Daphnis and Chloe (Greek: Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη, Daphnis kai Chloē) is a Greek pastoral novel written during the Roman Empire, the only known work of second-century Hellenistic romance writer Longus.
Contents
Setting and style
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 Aethiopica of Heliodorus, which is remarkable more for its plot than for its characterization.
Plot summary
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 naïve, 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. 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]." 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.
Characters
The characters in the novel include:
Astylus – Dionysophanes' son
Chloe – the heroine
Daphnis – the hero
Dionysophanes – Daphnis' master and father
Dorcon – the would-be suitor of Chloe
Dryas – Chloe's foster father
Eros – god of love
Eudromus – a messenger
Gnathon – the would-be suitor of Daphnis
Lamon – Daphnis' foster father
Lampis – a cow-herder
Lycaenion – woman who educates Daphnis in love-making
Megacles – Chloe's father
Myrtale – Daphnis' foster mother
Nape – Chloe's foster mother
Pan – god of shepherds and the wild
Philetas – old countryman who advises the heroes about love; likely named after Philitas of Cos
Rhode – Chloe's mother
Text tradition
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.
Influences and adaptations
The first vernacular edition of Daphnis and Chloe was the French version of Jacques Amyot, published in 1559. Along with the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor (published in the same year), Daphnis and Chloe helped inaugurate a European vogue for pastoral fiction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Daphnis and Chloe was the model of La Sireine of Honoré d'Urfé, the Aminta of Torquato Tasso, and The Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay. The novel Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre echoes the same story.
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 herbe by Colette.
Opera
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier wrote a Daphnis et Chloé pastorale in 3 acts in 1747
Jean-Jacques Rousseau worked on but did not finish a pastorale heroïque under the same title between 1774 and 1776
Jacques Offenbach in 1860 completed a one-act operetta based on the ancient novel
Ballet
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
Ravel's work was choreographed by Frederick Ashton for a staging by Sadler's Wells Ballet (now The Royal Ballet) at Covent Garden on 5 April 1951, with Margot Fonteyn as Chloe and Michael Somes as Daphnis; decor was by John Craxton
John Neumeier choreographed the Ravel for his Frankfurt Ballet company
Jean-Christophe Maillot in 2010 created a contemporary and sensual choreography of 35 minutes of the Ravel for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo; this featured Jeroen Verbruggen as Daphnis, Anjara Ballesteros-Cilla as Chloe, Bernice Coppieters as Lycenion and Chris Roelandt as Dorcon, directed by Denis Caïozzi and produced by Telmondis and Mezzo; it premiered on April 1, 2010, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco and has since been broadcast internationally
Art
Marc Chagall produced a series of 42 color lithographs based on the tale of Daphnis and Chloe.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) published a portfolio titled Daphnis et Chloe (1937) which features 49 woodcuts illustrating the story.
Cinema
The work was adapted into a 64-minute silent film by Orestis 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.
The story was the basis for the 1963 film Μικρές Αφροδίτες (Mikres Afrodites), or Young Aphrodites, by the Greek filmmaker Nikos Koundouros, based on a script of Vassilis Vassilikos.
The story was adapted into a movie in 1993 by the Russian filmmaker Yuri Kuzmenko. It starred Lyubov Polishchuk as Daphnis' biological mother.
Radio
The work was adapted into a 45-minute radio play in 2006 by Hattie Naylor.