Grecian family.[4] An understanding is at last effected between them,
and Clitophon is in sad perplexity how to defer or evade his
approaching nuptials with his sister-bride, when Calligone is most
opportunely carried off by a band of pirates employed by Callisthenes,
a young Byzantine, who, having fallen in love with Leucippe from the
mere report of her beauty, and having been refused her hand by her
father, has followed her to Tyre, and seeing Calligone in a public
procession chaperoned by Panthia, has mistaken her for Leucippe! The
lovers are thus left in the unrestrained enjoyment of each other's
society; but Clitophon is erelong detected by Panthia in an attempt to
penetrate by night into her daughter's chamber; and though the
darkness prevents the person of the intruder from being recognised,
the confusion which this untoward occurrence occasions in the family
is such, that Clitophon and Leucippe, feeling their secret no longer
safe, determine on an elopement. Accompanied by the faithful Satyrus,
and by Clinias, a kinsman and confident of Clitophon, who generously
volunteers to share their adventures, they accordingly set sail for
Egypt; and the two gentlemen, having struck up an acquaintance with a
fellow passenger, a young Alexandrian named Menelaus, beguile the
voyage by discussing with their new friend the all-engrossing subject
of love, the remarks on which at last take so antiplatonic a tone,
that we can only hope Leucippe was out of hearing. These disquisitions
are interrupted, on the third day of the voyage, by a violent tempest;
and the sailors, finding the ship on the point of coming to pieces,
betake themselves to the boat, leaving the passengers to their fate.
But Clitophon and Leucippe, clinging to the forecastle, are
comfortably wafted by the winds and waves to the coast of Egypt, and
landed near Pelusium, where they hire a vessel to carry them to
Alexandria; but their voyage through the tortuous branches of the Nile
is intercepted by marauders of the same class, _Bucoli_ or buccaniers,