life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and
see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the
imaginary swain.

Once again, five centuries later,[10] the spirit of Greece shone for one
brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the
changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of _Daphnis and
Chloe_ is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the
idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the
purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and
expression, and yet in such manner as by its very _naïveté_ and innocence
to serve as a goad to satiated appetite. It has been suggested that the
work should properly be styled the _Lesbiaca_, a name which recalls the
_Aethiopica_ and _Babylonica_, and reminds us that the author, though a
student of Alexandrian literature, belonged to the school of the erotic
romanciers and traditional bishops, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Of his
life we know nothing, and even his name--Longus--has been called in
question. The story, unlike those of most later pastoral romances, is of
the simplest. The author, however, was no longer satisfied with the
natural refinement of popular love poetry; the central characters are
represented as foundlings nurtured by the shepherds of Lesbos, and are
ultimately identified, on much the same conventional evidence as Ion and
others had been before, as the children of certain rich and aristocratie
families.[11] The interest of the story lies in the growth of their
unconscious love, which constitutes the central theme of the work, though
relieved here and there by wholly colourless adventure.

A Latin translation made the book popular after the introduction of
printing, and the renaissance saw the French version by Amyot, a work of
European reputation. This was translated into English under Elizabeth; an