Wolff's Synopsis of Longus's 'Daphnis and Chloe' W29-42 80712 in Large Print

Page 1 of 13 – Wolff’s Synopsis of Longus’s ‘Daphnis and Chloe’

Longus: Daphnis and Chloe

Preface (Prooemium)

Hunting on Lesbos, I saw in a beautiful grove a painting

representing the incidents of a love-story, "the fortunes of Love":

women in labour, nurses swathing new-born babes; infants

exposed; animals suckling them; shepherds carrying them away;

young people embracing; an attack by pirates; an inroad by a

hostile force. I procured an explanation of the series, and wrote

out these four books an offering to the God of Love, to the

Nymphs, and to Pan.

Book I

i-iii. Lamon, a goatherd upon an estate near Mitylene, found in

a thicket one of his she-goats suckling a boy-baby, who lay

exposed in a very rich mantle, with a little ivory-hilted sword. He

took the boy with the tokens home to his wife Myrtale, who agreed

with him to adopt the child. They named him Daphnis. iv-vi. Two

years later Dryas, a neighbouring shepherd, found in a cave

sacred to the Nymphs one of his ewes suckling a girl-baby, who

besides swaddling clothes had gilt sandals, golden anklets and a

head-dress wrought with gold. He took her with her tokens to his

wife, and they adopted her, calling her Chloe.

vii-x. When Daphnis was fifteen and Chloe thirteen, their

adoptive fathers had on the same night a vision of a winged boy

with bow and arrows, to whom the Nymphs presented Daphnis

Source: Samuel Lee Wolff’s ‘The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction,’ New York, 1912, pp. 29-42. 11 April, 2023 - 9:34:38 AM


and Chloe, and who, touching them with one of his shafts, bade

them follow the pastoral life. So they tended their flocks together

in the springtime, and played in childlike peace, until Love

contrived a serious interruption. xi-xii. Daphnis pursuing a goat

fell into a pit that had been dug to catch a wolf, and was rescued

by Chloe with the help of a cowherd. He was so covered with mud

and dirt that he must needs bathe. xiii-xvii. As Chloe helped to

wash him, she saw the beauty of his sunburned skin and felt the

softness of his flesh, and so first experienced love. She

languished, lay awake, took no food, and soliloquized with many

antitheses and oxymora.

Dorco the cowherd became enamored of Chloe, gave her

many rustic gifts, and at length vied with Daphnis in argument as

to whether Daphnis or he were the more beautiful - the prize to be

a kiss from Chloe. Daphnis was the winner; and the kiss set his

heart on fire. He too languished and grew pale; he too soliloquized

with (xviii) much oxymoron.

xix-xxii. Dorco asked Dryas for the hand of Chloe, but was

refused, as Dryas hoped for a better match. Thus thwarted, Dorco

resolved to carry off Chloe, and, in order to terrify her, clothed

himself in a wolf's skin and hid among the bushes near her

pasture-ground. But her dogs scenting him attacked and bit him

sorely, before Chloe, and Daphnis whom she had called, could

come to his rescue. Both Daphnis and Chloe thought the disguise

merely an innocent jest on the part of Dorco. They collected their

flocks, which had been scattered by the barking of the dogs, and,



tired by the day's exertion, slept soundly that night despite their

lovesickness.

xxiii-xxvii. Now Daphnis and Chloe again tended their flocks

together in the growing summer heat, which still further inflamed

them. Chloe milked her ewes and she-goats, and crowned herself

with a chaplet of pine. Daphnis bathed, and Chloe put on his

dress. They pelted each other with apples. Daphnis taught Chloe

to play upon his pipe, and gained kisses at second hand by

touching quickly with his lips the places her lips had touched.

Once when Chloe fell asleep at noonday, a grasshopper pursued

by a swallow dropped into her bosom, and the swallow fluttering

over her awoke her. She screamed; but Daphnis laughed at her

alarm, and with his hand took out the happy grasshopper, which

she kissed and replaced in her bosom. At the sound of a ring-

dove's cooing, Daphnis told Chloe the legend: how the dove was

once a maiden, a tender of flocks, sweet-voiced; and how a youth

contending with her in song charmed away eight of her cows. She

prayed to be transformed into a bird; the gods granted her prayer;

and still she calls her cows, in vain.

xxviii-xxx. In the early autumn, some Tyrian pirates descended

upon that coast. After a struggle with Dorco they drove off some of

his oxen; and finding Daphnis alone upon the shore, carried him

away too, calling upon Chloe for help. She ran to Dorco, who,

sore wounded and about to breathe his last, gave her his pipe,

with the direction to play upon it the call his oxen knew. Then he

died, taking one kiss from her as his reward. Chloe played the

well-known tune; whereupon the oxen thronged to one side of the



pirate ship and leapt overboard, capsizing it and precipitating the

crew and Daphnis into the water. The pirates, weighed down with

their armour, soon drowned; Daphnis, lightly clad, swam ashore

between two oxen, grasping a horn of each.

xxxi-xxxii. They celebrated in rustic fashion the funeral of

Dorco. Then Chloe bathed Daphnis, and for the first time in his

presence bathed herself; so that he was nigh distracted.

Book II

i-ii. Now came the vintage; and Daphnis and Chloe left their

flocks and helped. The women admired Daphnis, the men Chloe,

who both wished themselves back at the herding. At length, when

the grapes were all trodden and the new wine stored in casks, they

returned, and rejoiced with their flocks. An old man named

Philetas, sitting near, accosted them, and told them this Idyll:

iii-vi. "I have a beautiful garden. Today when I entered it about

noon, I spied a little naked boy under my pomegranates and

myrtles, some of which he had plucked. I sprang to catch him, but

lightly he escaped; and when I paused exhausted, he came near

and smiled so irresistibly that I offered him the freedom of my

garden for a kiss. Laughing he replied: 'One kiss from me would

only make you run after me for more; and in vain, for you could

never catch me. Child though I seem, I am older than Saturn or

old Time; and I have known you, Philetas, of old. I was by when

you wooed Amaryllis: she and your sons were my gifts to you.

Through me it is that your garden blooms. But just now I am



shepherding Daphnis and Chloe.' Like a young nightingale he

sprang up among the myrtles, and vanished, but not before I saw

wings upon his shoulders, and a bow and arrows between.

Depend upon it, you are consecrated to Love."

vii-xi. "What is this Love" they asked, "a child or a bird?"

Philetas answered in praise of Love, telling of his dominion

over all nature and over the gods themselves; of the pains he

inflicts: heat, cold, and desire, loss of appetite and of sleep; and of

the remedies: to kiss, embrace, and lie naked together. Hereon

they mused; and, when Philetas had gone and they had returned

home, they realized, each of them, that the symptoms he had

described were their own. Next morning they tried for the first time

the first two remedies, and on the following day a literal version of

the third, but without avail.

xii-xix. At this time some young men of Methymne came to spend

the vintage in hunting and fishing along this coast. A peasant

having stolen the cable wherewith they had moored their boat,

they substituted a twisted willow-withe. The chase frightened

Daphnis's goats down to the shore, where finding no other food

they gnawed through the osier; so that a rising swell carried away

the boat and its contents. The youths found Daphnis, gave him a

beating, and were preparing to bind him, when Lamon and Dryas

appeared in answer to his cries, and insisted upon a fair hearing

for both sides. Philetas as the oldest man present was chosen as

judge, and, having heard the youths and Daphnis plead their

cause, decided for Daphnis. Enraged, the Methymnaeans seized



Daphnis again, but were beaten off by the countrymen and had to

make their painful way home on foot. There they told as much of

the story as favoured themselves, and incited their fellow citizens

to make war on the Mitylenaeans.

xx-xxiv. The invaders with a fleet ravaged the coast, seized

Daphnis's herds and carried off Chloe though she had fled for

asylum to the grotto of the Nymphs, where she had first been

found. Daphnis, not finding her at their usual

haunts, lamented her to the Nymphs, who reassured him in a

vision, promising the aid of Pan, to whom they recommended him

now to pay due honours. So he did, and returned home.

xxv-xxx. During that night and the next day the

Methymnaean fleet was beset with Panic terrors: the earth

appeared to be in a blaze, hostile vessels seemed to approach

with clashing oars, the goats' horns were wreathed with ivy, the

sheep howled like wolves, Chloe herself was garlanded with pine-

branches; anchors stuck, oars were split, dolphins leapt from the

sea and shattered the vessel's planks; and from the top of a

neighboring headland were heard the terrific notes of Pan's own

pipe. At length Pan himself addressing the commander in a dream

bade him restore Chloe and the goats and sheep, which being

immediately landed, Pan's pipes guided, now playing a sweet

pastoral measure, over this strange country back to Daphnis.

xxxi-xxxiii. Daphnis and Chloe gratefully sacrificed to the

Nymphs and to Pan; Lamon and Dryas, Philetas and his young

son Tityrus assisting at the feast. Each of the participants



contributed to the entertainment. xxxiv. Lamon related the legend

of Pan and Syrinx, and of the invention of the pipes of Pan. xxxv.

Philetas on his own great pipe played all the varieties of pastoral

melody - the tune for oxen, the tune for goats, the tune for sheep -

and finally the vintage-dance. xxxvi. This Dryas danced in

pantomime, imitating every process of the vintage. xxxvii-xxxix.

Then Daphnis and Chloe in pantomimic dance enacted Pan and

Syrinx - Daphnis at length playing so sweetly upon Philetas' pipe

his lamentation for the Nymph transformed, that Philetas bestowed

upon him the pipe. Daphnis dedicated his old boyish pipe as an

offering to Pan; and with Chloe driving homeward their flocks and

herds, so ended the day. Next morning they met earlier than

usual, again tried in vain the remedies of love, and vowed mutual

fidelity.

Book III

i-iii. Mitylene now sent an army against Methymne, which, by

this time, discovering the true cause of the fray to have been the

insolence of her own young men, asked for peace and offered to

restore all the spoils - an offer which was at once accepted. "Thus

did the war between Methymne and Mitylene begin and end in an

equally unexpected manner."

iv-xi. Now winter came, and snow blocked the roads and shut

the cottagers within doors to their fireside occupations. Chloe was

kept at the spinning and the wool-carding, but Daphnis went

abroad to snare birds in the trees near Chloe's cottage, hoping for

a pretext to enter and see her. When he had snared a bagful



without seeing a sign of life from within, he was just about to

depart when Dryas himself - in chase of a sheep-dog that had

stolen his meat - came out and heartily invited Daphnis in.

Daphnis and Chloe met and embraced; she served wine, herself

sipping first, and he drank at the spot her lips had touched. Then

they all sat by the fire, and at length Lamon and Myrtale invited

Daphnis to remain till the morrow. He gladly accepted, and gave

them his bag of birds for supper. So they sat round the fire again,

drinking and singing and telling stories till bed-time. Next day

Daphnis and Chloe snared birds together, and again exchanged

vows, and told of their longing for the spring. Then Daphnis took

his leave, but often thereafter contrived occasion for new visits.

xii-xx. At last came spring once more, all living creatures loved,

and Daphnis and Chloe, themselves shepherded by Love, went

forth before all the other shepherds, that they might be together

alone. Daphnis now grown bolder in love tried to treat Chloe as he

saw the rams treat the ewes, and the he-goats their mates, but still

in vain. And now Lycaenium, the young city wife of their old

neighbor Chromis, gave Daphnis a lesson in love. This, however,

he would not practise with Chloe, fearing to hurt her.

xxi-xxiii. As they sat together, a fishing-boat passed near

them, the boatswain and the sailors singing a rowing song and

chorus, which the echo prolonged and redoubled. "Was there

another sea behind the hill, and other sailors singing?" Chloe

asked when all was still again. Daphnis smiling told her the legend

of Echo - stipulating for a reward of ten kisses: 'Echo, the daughter

of a nymph and of a mortal, learned from the Muses every kind of



music. She refused marriage, and fled the sight of men. Pan in

his indignation inspired the shepherds with such frenzy that they

tore her limb from limb. Her melodious body, though covered with

earth, still preserves its gift of music, and imitates all sounds, even

those of the pipes of Pan, who, when he hears her, rushes over

the hills to find his hidden pupil.' Chloe gave Daphnis kisses not

ten but a thousand.

xxv-xxix. This summer Chloe had many suitors, who offered

rich gifts; but Dryas still postponed a decision, in the hope of a

more brilliant match, aware as he was that Chloe was something

above a shepherd's daughter. Daphnis, in distress at the chance

of losing her, desired to ask her hand, but his foster-parents also

disapproved, wishing to reserve him for a less humble bride.

Moreover, Daphnis himself was poor. Now he prayed to the

Nymphs, who in a vision told him that the boat of the

Methymnaeans youths had been driven ashore and wrecked,

leaving a purse of three thousand drachmas under a bunch of

seaweed near a dead dolphin, the smell of which had kept others

from finding the treasure. This very smell guided Daphnis to it,

who boldly offered it to Dryas as his wooing gift.

xxx-xxxiv. Dryas accepted, and went to gain the consent of

Lamon. This Lamon gave, subject to the consent of his master,

who was expected from Mitylene in the autumn to visit his estate.

Joyfully Dryas returned and told the news to Daphnis, joyfully

Daphnis received it and ran to tell Chloe. Her he found at the

milking and cheese-making, wherein he helped her openly, as her

affianced; and then they went together to look for fruit. One bright



particular apple, golden and fragrant, and solitary on the top of the

tree, Daphnis climbed for, and plucked, and gave to Chloe; and

she gave him a kiss more precious than a golden apple.

Book IV

i-vi. In preparation for his master's visit, now announced definitely

by a neighbour, Lamon set in order his house and his garden.

Soon another messenger, Eudromus, came with orders for them to

get in the vintage: at the end of the vintage the master would

come. Daphnis gave Eudromus many gifts, who returned to

Mitylene well pleased.

vii-x. Lampis, an insolent herdsman and an envious wooer of

Chloe, desiring to destroy Lamon's interest with his master and so

spoil her match with Daphnis, broke into Lamon's garden at night,

and uprooted, broke, or trampled down the flowers. All were in

despair until Eudromus - coming to announce the arrival of the

master in three days, and that of his son the next day - counselled

them to tell the whole to their young master Astylus. Astylus, who

in fact came next day with Gnatho his parasite, heard the story,

and promised to intercede for them with his father - promised

indeed to lay the blame upon his own horses, which he would say

had done the damage.

xi-xii. Gnatho now made paederastic proposals to Daphnis, who

knocked him down. Still Gnatho hoped to obtain him as a gift from

Astylus.



xiii-xv. Meanwhile, Dionysophanes and Clearista arrived, and, well

pleased with what they saw - for they excused the condition of the

garden - promised Lamon his freedom. Then they inspected the

herd of goats, which they found to have prospered under

Daphnis's charge, and they listened while Daphnis put the goats

through a drill, to the sound of his pipe.

xvi-xvii. Gnatho now with arguments in favour of paederasty

asked Daphnis of Astylus, who promised to beg him of

Dionysophanes. xviii. This conversation, overheard by Eudromus

and reported to Lamon, determined the latter to reveal the

circumstances of the finding of Daphnis. xix-xx. Accordingly, upon

Dionysophanes sending for Lamon and telling him that Daphnis

would accompany Astylus, Lamon told his story and produced the

tokens. xxi-xxiii. These tokens Dionysophanes and Clearista

recognized as having been exposed with their own youngest child;

and Astylus at once ran for Daphnis. Fearing that he was to be

treated with violence, Daphnis ran to a cliff, ready to throw himself

into the sea; but his brother reassured him, and brought him to

their father, who told them the story of the exposure. xxiv. Having

married young he had had a daughter and two sons - with which

issue being content, he had exposed his fourth child; but the

daughter and one son soon thereafter had died on the same day,

leaving Astylus the only survivor: so that the parents now rejoiced

at finding Daphnis again.

xxv-xxix. Daphnis still performed his duties as herdsman.

While his friends and parents feasted, and while he said farewell to

each of his pastoral implements and occupations, Chloe wept,



fearing that he would forsake her. Lampis seeing his opportunity

and certain that Daphnis would not marry her, gathered a band of

rustics and was carrying her off, when Gnatho rescued her, in the

hope of thus conciliating Daphnis; who did indeed forgive him

when Chloe was restored.

xxx-xxxiii. Daphnis now proposed to marry Chloe secretly: but

Dryas published the circumstances under which he had found her.

With a view to the happiness of Daphnis, his parents consented to

the marriage, and received Chloe, and arrayed her splendidly.

She too said farewell to her flock, and hung up her pipe, her scrip,

her cloak, and her milking-pails; and with the others went to the

city.

xxxiv-xxxvi. There, on the eve of the marriage-feast, the

Nymphs and Love appeared to Dionysophanes, bidding him

exhibit Chloe's tokens to each of the wedding-guests. So he did,

and they were acknowledged by Megacles, a man of high rank in

Mitylene. He told the story of Chloe's exposure. She had been

born at a time when his wealth had been exhausted; and he had

exposed her in the hope that some wealthier person might adopt

her. Then his riches had increased, when he had no heir; but the

gods had continually sent him dreams signifying that a ewe would

make him a father! With great joy he received Chloe for his

daughter.

xxxvii-xl. Next morning they all returned to the country; for

Daphnis and Chloe were tired of the city, and wished a rustic

wedding. And so did they celebrate it, with pastoral splendour;



and at last, too, found the remedy of Love! To Love, to Pan, and

to the Nymphs, indeed, they consecrated their lives; and their first

child, a boy, was suckled by a goat; their second, a girl, by a ewe.

[Source: Samuel Lee Wolff’s ‘The Greek Romances in Elizabethan

Prose Fiction,’ New York, 1912, pp. 29-42 - Online in The Open

Archive (archive.org).]


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Wolff's Synopsis of Longus's 'Daphnis and Chloe' W29-42 80712 in Large Print