Daphnis and Chloe by Longus

Author:Longus
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241251430
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

Book 4

A fellow slave of Lamon’s arrived from Mytilene with the news that their master would be coming there a little before the harvest, to see whether the Methymneans’ raiding had done any damage to his fields. Since summer was already drawing to an end and the autumn was approaching, Lamon worked to make his master’s country home altogether enchanting. He cleaned out the springs so that they could have clean water, carried the dung out of the yard to remove any obnoxious odours and tended to the garden so that it would look beautiful.

In fact, the garden was entirely beautiful, and looked like the gardens of kings. It was a stade in length, lay on elevated ground and was four plethra in width; it was like a large plain. It contained trees of all kinds, apple, myrtle, pear, pomegranate, fig and olive. On one side, there was a lofty vine that spread its ripening grapes over the apple and pear trees, as though the clusters were competing with the other fruit. But in addition to these cultivated trees, there were also cypresses, laurels, planes and pines, all wreathed in ivy; and clusters of ivy berries, which were big and turning dark, seemed to mimic the grapes. The fruit-bearing trees were on the inside as if for protection, and the other trees stood outside them as if to wall them in, and these again were enclosed by a narrow fence. All the parts of the garden were divided and separate; each tree trunk stood at some distance from the next, but higher up the branches joined and intermingled their foliage. This had happened naturally, but it also looked like a work of art. There were beds of flowers too, both wild and cultivated: the roses, hyacinths and lilies were cultivated by hand, and violets, narcissus and pimpernels were produced by the earth. There was shade in summer, and flowers in spring, and grapes for picking in autumn, and fruit in every season.

From there the view of the plain was very fine, and one could see the shepherds grazing their flocks; the view of the sea was fine too, and the ships sailing by could be seen, and all this added to the luxurious charm of the garden. At the centre of the length and breadth of the garden was a temple and altar of Dionysus, the altar wreathed in ivy, the temple in shoots of vine. Inside the temple were paintings of Dionysus and of stories involving him: Semele giving birth, Ariadne sleeping, Lycurgus in chains, Pentheus being torn apart. There were Indians in defeat and Tyrrhenians being turned into dolphins and Satyrs treading everywhere and bacchants dancing. Nor was Pan forgotten, but he, too, sat there on a rock, playing his pipes, as if he were providing the music for the treading and the dancing.

This was the garden that Lamon tended to, cutting away the dry wood and tying up the vines. He put a garland on Dionysus and

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