It is set on the Greek isle of Lesbos, where scholars assume the author to have lived. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are wholly conventional, but the author imparts human interest to this idealized world. Daphnis and Chloe resembles a modern novel more than does its chief rival among Greek erotic romances, the AethiopicaofHeliodorus, which is remarkable more for its plot than for its characterization.
Daphnis and Chloe is the story of a boy (Daphnis) and a girl (Chloe), each of whom is abandoned at birth along with some identifying tokens. A goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. Daphnis and Chloe grow up together, herding the flocks for their foster parents. They fall in love but, being naive, do not understand what is happening to them. Philetas, a wise old cowherd, explains to them what love is and tells them that the only cure is kissing.[2] They do this. Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. Daphnis, however, decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, because Lycaenion tells Daphnis that Chloe "will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]."[2] Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom (Dorcon and Lampis) attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped by a drunkard. In the end, after being recognised by their birth parents, Daphnis and Chloe get married and live out their bucolic lives in the country.[2][3]
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, about a page of text was missing; when Paul Louis Courier went to Italy, he found the missing part in one of the plutei (an ancient Roman reading desk or place for storing manuscripts) of the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. However, as soon as he had copied the text, he upset the ink-stand and spilled ink all over the manuscript. The Italian philologists were incensed, especially those who had studied the pluteus giving "a most exact description" (un'esattissima notizia) of it.
Jacques Amyot's French translation is perhaps better known than the original. The story has been presented in numerous illustrated editions, including a 1937 limited edition with woodcuts by Aristide Maillol, and a 1977 edition illustrated by Marc Chagall. Another translation that rivals the original is that of Annibale Caro, one of those writers dearest to lovers of the Tuscan elegances.
The 1952 work Shiosai (The Sound of Waves), written by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima following a visit to Greece, is considered to have been inspired by the Daphnis and Chloe myth. Another work based on it is the 1923 novel Le Blé en herbebyColette.[5]
The 1987 film The Princess Bride contains similarities to Daphnis and Chloe (for example, in both stories the male romantic lead is captured by pirates). Lawrence Rinder, director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, attributes the inspiration for the film to Longus.[6]
Maurice Ravel wrote what he called a symphonie chorégraphique bearing the title Daphnis et Chloé in 1912 for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; its choreographer that year was Michel Fokine; at nearly sixty minutes, it is the composer's longest work, and two orchestral suites from it are regularly played
The work was adapted into a 64-minute silent filmbyOrestis Laskos in 1931, one of the first Greek cinema classics. The movie was originally considered shocking due to the nudity in some of the scenes.
^It has been suggested that the name "Longus" is merely a misreading of the last word of the title Λεσβιακῶν ἐρωτικῶν λόγοι δ in the Florentine manuscript; Seiler also observes that the best manuscript begins and ends with λόγου (not λόγγου) ποιμενικῶν.
Columbani, Raphael; Henry Cuffe and Marcello Adriani (1598). Longi Pastoralium, de Daphnide & Chloë libri quatuor. Juntine Edition. Florence: Apud Philippum Iunctam. — The editio princeps.
Courier, Paul Louis (1810). — Contained a previously unknown passage (the great lacuna, comprising chapters 12 to 17 of the first book), after the discovery of MS. F (above).
Courier, Paul Louis (1829). Longi Pastoralia. Paris. — First complete Greek text of Daphnis and Chloe, edited by P.-L. Courier, with a Latin translation by G. R. Ludwig de Sinner.
Seiler, Schaefer (1843). Longi Pastoralia. Leipzig: Boissonade & Brunck. — Greek text of Daphnis and Chloe with a Latin translation.
Hirschig, G. A. (1856). Erotici Scriptores. Paris, 1856. — Greek text with Latin translation, pp. 174–222.
Edmonds, John Maxwell (1916). Daphnis & Chloe, by Longus; The Love Romances of Parthenius and Other Fragments. Loeb Classical Library 69. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN0-674-99076-5. — With English translation revised from that of George Thornley.
Reeve, Michael D. (1994) [1982]. Daphnis et Chloe / Longus. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Editio correctior ed.). Stuttgart: Teubner. ISBN3-8154-1932-8. — Reeve's text is reprinted with the translation and commentary by Morgan (see below).
Morgan, J. R. (2004). Longus: Daphnis and Chloe. Aris and Phillips Classical Texts. Oxford: Oxbow Books. ISBN978-0-85668-562-0. — With reprint of Reeve's text and a commentary.
Daphnis and Chloe The Bibliotheca Classica Selecta's 2006/07 edition of the Greek text with the French translation of Jacques Amyot revised, corrected and completed by P.-L. Courier.
The pastoral loves of Daphnis and Chloe public domain audiobook at LibriVox
