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    7 best short stories - Classic Erotica
    7 best short stories - Classic Erotica
    7 best short stories - Classic Erotica
    Ebook419 pages6 hours

    7 best short stories - Classic Erotica

    By Edith Wharton, Longus, Guy de Maupassant and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

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    About this ebook

    Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. The invention of printing, in the 15th century, brought with it both a greater market and increasing restrictions, like censorship and legal restraints on publication on the grounds of obscenity. Because of this, much of the production of this type of material became clandestine.
    August Nemo has selected seven classic tales of eroticism that are part of the history of human sexual culture:

    - Daphnis and Chloe by Longus
    - Idylll by Guy de Maupassant
    - Beatrice Palmato by Edith Wharton
    - Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
    - The Lustful Turk by Anonymous
    - Sub-Umbra by Anonymous
    - How He Lost His Whiskers: An Episode in the Life of Steve Broad by Anonymous
    For more books with interesting themes, be sure to check the other books in this collection!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTacet Books
    Release dateMay 12, 2020
    ISBN9783968582672
    7 best short stories - Classic Erotica
    Author

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

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      Book preview

      7 best short stories - Classic Erotica - Edith Wharton

      Introduction

      Welcome to 7 Best Short Stories - Classic Erotica, a collection that delves into the depths of classic erotic literature to present seven tales that have transcended the barriers of time and continue to captivate and intrigue modern readers.

      Erotic literature has long held a fascination for the human imagination, exploring the complex nuances of sexuality, love and desire through the written word. In these pages, you'll find a carefully chosen selection of short stories that embrace eroticism in its most refined and provocative form.

      From the times of the Roman Empire to the present day, erotic literature has been an artistic expression that challenges social and moral conventions, while engaging us in narratives that awaken the senses and the mind. Each story in this collection offers a unique and engaging vision of love, passion and its most intimate manifestations.

      From romantic lovers to explorers of sadomasochism, from intriguing medieval plots to sensual reflections of the Victorian era, these seven stories represent the best of the erotic genre in its purest and most timeless form.

      Prepare to be transported to a world of desire, lust and intrigue as you dive into these pages and discover the enduring power of classic erotic literature. These stories not only provoke, but also invite us to reflect on the complexity and beauty of human sexuality, thus enriching our understanding of the world and ourselves.

      Enjoy this journey through time and space, and allow yourself to be captivated by the timeless magic of these seven best classic stories of eroticism.

      Daphnis and Chloe

      by Longus

      While hunting in a grove sacred to the Nymphs, in the island of Lesbos, I saw the most beautiful sight that I have ever seen: a picture representing a history of love. The grove itself was pleasant to the eye, covered with trees, full of flowers, and well-watered: a single spring fed both trees and flowers. But the picture itself was even more delightful: its subject was the fortunes of love, and the art displayed in it was marvellous: so that many, even strangers, who had heard it spoken of, visited the island, to pay their devotion to the Nymphs and examine the picture, on which were portrayed women in childbirth or wrapping children in swaddling clothes, poor babes exposed to the mercy of Fortune, beasts of the flock nurturing them, shepherds taking them up in token of adoption, young people binding one another by mutual vows, pirates over-running the seas, and enemies invading the land.

      Many other subjects, all of an amatory nature, were depicted, which I gazed upon with such admiration that I was seized with the desire to describe them in writing. Accordingly, I diligently sought for someone to give me an explanation of the details: and, when I had thoroughly mastered them, I composed the four following books, as an offering to Love, the Nymphs, and Pan, and also as a work that will afford pleasure to many, in the hope that it may heal the sick, console the sorrowful, refresh the memory of him who once has loved, and instruct him who has never yet felt its flame. For no one has yet escaped, or ever will escape, the attack of Love, as long as beauty exists and eyes can see. May God grant that, unharmed ourselves, we may be able to describe the lot of others!

      Book One

      1.1 There is in Lesbos a flourishing and beautiful city, named Mitylene. It is intersected by numerous canals, formed by the waters of the sea, which flows in upon it, and adorned with several bridges of white polished stone: to look at it, you would say that it was not a single city, but a number of islands. About two hundred stades distant from the city, a wealthy man possessed a very fine estate: mountains abounding in game, fruitful cornfields, hillocks covered with vine shoots, and ample pasturage for cattle; the sea washed a long stretch of soft sandy beach.

      1.2 On this estate a goatherd named Lamon, while feeding his flock, found a child being suckled by a goat. There was a thicket of shrubs and briars, over which the ivy straggled, and beneath, a couch of soft grass, whereon the infant lay. Hither the goat often ran and wandered out of sight, and abandoning its own kid, remained by the side of the child. Lamon, pitying the neglected kid, observed the direction in which the goat went: and, one day at noon, when the sun was at its height, he followed and saw it cautiously entering the thicket and walking round the child, so as not to tread on and hurt it, while the latter sucked vigorously at its teat as if it had been its mother's breast. Astonished, as was natural, he approached closer, and found that it was a little boy, beautiful and well-grown, and wrapped in handsomer swaddling clothes than suited a child thus exposed: it had on a little purple tunic fastened with a golden clasp, and by its side was a little dagger with an ivory hilt.

      1.3 At first he was minded to take up the tokens, without troubling about the child: but afterwards, feeling ashamed at the idea of being outdone by the goat in humanity, he waited till night, and took everything to his wife Myrtale, the tokens, the child, and the goat. When she expressed her astonishment that goats should bring forth little children, he told her everything: how he had found the child lying exposed, and being suckled by the goat, and how he had felt ashamed to leave it to die. His wife agreed with him, and they resolved to hide the tokens, to bring up the child as their own, and to let the goat suckle him. Further, they decided to call him Daphnis, that the name might have a more pastoral sound.

      1.4 When two years had passed, a shepherd belonging to the neighbourhood, named Dryas, while feeding his flocks, made a similar discovery and saw a similar sight. In his district there was a cave sacred to the Nymphs: a large rock hollowed out within, and circular without. Inside were statues of the Nymphs, carved in stone, with feet unshod, arms bared up to the shoulders, hair falling down over the neck, a girdle around the waist, and a smile on the face: to judge from their attitude, you would have said they were dancing. The dome of the grotto was the centre of this mighty rock. Water, gushing from a fountain, formed a running stream; a beautiful meadow extended in front of the cave, the soft and abundant herbage of which was nourished by the moisture of the stream. Within were to be seen hanging up milk-pails, flutes, pipes, and reeds, the offerings of the older shepherds.

      1.5 A sheep, which had recently lambed, went so often to this grotto, that more than once she was thought to be lost. Dryas, wishing to punish her and make her stay with the flock to feed, as before, twisted a bough of pliant osier into a collar in the form of a running noose, and went up to the rock, in order to snare her. But when he drew near he beheld quite a different sight from what he had expected: he saw the sheep giving her teat, just like a human being, for a copious draught of milk, to a child, which, without a cry, eagerly shifted its clean and pretty mouth from one teat to the other, while the sheep licked its face, after it had had enough. It was a female child, and by its side also lay swaddling clothes and tokens, a cap interwoven with gold, gilded shoes, and gold-embroidered anklets.

      1.6 Thinking that what he had found was sent from Heaven, and being moved to pity by the example of the sheep, he took the child up in his arms, put the tokens in his wallet, and prayed to the Nymphs that he might be permitted to bring up their suppliant happily. Then when it was time to drive back his flock, he returned home, told his wife what he had seen, showed her what he had found, and bade her adopt and bring up the child as her own, without telling anyone what had happened. Nape - that was his wife's name - immediately took up the child and caressed her, as if afraid of being outdone in kindliness by the sheep: and, that it might be more readily believed that the child was her own, she gave it the pastoral name of Chloe.

      1.7 The two children soon grew up, more beautiful than ordinary rustics. When the boy was fifteen years of age, and the girl thirteen, Lamon and Dryas both dreamed the following dream on the same night. They dreamed that the Nymphs of the grotto with the fountain, in which Dryas had found the little girl, delivered Daphnis and Chloe into the hands of a saucy and beautiful boy, who had wings on his shoulders and carried a little bow and arrow: and that this boy touched them both with the same arrow, and bade them tend, the one goats, the other sheep.

      1.8 When they saw this vision, they grieved to think that Daphnis and Chloe were destined to tend sheep and goats, since their swaddling clothes seemed to give promise of better fortune: for which reason they had brought them up more delicately than shepherds' children, had taught them to read, and given them all the instruction possible in a country place. They resolved, however, to obey the gods in regard to those who had been saved by their providence. Having communicated their dreams to each other, and offered sacrifice, in the cave of the Nymphs, to the winged boy (whose name they did not know), they sent the maiden and the lad into the fields, having instructed them in all that they had to do: how they ought to feed their flocks before midday, and when the heat had abated: when they should drive them to drink, and when drive them back to the fold: when they should use the shepherd's crook and when the voice alone. They undertook this duty as joyfully as if they had been entrusted with some important office, and were fonder of their goats and sheep than shepherds usually are: for Chloe felt she owed her life to a ewe, while Daphnis remembered that when exposed, he had been nurtured by a goat.

      1.9 It was the beginning of spring, and all the flowers were blooming in the woods and meadows, and on the mountains. The humming of bees, and the twittering of tuneful birds were already heard, and the new-born young were skipping through the fields: the lambs were gambolling on the mountains, the bees were buzzing through the meadows, the birds were singing in the bushes. Under the influence of this beautiful season, Daphnis and Chloe, themselves tender and youthful, imitated what they saw and heard. When they heard the birds sing, they sang: when they saw the lambs gambol, they nimbly skipped in rivalry: and, like the bees, they gathered flowers, some of which they placed in their bosoms, while they wove garlands of others, which they offered to the Nymphs.

      1.10 They did everything in common, and tended their flocks side by side. Daphnis frequently gathered together Chloe's wandering sheep: while she often drove back his too venturesome goats from the precipices. Sometimes one of them tended the two flocks alone, while the other was intent upon some amusement. Their amusements were those of children or shepherds. Chloe would pluck some stalks of asphodel from the marsh, to weave a locust-trap, without any thought for her flock: while Daphnis, having cut some slender reeds, and perforated the intervals between joints, joined them with soft wax, and practised himself in playing upon them until nightfall. Sometimes they shared the food they had taken with them from home, their milk, or wine. In short, it would have been easier to find sheep and goats feeding apart than Daphnis separated from Chloe.

      1.11 While they were thus engaged in their youthful sports, Love contrived the following trouble for them. There was a wolf in the district, which, having recently brought forth young, frequently carried off lambs from the neighbouring fields to feed them. The villagers accordingly assembled together by night, and dug some trenches, one fathom in depth and four in breadth: the greater part of the earth which they dug out they removed to a distance from the trenches: then, placing over the hole long pieces of dry wood, they covered them with the remainder of the earth, so that it looked level ground just as it had been before: this they did so cunningly that, if even a hare had run across, it would have broken the pieces of wood, which were more brittle than bits of straw; and then it would have been seen that it was not solid earth at all, but an imitation. Although they dug several similar trenches on the mountains and plains, they could not succeed in catching the wolf, which perceived the snare, but were the cause of the loss of a number of sheep and goats, and Daphnis also nearly lost his life, in the following manner.

      1.12 Two goats, in a fit of jealousy, charged each other so violently that the horn of one was broken, and, mad with pain, he took to flight bellowing, closely and hotly pursued by his victorious adversary. Daphnis, grieved at the sight of the mutilated horn, and annoyed at the insolence of the victor, seized his club and crook, and started in pursuit of the pursuer. But, while the goat was trying to make his escape, and Daphnis was in angry pursuit, they could not see clearly what was in front of them, and both fell into one of these pits - the goat first, and Daphnis after him. This saved Daphnis from injury, since he was able to hold onto the goat to break his fall. In this situation he waited in tears to see if anyone would come to pull him up again. Chloe, having seen what had happened, ran up, and, finding that he was still alive, called one of the herdsmen from the neighbouring fields to her assistance. The herdsman came up, and looked for a long rope with which to haul him out, but found none. Then Chloe unloosed the band which fastened her hair, and gave it to the herdsmen to let down. Then they stood on the edge of the pit and pulled: and Daphnis, holding on to the band as it was being hauled up, at last succeeded in reaching the summit. Then they drew up the wretched goat, whose horns were both broken - so fully was his vanquished adversary avenged – and made a present of him to the herdsman, in return for his assistance, having agreed to tell those at home that he had been carried off by a wolf, if anyone missed him. Returning to their flocks, and finding them all feeding peacefully and in good order, they sat down on the trunk of an oak, to see whether Daphnis had been wounded in any part of his body by his fall. But they found no trace of any injury or blood: only his hair and the rest of his person were covered with earth and mud. Daphnis therefore resolved to wash himself, before Lamon and Myrtale found out what had happened.

      1.13 He went with Chloe to the grotto of the Nymphs, where the fountain was, and gave her his tunic and wallet. And Daphnis, standing by the spring, began to wash his hair and his whole person. His hair was dark and thick, and his body tanned by the sun; one would have thought that it was darkened by the reflection of his hair. Chloe looked at him, and he seemed to her to be very handsome; and, because she had never thought him handsome before, she imagined that he owed his beauty to his bath. She washed his back and shoulders, and, finding his skin soft and yielding beneath her hand, she more than once secretly touched herself, to see whether her own skin was more delicate. Then, as it was near sunset, they drove back their flocks to the homestead: and, from that moment, Chloe had but one thought, one desire - to see Daphnis in the bath again.

      The following day, when they returned to the pasture, Daphnis sat down under his favourite oak-tree and played on his pipe, looking awhile at his goats, which, lying at his feet, seemed to be listening to his strains. Chloe, seated near him, was also looking after her sheep, but her eyes were more frequently fixed upon Daphnis. She again thought him handsome as he was playing on his pipe, and this time, imagining that he owed his beauty to the music, she took the pipe herself, to see whether she could make herself beautiful. She persuaded him to take a bath again, saw him in the bath and touched him: then, on her way home, she again began to praise his beauty, and this praise was the beginning of love. She did not know what was the matter with her, being a young girl brought up in the country, who had never even heard anyone mention the name of Love. But her heart was a prey to langour, she no longer had control over her eyes, and she often uttered the name of Daphnis. She ate little, could not sleep at night, and neglected her flock: by turns she laughed and cried, slept and started up: her face was pale one moment, and covered with blushes the next: a cow, stung by the gadfly, was not more uneasy than Chloe. Sometimes, when she was quite alone, she talked to herself in the following strain:

      1.14 I am ill, but I do not know the nature of my illness: I feel pain, but am not wounded: I am sad, but I have lost none of my sheep. I am burning, although seated in the shade. The brambles have often torn my flesh, but I did not weep: the bees have often stung me, but I ate my food. The evil which now gnaws my heart must be sharper than all those. Daphnis is beautiful, but so are the flowers: his pipe gives forth sweet notes, but so do the nightingales: but yet I care not for them. Would that I were his pipe, that I might receive his breath! Would that I were one of his goats, that I might be tended by him! O cruel water, that hast made Daphnis so beautiful, while I have washed in thee in vain! I perish, O beloved Nymphs, and you, too, refuse to save the girl who has been brought up in your midst. When I am dead, who will crown you with garlands? Who will feed my poor sheep? Who will look after the noisy grasshopper, which I took so much trouble to catch, that it might send me to sleep, chirping in front of the grotto? But now Daphnis has robbed me of sleep, and the grasshopper chirps in vain.

      1.15 Such were the words she spoke in her suffering, seeking in vain for the name of Love. But Dorcon, the herdsman who had extricated Daphnis and the goat from the pit, a youth whose beard was just beginning to grow, who knew the name of Love and what it meant, had felt an affection for Chloe ever since that day, and, as time went on, his passion increased. Thinking little of Daphnis, whom he looked upon as a mere child, he resolved to gain his object, either by bribery or violence. He first made them presents: to Daphnis he gave a rustic pipe, the nine reeds of which were fastened together with brass instead of wax, and to Chloe a spotted fawn's skin, such as Bacchus was wont to wear. Then, thinking that he was on sufficiently friendly terms with them, he gradually began to neglect Daphnis, while every day he brought Chloe a fresh cheese, a garland of flowers, or some ripe fruit; and once he presented her with a young calf, a gilt cup, and some young birds which he had caught on the mountains. She, knowing nothing of the arts of lovers, was delighted to receive the presents, because she could pass them on to Daphnis. One day - since Daphnis also was destined to learn what Love meant - a discussion arose between him and Dorcon as to which of them was the handsomer. Chloe was appointed judge: and the victor's reward was to be a kiss. Dorcon spoke first:

      1.16 I am taller than Daphnis: I am a cowherd, while he is only a goatherd, as much superior to him as cows are superior to goats. I am white as milk, ruddy as corn fit for the sickle: my mother reared me, not a wild beast. He is short, beardless as a woman, black as a wolf. He tends goats, and stinks like them. He is so poor that he cannot even keep a clog: and if, as is reported, a goat has suckled him, he differs little from a kid.

      After Dorcon had spoken thus, Daphnis replied:

      Yes, like Zeus, I was suckled by a goat: I tend goats that are larger than his cows, and I do not smell of them, any more than Pan, who is more like a goat than anything else. I am content with cheese, hard bread, and sweet wine: if he have these, a man is rich in the country. I am beardless, so was Dionysus: I am dark, so is the hyacinth: and yet Dionysus is superior to the Satyrs, the hyacinth to the lily. He is as red as a fox, bearded like a goat, white as a woman from the city. If you kiss me, you will kiss my mouth: but, if you kiss him, you will only kiss the hairs on his chin. Lastly, O maiden, remember that you were suckled by a sheep: and yet how beautiful you are!

      1.17 Chloe could wait no longer: delighted at such praise, and having long been eager to kiss Daphnis, she jumped up and kissed him, simply and artlessly, but yet her kiss had power to inflame his heart. Dorcon, deeply annoyed, hastened away, to think of some other way of satisfying his desires. Daphnis, on the other hand, seemed to have received a sting, rather than a kiss. He immediately became sad and pensive: he was seized with a chill, and was unable to restrain his palpitating heart: he wanted to look at Chloe, and, when he did so, his face was covered with blushes. Then, for the first time, he admired her fair hair, her eyes as large as those of a heifer, her face whiter than goats' milk: it seemed as if he then began for the first time to see, and had hitherto been blind. He merely tasted his food, and hardly moistened his lips with drink. He who was once more noisy than the locusts, remained silent: he who was formerly more active than his goats, sat idle: his flock was neglected, his pipe lay on the ground, his face was paler than the grass in summer. He could only speak of Chloe: and, whenever he was away from her he would rave to himself like this.

      1.18 What on earth has Chloe's kiss done to me? Her lips are tenderer than roses, her mouth is sweeter than a honeycomb, but her kiss is sharper than the sting of a bee. I have often kissed my kids: I have often kissed newly-born puppies, and the little calf which Dorcon gave me: but this kiss is something new. My pulse beats high: my heart leaps: my soul melts: and yet I wish to kiss again. O bitter victory! O strange disease, the name of which I cannot even tell! Can Chloe have tasted poison before she kissed me? why then did she not die? How sweetly sing the nightingales; but my pipe is silent! How wantonly leap the kids, but I sit still! How sweetly bloom the flowers, but I weave no garlands! The violets and hyacinths bloom, but Daphnis fades. Shall even Dorcon appear more beautiful than Daphnis?

      1.19 Such were the passionate outbursts of the worthy Daphnis, who then for the first time felt the influence of love. But Dorcon, the herdsman, the lover of Chloe, seizing the opportunity when Dryas was planting a tree near a vine-shoot, went up to him with some cheeses and pipes. He gave him the cheeses, since he had been an old friend of his, at the time when he himself pastured his flock. Then he began to speak of marriage with Chloe, and promised him a number of valuable presents, if he should gain her hand: a yoke of oxen for ploughing, four swarms of bees, fifty young apple trees, an ox-hide for making shoes, and, every year, a calf that had been weaned. Allured by the prospect of such presents, Dryas was on the point of giving his consent. But afterwards, thinking that the maiden deserved to make a better marriage, and being afraid that, if he were found out, he might be punished and even put to death, he refused his consent, at the same time asking Dorcon not to be offended.

      1.20 Dorcon, thus for the second time cheated of his hopes, and having lost his fat cheeses for nothing, determined to lay violent hands on Chloe when he found her alone. Having observed that Daphnis and Chloe took it in turns to drive their flocks to drink, he contrived a scheme worthy of a shepherd. He took the skin of a large wolf, which one of his oxen, fighting in defence of the kine, had killed with his horns, and flung it over his shoulders, whence it hung down to his feet, so that the forefeet covered his hands, and the hinder his legs down to his heels, while the head with its gaping mouth enclosed his head like a soldier's helmet. Having thus transformed himself into a wild beast as best he could, he proceeded to the spring where the goats and sheep used to drink after they came from pasture. This fountain was in a hollow valley, and the whole spot around was full of wild brambles and thorns, low growing juniper bushes and thistles, so that even a real wolf could easily have concealed himself there. Here Dorcon hid himself, waiting for the time when the animals came to drink, hoping to frighten Chloe under the guise of a wolf, and so easily lay hands upon her.

      1.21 After he had waited a little while, Chloe came driving the flocks to the spring, having left Daphnis cutting fresh foliage for the kids to eat after pasture. The dogs who assisted them to guard the sheep and goats followed her: and, with the natural curiosity of keen-scented animals, they tracked and discovered Dorcon preparing to attack the maiden. With a loud bark, they rushed upon him as if he had been a wolf, surrounded him, before he was able in his astonishment to rise upon his feet, and bit at him furiously. At first, afraid of being recognised, and being for some time protected by the skin which covered him, he lay in the thicket without uttering a word: but when Chloe, terrified at the first sight of the supposed animal, shouted for Daphnis to help her, and the dogs, having torn off the skin, began to fix their teeth in his body, he cried out loudly and implored Chloe and Daphnis, who had just come up, to assist him.

      They quickly calmed the dogs with their familiar shout; then taking Dorcon, who had been bitten in the legs and shoulders, to the fountain, they washed his wounds, where the dogs' teeth had entered the flesh, and chewed the green bark of an elm-tree and spread it over them. In their ignorance of the audacity prompted by love, they thought that Dorcon had merely put on the wolf's skin for a joke: wherefore they felt no anger against him, but tried to console him, and, having helped him along a little distance, sent him on his way.

      1.22 Dorcon, having been in such deadly peril, after he had made good his escape from the mouth of a dog (not, as the proverb goes, of a wolf), devoted his attention to his wounds. Daphnis and Chloe, however, found considerable difficulty in getting together their goats and sheep, which, alarmed by the sight of the wolf's skin, and thrown into confusion by the barking of the dogs, had fled to the tops of the mountains or down to the seashore. Although they had been trained to obey their masters' voice and to be soothed by the sound of the pipe, and to gather together when they merely clapped their hands, fear had caused them to forget everything; and they could only get them back to the fold with difficulty, after tracking them like hares. During that night alone they slept soundly, and weariness was a remedy for their amorous uneasiness: but, as soon as day came again, they felt the same passion as before. They were glad when they saw each other, and sorrowful when they parted: they suffered, they wanted something, but they did not know what they wanted. They only knew, the one that he had been undone by a kiss, the other that she had been destroyed by a bath.

      1.23 In addition to this, the season of the year still further inflamed their passion. It was the end of spring and the commencement of summer: all Nature was in full vigour: the trees were full of fruit, the fields of corn. The chirp of the grasshopper was sweet to hear, the fruit sweet to smell, and the bleating of the sheep pleasant to the ear. The gently flowing rivers seemed to be singing a song: the winds, blowing softly through the pine branches, sounded like the notes of the pipe: even the apples seemed to fall to the ground smitten with love, stripped off by the sun that was enamoured of their beauty. Daphnis, heated by all these surroundings, plunged into the river, sometimes to bathe, at other times to snare the fish that sported in the eddies of the stream: and he often drank, as if he could thereby quench the fire that consumed him. Chloe, after having milked her sheep and most of Daphnis's goats, was for a long time busied in curdling the milk: for the flies annoyed her terribly and stung her, when she endeavoured to drive them away. After this, she washed her face, and crowned with branches of pine, and girt with the skin of a fawn, filled a pail with wine and milk to share with Daphnis.

      1.24 When noon came on, they were more enamoured than ever. For Chloe, having seen Daphnis quite naked, was struck by the bloom of his beauty, and her heart melted with love, for his whole person was too perfect for criticism: while Daphnis, seeing Chloe with her fawn skin and garland of pine, holding out the milk-pail for him to drink, thought that he was gazing upon one of the Nymphs of the grotto. He snatched the garland from her head, kissed it, and placed it on his own: and Chloe took his clothes when he had stripped to bathe, kissed them, and in like manner put them on. Sometimes they pelted each other with apples, and parted and decked each other's hair. Chloe declared that Daphnis's hair, being dark, was like myrtle berries: while Daphnis compared Chloe's face to an apple, because it was fair and ruddy. He also taught her to play on the pipe: and, when she began to blow, he snatched it away and ran over the reeds with his lips: and, while he thus pretended to show her where she was wrong, he speciously kissed the pipe in the places where her mouth had been.

      1.25 While he was piping in the noonday heat, and the flocks were resting in the shade, Chloe unwittingly fell asleep. When Daphnis perceived this, he put down his pipe, and gazed at her all over with greedy eyes, without any feeling of shame, and at the same time gently whispered to himself: How lovely are her eyes in sleep! How sweet the perfume from her mouth, sweeter than that of apples or the hawthorn! Yet I dare not kiss it: her kiss pricks me to the heart, and maddens me like fresh honey. Besides, if I kiss her, I am afraid of waking her. O chattering grasshoppers! You will prevent her from sleeping, if you chirp so loudly! And on the other side, the he goats are butting each other with their horns: O wolves, more cowardly than foxes, why do you not carry them off?

      1.26 While he was thus talking to himself, a grasshopper, pursued by a swallow, fell into Chloe's bosom: the swallow followed, but could not catch it: but, being unable to check its flight, touched Chloe's cheek with its wing. Not knowing what the matter was, she cried out loudly, and woke up with a start: but, when she saw the swallow flying close to her, and Daphnis laughing at her alarm, she was reassured, and rubbed her still drowsy eyes. The grasshopper, as if in gratitude for its safety, chirped its thanks from her bosom. Then Chloe cried out again, and Daphnis laughed: and, seizing the opportunity, thrust his hand into her breast, and pulled out the grateful insect, which continued its song, even while held a prisoner in his hand. Chloe was delighted, and having kissed the insect, took it and put it, still chirping, into her bosom.

      1.27 Another time, they were listening with delight to the cooing of a wood pigeon. When Chloe asked what was the meaning of its song, Daphnis told her the popular story: "Once upon a time, dear maiden, there was a maiden, beautiful and blooming as you. She tended cattle and sang beautifully: her cows were so enchanted by the music of her voice, that she never needed to strike them with her crook or to touch them with her goad: but, seated beneath a pine-tree, her head crowned with a garland, she sang of Pan and Pinus, and the cows stood near, enchanted by her song. There was a young man who tended his flocks hard by, beautiful and a good singer himself, as she was, who entered into a rivalry of song with her: his voice was more powerful, since he was a man, and yet gentle, since he was but a youth. He sang so sweetly that he charmed eight of her best cows and enticed them over to his own herd, and drove them away. The maiden, grieved at the loss of her cattle, and at having been vanquished in singing, begged the Gods to transform her into a bird before she returned home. The Gods listened to her prayer, and transformed her into a mountain bird, which loves to sing as she did. Even now it tells in plaintive tones of her misadventure, and how that she is still seeking the cows that strayed away.

      1.28 Such were the enjoyments which the summer afforded them. But, in mid-autumn, when the grapes grew ripe, some Tyrian pirates, having embarked on a light Carian vessel, that they might not be suspected of being

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