Daphnis and Chloe

by Longus

  While they were eating, and it has to be said that they were kissing more than eating, they saw a fishing boat sail by. There was no wind, and the sea was calm, and the sailors must have decided to row – and they were rowing with all their strength since they were hurrying in order to bring their newly caught fish as fresh as possible to the city for one of the rich men there. And as sailors often do to take their minds off work, they lifted their oars while the cox called out sailors’ songs to them, and the rest of them like a chorus shouted out in unison in intervals following the beat of his voice. When they sang like this in the open sea, their shouts were inaudible, since the sound dispersed over a large expanse of air. But when they ran in under a headland and rowed into a crescent-shaped curving bay, the shouting rang out louder and the cox’s songs travelled clearly up to the land. A deep glen lay above the plain and received the sound into itself, like a musical instrument, only to send out again a precise imitation of every word and noise, the splash of the oars and the voices of the sailors. What a pleasure it was to hear! The sound came first from the sea and then from the land, and the later the sound began on land, the more slowly it faded away.

  Daphnis, understanding what was happening, paid attention only to the sea, and took pleasure in watching the ship as it ran past the plain faster than a bird, and he tried to hold on to some of the songs to fit the melodies to his pipes. But Chloe, experiencing for the first time what we might call an echo, gazed first at the sea and the sailors who were calling out, and then she turned to the wood to see who was answering their songs. When they had sailed by and there was silence even in the glen, she asked Daphnis whether there was another sea behind the headland and another ship sailing by and other sailors who sang the same songs and fell silent all at the same time. Daphnis laughed at her sweetly and kissed her a kiss that was sweeter still; then he placed the garland of ivy on her and began to tell her the story of the echo, asking for ten more kisses as the price of his teaching:

  ‘There is, my girl, a large family of Nymphs: there are Nymphs of Ash and Nymphs of Oak and Nymphs of the Meadow, all are beautiful and all are musical. Echo was the daughter of one of them, and she was a mortal born from a mortal father, but she was also beautiful because of her beautiful mother. The Nymphs raised her, the Muses taught her to play the pipes, the flute, the lyre, the cithara, and all manner of song. When the girl reached her bloom, she danced with the Nymphs and sang with the Muses, but she fled at the sight of all males, human and divine, because she loved her virginity. But Pan was angry with the girl; he was jealous of her music and unable to touch her beauty, and so he visited such madness on the shepherds and goatherds that like dogs and wolves they tore her apart and scattered her limbs, still singing, all over the earth. Earth hid all her limbs and preserved her music as a favour to the Nymphs, and by the will of the Muses, she sends forth her voice and, just as she did when she was a girl, imitates all things, gods, humans, instruments, beasts. She even imitates Pan on the pipes, and when he hears the music, he springs up and chases her across mountains, not desiring to take her but rather to learn who his unseen student might be.’ When Daphnis completed his story, Chloe gave him not ten kisses, but many more, for the echo had repeated almost the same words he uttered as if to bear witness that he had not lied.

  The sun grew warmer each day, as the spring slowly gave way to summer, and they enjoyed new pleasures, now of summer. Daphnis swam in the rivers, Chloe bathed in the springs; he played his pipes in rivalry with the pines, and Chloe sang in competition with the nightingales. They hunted chattering grasshoppers, they captured chirping cicadas, they gathered flowers, or shook trees and ate the fruit. They lay down together naked, and a single goatskin covered them. Chloe would easily have become a woman had the prospect of blood not terrified Daphnis. Afraid that he might one day become reckless and lose control, he would often not allow Chloe to expose her nakedness; Chloe wondered at this, but she was ashamed to ask the reason.

  In this summer season, a large number of suitors arrived to ask about Chloe; they came from all over to ask Dryas for marriage, bringing gifts or making large promises to win her hand. At this Nape’s hopes were raised, and she advised that Chloe be given away in marriage on the grounds that if a girl of such an age were kept much longer at home, she would very likely soon lose her virginity while pasturing the sheep and make a man of some shepherd in return for apples or flowers. Nape felt that they should make her the head of a household and take the many presents for themselves and keep them for their own legitimate son – she had given birth to a male child not long before. Dryas was at times swayed by her words, especially since the gifts mentioned by each suitor were well beyond the expectations of a shepherd girl, but then he reflected that the girl was better than her peasant suitors and that if he ever found her true parents she would increase his fortune substantially, and so he postponed his decision, kept putting off an answer from day to day, and in the meantime did quite well by the suitors’ presents. When Chloe learned of this, she was deeply pained, and avoided Daphnis for a long time because she did not want to hurt him. But when he insisted and persisted in asking her, and was plainly suffering more by not knowing than he would have been if he did know the truth, she told him everything, how she had many wealthy suitors, how Nape was asking for a speedy marriage and how Dryas did not decline them but had postponed his decision until the grape harvest.

  Daphnis was so upset at her words that he sat down and cried, and said that if Chloe were no longer a shepherd, he would die, and not only he but all the sheep would die too without a shepherd like her. Then pulling himself together, he regained his confidence, and decided to persuade Chloe’s father and enrol himself as one of her suitors, and he hoped that he would prevail over the others. He was disturbed by one thing: Lamon was not wealthy. But this was the only thing that made Daphnis’ hope a slim one, and he nevertheless resolved to be a suitor, and Chloe agreed with him. He did not dare to speak to Lamon directly, but found the courage to speak to Myrtale and revealed his love to her and put forward arguments in support of the marriage. At night, Myrtale disclosed his desires to Lamon, but he reacted harshly to Daphnis’ petition, and abused her for wanting to marry a shepherd’s daughter to a boy whose infant tokens had promised a great fortune and who, if he were to find his own kin, would set them free and make them the masters of a large estate. Myrtale was afraid that Daphnis, on account of his love, might try to kill himself if his hopes of marriage were dashed, and so she gave him other reasons for Lamon’s refusal: ‘We are poor, my child, and we want a bride who is richer than we are, while they are wealthy and want wealthy bridegrooms. But come, go and talk to Chloe and persuade her and her father not to ask for too much and to give her in marriage to you. She loves you dearly and would rather sleep with a poor but handsome lover than some rich ape.’

  Myrtale never thought that Dryas with packs of rich suitors around him would agree to this, but she hoped her reasons for putting off Daphnis’ suit seemed plausible, and Daphnis could not find fault with her advice. He was far short of what he desired, however, and so he did what all poor lovers do: he cried and again called on the Nymphs for help. And in the night they appeared to him in his dreams, and they stood beside him just as they had before, and once again the eldest spoke: ‘Another god is looking out for Chloe’s marriage, but we shall give you gifts with which you might sway Dryas. The ship of those young Methymneans (your goats nibbled at its willow shoot) was that very same day swept by the winds far from the coast, but in the night a sea breeze ruffled the waves and then the ship was driven ashore against the cliffs of the steep headland. The ship and its cargo were more or less destroyed, but a purse of three thousand drachmas was thrown out by the waves and is lying hidden under seaweed near a dead dolphin. No passer-by has approached the area because of the foul odour. You should go, and when you get there, pick it up, and after you pick it up, give it to Dryas. For the moment, it is enough for you not to seem to be a poor man: later,
you will even be rich.’

  They spoke and vanished into the night. At daybreak, Daphnis leaped up joyfully, and whistled as he drove his goats to pasture. He kissed Chloe, kneeled down before the Nymphs and went down to the sea as though to bathe in the water, and he walked on the sand near the line where the waves broke, searching for the three thousand. It wasn’t going to be hard: the dolphin lay there in his path, giving off a foul stench, cast up on the shore, clammy from decay. Using the horrible smell as his guide, he went to it at once, removed the seaweed and found his purse of silver. He took it up and placed it into his bag, but before he left the spot, he shouted out in celebration of the Nymphs and the sea. Although he was a goatherd, he loved the sea more sweetly than the land because it was helping him marry Chloe.

  Now that he had three thousand, he lingered no more, but thought himself the richest of all men in the world (not just of the farmers there), and he went straightaway to Chloe, told her about the dream and showed her the purse, and then he asked her to watch over the flocks until he should return, and raced off to see Dryas. He found him threshing the grain with Nape, and boldly launched into the subject of marriage: ‘Give me Chloe as my wife. I know how to reap well and to prune vines and to plant slips; I know how to plough the land and winnow the grain in the wind. Chloe can bear witness to how well I pasture the flocks. Fifty goats I received, and I made their number double. I’ve also myself reared fine, large he-goats when previously we used to send our she-goats out to other stud farms. I’m young too, and an honest neighbour, and a she-goat nursed me, as a ewe did Chloe. And my gifts shall be superior to the other suitors’ in the same way that my claims are stronger than theirs. They will bring goats and sheep, a yoke of scurvy oxen and corn that’s barely acceptable as food for hens, but from me you will get these three thousand. Only, don’t let anyone know of this, not even my own father, Lamon.’ With that, he handed over the money, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

  As soon as Dryas and Nape saw that much silver, beyond what they had ever hoped to see, they immediately swore to give him Chloe and promised to persuade Lamon. Nape remained there at the floor with Daphnis as she drove the cows around and threshed the corn in the machine, while Dryas stored the purse in the same place where he had hidden the tokens of Chloe’s birth and then set off hastily to Lamon and Myrtale intending to ask them – how strange! – for a marriage. He found them measuring the newly winnowed barley and feeling dejected because the crop was almost less than the seed that they had sown. He tried to comfort them and said the problem had afflicted everyone. Then he asked that their Daphnis be for his Chloe saying that though other suitors were offering many gifts, he would take nothing from them, but rather would give the two of them a present from his own household. Daphnis and Chloe had been raised together from their childhood, he said, and by grazing with each other, they were joined by a love that could not easily be broken, and what’s more, they were now old enough to sleep with each other. He said all this and much more; in truth, he did stand to win three thousand if he could convince them about the marriage. Lamon was no longer able to plead poverty as an excuse (Dryas and Nape were not looking down on them) or Daphnis’ youth (he was already a young man), but he held back from speaking the truth and from saying that Daphnis was too high for such a marriage, and so after a little pause he answered in these words:

  ‘You are right to honour your neighbours before strangers and you are right not to regard wealth as higher than honest poverty, and may Pan and the Nymphs love you for it. I too am eager for this marriage. I would be mad if I, especially now as I get older and need help with the work, didn’t seize on this union of our families. It would be something worthy. And Chloe is much sought after too; a radiant girl in the prime of her youth, she’s good in every way imaginable. But since I am a slave and am not the lord of my own affairs, we must inform my master and obtain his consent. So come, let us put off the marriage until the autumn. We have visitors from the town and they say that he will come then, and at that time they shall be man and wife; but for now let them love each other like brother and sister. And may I say this one thing, Dryas, the young man you’re taking all this trouble over is better than we are.’ When Lamon finished, he kissed Dryas and offered him a drink, since the sun was now at its midday height; and he continued to treat him with all friendliness and walked with him a part of the way home.

  Lamon’s parting words were not lost on Dryas and as he walked he reflected on who this Daphnis might be: ‘He was nursed by a she-goat as if the gods were watching over him, and he’s good-looking and nothing like that snub-nosed old man and his balding wife. He can come up with three thousand drachmas when no goatherd is likely to have three thousand pears. Was he abandoned just like Chloe was, and did Lamon find him just as I found her? Were tokens left with him like those that I found? If this is really what happened – and by Pan and the Nymphs, I hope that it is so – then perhaps Daphnis will, in finding his own parents, also find out something about Chloe’s mysterious birth.’ These were his thoughts and dreams as he reached the threshing floor. When he got there, he found Daphnis waiting in suspense for the news, and so he calmed him by greeting him as his son-in-law and promised to celebrate the marriage in the autumn, giving him his hand and pledging that Chloe would belong to no one but Daphnis.

  Faster than the speed of thought, without stopping to eat or drink, Daphnis ran to Chloe and found her milking and making cheese; he gave her the good news about the marriage and kissed her openly as his future wife and then shared in the work. He drew the milk into pails and set the cheeses on the baskets and guided the lambs and kids to feeding position beneath their mothers. When this was done, and all was in order, they washed and ate and drank, and they wandered about in search of ripe fruit. And fruits there were in abundance because it was the season when everything was ripe, lots of pears of all kinds wild and cultivated, and lots of apples, some fallen to the ground fragrant and scented like wine, others still hanging on the branches and gleaming fresh like gold. One apple tree had been stripped and had neither fruit nor leaves, and all its branches were bare, except for an apple that hung at the absolute top of the highest branches, big and beautiful, more fragrant by far than all the rest. The fruit picker must have been afraid to climb so high and had neglected to take it down: perhaps the beautiful apple had been saved for a shepherd in love.

  When Daphnis saw this apple, he was eager to climb up and take it down, and disregarded Chloe’s attempts to stop him. But she was annoyed at being disregarded and went away to her flocks. Daphnis climbed up quickly, picked the fruit off the branch and gave it to Chloe as a gift. Then he delivered the following speech to his sulking lover: ‘Girl, the finest seasons created this apple, a fine tree nurtured it, the sun made it ripen, and Fortune watched over it. I saw the apple: once I saw it, I couldn’t leave it to fall to the ground and be trampled on by some grazing herd, or some slithering snake might poison it, or time could destroy it as it lay there seen and praised by other people. This apple, this prize that Aphrodite took for her beauty, this I give you as a prize for your victory. Her judge and yours are almost alike: he was a shepherd and I am a goatherd.’ He spoke, and put the apple in her lap; she kissed him as he drew near, and Daphnis did not regret his daring climb up the high tree, since the kiss he got was better than any apple, even an apple of gold.

  Book 4

  A fellow slave of Lamon’s arrived from Mytilene with the news that their master would be coming there a little before the harvest, to see whether the Methymneans’ raiding had done any damage to his fields. Since summer was already drawing to an end and the autumn was approaching, Lamon worked to make his master’s country home altogether enchanting. He cleaned out the springs so that they could have clean water, carried the dung out of the yard to remove any obnoxious odours and tended to the garden so that it would look beautiful.

  In fact, the garden was entirely beautiful, and looked like the gardens of kings. It was a stade i
n length, lay on elevated ground and was four plethra in width; it was like a large plain. It contained trees of all kinds, apple, myrtle, pear, pomegranate, fig and olive. On one side, there was a lofty vine that spread its ripening grapes over the apple and pear trees, as though the clusters were competing with the other fruit. But in addition to these cultivated trees, there were also cypresses, laurels, planes and pines, all wreathed in ivy; and clusters of ivy berries, which were big and turning dark, seemed to mimic the grapes. The fruit-bearing trees were on the inside as if for protection, and the other trees stood outside them as if to wall them in, and these again were enclosed by a narrow fence. All the parts of the garden were divided and separate; each tree trunk stood at some distance from the next, but higher up the branches joined and intermingled their foliage. This had happened naturally, but it also looked like a work of art. There were beds of flowers too, both wild and cultivated: the roses, hyacinths and lilies were cultivated by hand, and violets, narcissus and pimpernels were produced by the earth. There was shade in summer, and flowers in spring, and grapes for picking in autumn, and fruit in every season.

  From there the view of the plain was very fine, and one could see the shepherds grazing their flocks; the view of the sea was fine too, and the ships sailing by could be seen, and all this added to the luxurious charm of the garden. At the centre of the length and breadth of the garden was a temple and altar of Dionysus, the altar wreathed in ivy, the temple in shoots of vine. Inside the temple were paintings of Dionysus and of stories involving him: Semele giving birth, Ariadne sleeping, Lycurgus in chains, Pentheus being torn apart. There were Indians in defeat and Tyrrhenians being turned into dolphins and Satyrs treading everywhere and bacchants dancing. Nor was Pan forgotten, but he, too, sat there on a rock, playing his pipes, as if he were providing the music for the treading and the dancing.