as mus
t inevitably the whole story. Of all the love romancesthis springtime love in the country is the most joyous.
As we read this pastoral romance, the unknown author becomes to us areal personality. His delight in the country is spontaneous and real. Heis a cultured person with genuine appreciation of art, music andliterature. Their influence enriches his story. Longus in his prefacetells how a painting which he chanced to see in the grove of the Nymphsgave the inspiration for the writing of his novel, for the paintingpictured a history of love and he longed to write something that wouldcorrespond to the picture. Paintings again he mentions in hisdescription of a shrine of Dionysus, paintings telling all the myths ofthe god.[248] The images of the Nymphs in the cave are describedcarefully by him: cut out of the rock they were, feet unshod, arms bareto the shoulders, hair falling on their necks, their garments belted, asmile in their eyes.[249] A statue of Pan stood under his sacred pineuntil at the end Daphnis and Chloe built him a shrine.[250] Over andover these representations are referred to as symbols of very presentgods.
The music that fills the romance is the sound of the shepherds' pipesand the voice of song. Daphnis makes a pipe of reeds and teaches Chloehow to play on it.[251] So well did she learn that on Dorco's pipe shecould call the cattle back from the raiders' ship.[252] When springbrought them out-doors, both Daphnis and Chloe challenged thenightingales with their piping and the birds answered.[253] Philetas theold herdsman outdid all in playing on the great organ-pipe of hisfather. He played special strains for cows and oxen, for goats, forsheep. He played too the melody of Dionysus and to it Dryas footed thedance of the vintage. Daphnis too played on Philetas' pipe a love-songand danced with Chloe the story of the origin of the pipe, Pan's wooingof the maid Syrinx.[254]
Daphnis displayed his art for his own father and mother, before he wasrecognized as their son, to do them pleasure. He blew the call of thegoats; he blew their soft lullaby; he blew their grazing tune; he blewthe alarm for a wolf; he blew the recall. And the goats responded to allhis different strains.[255] After the wedding the shepherds piped thebride 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 picksthey 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 ofBion[258] and Moschus,[259] but it was the Sicilian goatherd parexcellence who instructed Longus as he did Lamo in his story.[260]Calderini shows the various traces of the inspiration which Longusreceived from the Alexandrian idyl. There is a continuous alternation ofdescriptions of nature with descriptions of emotion all composed with acertain serenity and restraint. The pain is not too violent; thedescriptions of nature are not too detailed or pedantic. There are manyspecial similar motives: the descriptions of paintings and statues; thefear and the protection of Pan and the Nymphs; the vengeance of Eros onthose who scorn him; the young lovers who frequent the gymnasia and thepalestra; 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 ata distance.[261] The pastoral name Daphnis is taken from the idealshepherd of Theocritus and Vergil. Pastoral setting and pastoralnarrative have the flavor of Theocritus. Episodes are identical: Chloeplaits a tiny cage for a grasshopper as did the young lad carved on thebowl of ivy-wood.[262] Daphnis and Chloe as they sit kissing each otheron the hill see a fisherman's boat passing on the sea and listen to hissong.[263] So in Theocritus lovers on the land embracing look out at thefar distant sea.[264] But above all, Longus saw as Theocritus did thatin the lives of herdsmen lay true romance, and while Theocritus sang hisshort lays, closely affiliated with the mimes in their use of the comic,Longus lifted the love of goatherd and shepherd to the realm of purefiction by idealization and tenderness. His originality was in makingyoung love grow with the seasons to maturity. The name of his heroine,Chloe, a young green shoot, is symbolic of this growing life.[265] Hisawareness of his unique contribution to romance perhaps appears in histitle: _The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe_.
Sappho too was known and cherished by Longus. There is a possiblereminiscence in the description of Daphnis turning paler than grass inits season.[266] There is a sure reminiscence of Sappho's hyacinth onthe mountains crushed by the feet of the passing shepherds in Lamo'spity for his flowers trodden down by a marauder.[267] And to SapphoLongus owes the climax of Daphnis' wooing at the end of Book III when hepulls "the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough," saved byFortune for a shepherd in love, and putting it in Chloe's bosom makes ita symbol of her beauty and his prize.[268]
Drama too had a definite influence on Longus, indeed the word {drama} or{dramatikon} is applied to these romances by Photius.[269] The tworecognition scenes in which Daphnis and Chloe find parents through thetokens placed with them when they were exposed as babies are copied fromtragedy. New Comedy furnished at least three characters to the romance,Gnatho the parasite, Sophrone the nurse who exposed the babyDaphnis[270] and the city wench, Lycaenium. Elegiac poetry furnishedPhiletas, the father perhaps of erotic elegiacs. Echo repeating the nameof Amaryllis suggests Vergil.[271] And Ovid perhaps contributed threenames: Astylus, Dryas and Nape.[272] The influence of the rhetoricalschools is slighter than in the other romances, but appears in thecourt-room scene with its speeches and in the use of parallelism andcontrast. Parallelism, as Calderini says,[273] includes all the plot ofthe romance and proceeds from the number and selection of the charactersto the variety of the secondary episodes and to the description of thesmallest details. Daphnis and Chloe are both exposed, both rescued byshepherds. Both are kidnapped. An attack on Chloe is made by Dorco, onDaphnis by Gnatho. Chloe touches Daphnis when he is bathing and falls inlove. Daphnis kisses Chloe and his heart rises to his lips. Astylus, thecity son of Dionysophanes, is sophisticated, Daphnis is virginal. Theoath of Daphnis is matched by the oath of Chloe. On and on proceeds thisbalancing. And the parallelism appears not only in plot, but in detailsof phrase and sentence structure: balanced rhythmical phrases set off byrhymes or alliterations; bipartite or tripartite periods, elaborate intheir rhetorical structure. Sometimes indeed Longus' Pastorals seemwritten in modern verse, indeed they are written in poetic prose.[274]
Out of all these interests in art, music and literature and beyond themLongus has created a style peculiarly his own and suited to his pastoralromance. His sentence structure is simple and paratactic. Hiscomparisons are drawn from the life of shepherds. Chloe is as restive asa heifer.[275] Dorco claims he is as white as milk but Daphnis saysDorco is as red as a fox.[276] Daphnis and Chloe run about like dogsfreed from their leashes.[277] Chloe plunders from Daphnis' mouth a bitof cake as though she were a young bird being fed.[278]
Description and narration are as vivid as these little similes. We aremade to see Daphnis at his bath: his hair black and thick, his bodysun-burned dark as though colored by the shadow of his hair;[279] thecoming of spring with flowers covering the valleys and the mountains,bees humming, birds warbling, lambs gamboling; the vintage scene withthe peasants all busy in the vineyard with the wine-presses, thehogsheads, the baskets, and the grapes;[280] the winter landscape withthe deep snow, the rushing torrents, the ice, the laden trees;[281] thecountry wedding with the feast on beds of green boughs before the caveof the Nymphs, the songs of the reapers and the vintners, the dancing tothe pipes, the goats sharing the feast, the bridal procession with itspiping and singing.[282]
Longus' art of narration is employed as skillfully as are hisdescriptions. This art appears not only in the pattern of the wholeromance, but in the skillful use of stories within the story todiversify and enliven the longer narrative. After the feast of Dionysus,the old men, their tongues loosed with wine, fell into reminiscence andtold 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 Chloethe story of the gay little Eros whom he had found playing in his gardenflying like a nightingale from bough to bough of the myrtles, a lovelystory with a point for Philetas' _ars amatoria_.[284] The other insetstories are mostly short myths. So Daphnis tells Chloe how the mourningdove was once a maid, very proud of her singing and by her song aloneshe kept the cows she tended near her in the wood. But a shepherd ladrivalled her music and piped off eight of her finest cows to his ownherd. And the girl in despair prayed to become a bird. The godsconsented and left her that sweet voice so still she calls the cattlehome.[285]
At the feast of Dionysus Lamo tells a myth which a Sicilian goatherd hadsung to him, a tiny tale of how the girl Syrinx fleeing Pan's embraceswas changed into a reed and then made by Pan into his pipe, with reedsof unequal lengths to symbolize their ill-matched love.[286] All thesestories are very short and simple, bits of folk-lore such as peasantsmight relate at their feasts or in the open.
Much of the whole narrative is colored by a humor that is as playful andtender as the spirit of Philetas' merry child Eros. In the vintage sceneboth Daphnis and Chloe are beset with childish jealousy at theattentions that each other receives.[287] The author's humor playsaround them from the time when they first herded their flocks togetherto the day of their rural wedding. And the plot is set with humor, whichas Wolff observes, turns on "the incongruity between the children'sinnocence 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. Toddhas 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 _Astree_ of D'Urfe, 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 ElizabethanProse Fiction_ analyzes in detail Longus' influence on Robert Greene in_Manaphon_ and _Pandost_ and Shakespeare's use of Longus in the pastoralsetting, the hunt scene, the exposure motif in _The Winter's Tale_.There is rich material still left in the study of the Greek Romances forthe young scholar working in Comparative Literature. By them, by allstudents of literature _Daphnis and Chloe_ deserves to be read andreread. For Longus, just as Theocritus did in the Idyl, immortalized inthe realm of fiction the loves and woes of shepherds.
It is strange that a pastoral romance of such honest and simple charmshould have played a dramatic part in a melodrama of the earlynineteenth century. Yet it did, for it almost caused an internationalliterary warfare; it almost had a French officer shot for desertion; andit created serious political complications for him with the Bonapartefamily.
Paul Louis Courier (1773-1825) led a bizarre life as a vine-grower, anofficer in the artillery, a liberal pamphleteer, a member of the Legionof Honor, a prisoner in Sainte-Pelagie, a traveller, a poet, aHellenist. Throughout his checkered career, he anticipated Byron in hisromantic 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 seethe lantern of Demosthenes and drink the water of the Ilissus."
It was this passion combined with his disgust at the butcheries ofWagram 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 ofmilitary life and in Italy devoted all his time to those literarystudies to which before he had given his leisure.
Reared in the country (at Mere in Touraine), he had early becomefascinated with the pastoral romance _Daphnis and Chloe_ and now he wasdetermined to work on a Thirteenth Century Greek manuscript of it whichwas in the Laurentian Library. After some difficulty he obtainedpermission from the librarian, Francesco Furia, and his work startedhappily. It was to meet with the greatest success and the greatestdisaster. Courier, amateur that he was, discovered that the Laurentianmanuscript contained the text of the great lacuna in Book I (cc. 12-17).These chapters were lacking in all other manuscripts. Furia who hadworked for years on the manuscript, which was in parts nearly illegible,had never noticed these hitherto unknown chapters. They contain theepisode of Daphnis tumbling into the trap-ditch, Chloe's falling in lovewith him thereafter, and the contest of Daphnis and Dorco for Chloe'skiss.
Close on Courier's great discovery followed a most unfortunate episode,for after carefully copying the new chapters Courier obliterated them bya black ink stain. It was natural that the jealous Furia should believethat Courier had intentionally upset his ink-pot over them. Courierhimself in a letter to Renouard declared that inadvertently he had usedas a marker some paper which was soaked in ink on the under side, andthat made the blot.
The rage of Furia might itself have hindered the publication ofCourier's discovery and now a political complication arose as a newobstacle. Since the fame of his work was spreading, Elisa Bonaparte, thesister of Napoleon, wished to have Courier's publication dedicated toher and the prefect of Florence, the Baron Fauchet, announced hergracious wish at a formal dinner-party! Courier, who by now hated allBonapartes, cut his Gordian knot by rushing out at Florence a Greekedition in fifty-two copies before the French edition which he waspublishing at Paris appeared in 1810. The deed was done and neitherFuria nor la Bonaparte could undo it.
The fame and scandal of Courier's work of course came to the ears of theMinistry of War and orders were sent to General Sorbier, commandant ofthe artillery in Italy, to demand from Courier explanations of hisabsence from his squadron. Fortunately the general accepted Courier'saffirmation that he had never thought of deserting so that the Hellenistescaped being shot then, but fate pursued him.
On April 11, 1825, the body of Paul Louis Courier was found in a woodnear his country home at Veretz. He had been assassinated. It was longbelieved that this was a political crime, "a kind of epilogue of secretvengeance in party politics" as Edmond Pilon puts it.[290] It might alsohave been the revenge of a philologist. Actually the shooting was theresult of an embroglio with certain servants on his estate. Courier in1814 had married Mlle Herminie Clavier, who managed his estate in hisabsence. She seems to have betrayed him both in business matters andaffairs of the heart so that Courier separated from her and made newplans for the management of the estate. Five years after the murder theDepartment of Justice found that the assassins were certain servitors ofCourier who had been dismissed because of their connivance with MadameCourier in her iniquities. Courier, whose dearest dream had been thepastoral life of Daphnis and Chloe, escaped the dangers of war and ofprison only to be shot in the country he loved for petty personal spite.
Paul Louis Courier would, I am sure, have been happy to have part of hisfame rest on his precious new chapters of the Pastorals, and to knowthat his beautiful translation of their four books lives on in one newedition after another.