50 pages • 1 hour read
LongusDaphnis and Chloe
Fiction | Novel | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2 Summary
Book 2 opens in autumn as Daphnis and Chloe help with the grape harvest. During the festival of Dionysus (the god of wine, fertility, and pleasure), the local women flirt with Daphnis, and one kisses him. In turn, the local men also flirt with Chloe, causing Daphnis to feel a pang of jealousy. After the festival, the would-be lovers are glad to return to their usual life, herding their animals together. One day, an old man named Philetas arrives and tells the pair about a beautiful, naked boy that broke into his garden to steal berries. Philetas was so overwhelmed by the boy’s beauty that he begged him for a kiss. The boy laughed at Philetas and revealed himself to be the God of Love (Eros) in disguise, who now watches over Daphnis and Chloe. Philetas explains Eros’s power and how falling in love can feel like an illness, for which the only cure is “kissing / and embracing / and lying down naked together” (28). Later, recognizing that they are in love with each other, Daphnis and Chloe begin to explore kissing and touching each other, although they are too naïve to initiate sex.
Meanwhile, a group of wealthy young men from Methymna (another city on Lesbos) are touring the coast by boat, indulging in pleasurable pastimes. One day, the group moor their ship near the pastures surrounding the city of Mytilene, where Daphnis and Chloe graze their animals. The Methymnaeans tie up their ship using strips of willow and depart to go hunting. However, their hunting dogs scare Daphnis’s goats, chasing them from the pastures to the shore, where one goat chews through the makeshift willow rope that is securing the ship, causing the vessel to drift out to sea. The Methymnaeans attack Daphnis in fury and although the local villagers intervene and decide Daphnis is not guilty of any wrongdoing, the Methymnaeans return to their own region and spitefully claim that Daphnis and the country folk stole their ship as an act of aggression. The young men incite their fellow Methymnaeans to attack and pillage the country folk in revenge—and they also kidnap Chloe in the process.
Daphnis is distraught and prays to the gods, but the nymphs appear to him in a dream and reassure him that Pan (the god of nature and shepherds) will rescue Chloe. Pan creates a mirage that makes the Methymnaeans think that they are under attack, then induces the Methymnaean general (Bryaxis) into a deep sleep. Pan appears to the general and instructs him to release Chloe and return the plunder. The general obeys Pan and Daphnis is overjoyed to be reunited with Chloe. The country folk sacrifice two goats and enjoy an evening of feasting to honor the gods and celebrate the return of their possessions. At the celebration, Philetas gifts Daphnis his pipes in recognition of Daphnis’s musical skill. The book ends with Daphnis and Chloe swearing oaths of love to each other.
Book 2 Analysis
The opening emphasis that the year has moved into autumn (fall) signifies a shift for the novel’s protagonists, Daphnis and Chloe. The festival of Dionysus provides an opportunity to break social norms and the pair are freer to explore their attraction. Both Daphnis and Chloe have also developed physically, changing from children into young adults and attracting flirtatious advances form their fellow revelers. Female admirers flatter Daphnis, calling him as “handsome as Dionysus himself” (24), and “one of the bolder ones even kissed him—which excited Daphnis, but upset Chloe” (24). Daphnis, two years older than Chloe, is more acutely aware of his sexual desire and is aroused by the exploits of the local women. However, this desire is distinct from the feelings he has developed for Chloe, which are accompanied by the values of friendship, love, and respect. Longus further develops the theme of Growing Up and the Loss of Innocence when Philetas gifts his panpipes to Daphnis towards the end of the book, marking a coming-of-age moment, as Daphnis can now play the “big instrument, with individual pipes of great size” (41), rather than his small goatherd pipes, signifying his transition from boy to man.
The introduction of Philetas also works to bring Daphnis and Chloe closer together. Philetas endeavors to educate the two young people about desire and erotic love, or eros, through his own experience. Philetas describes his garden: “All things that the Seasons bring forth, this garden bears in each several season. In spring there are roses […] in summer poppies and wild pears and every sort of apple, and at the present season grapes and figs and pomegranates” (25). The description of the bountiful, fertile garden is a metaphor for a successful relationship. Just as the garden’s produce provides physical nourishment for Philetas and its plants bring him pleasure, so too has the relationship with his own wife sustained him through every season of his life and into old age. Whereas Daphnis and Chloe occupy untamed wild spaces of the bucolic countryside—such as the forest, which symbolizes innocence and youth—the garden is not a natural space. Instead, Philetas’s garden is something that must be cared for and cultivated—much like Daphnis and Chloe’s relationship. Philetas is therefore the metaphorical gardener, seeking to help the two young people understand and navigate their feelings.
The personification of the emotion love as the God of Love (Eros) further emphasizes the power of love and desire. Philetas is angry when he discovers the god stealing from his garden. However, Love has taken the form of a young, naked boy who easily charms away the older man’s anger. Philetas begins to desire Love and becomes so overwhelmed by the god’s appearance that he offers to “allow him to strip the fruit-trees and pluck the flowers—if only he would let me have one kiss” (26).The god’s power to inspire desire is so strong that Philetas forgets all fidelity to his wife and the pains of old age in pursuit of satisfying his lust. However, Love warns Philetas that his power is too strong for him and that even one kiss would drive Philetas into an “everlasting pursuit of [him]” (27). The introduction of Love reinforces the idea that people feel desire so strongly, it is as though they are compelled to act by an external force—such as a deity. In some ways, divine intervention appears to be the most reasonable explanation for people doing irrational things in the name of love, such as an older man pursuing a god disguised as a young boy.
The appearance of the Methymnaeans represents an incursion into the pastoral ideal by a foreign and urban force, expanding on the theme of Urban Life and Country Idylls. The Methymnaeans are entitled and incite their fellow citizens to seize the country dwellers’ possessions, livestock, and to kidnap Chloe. The Methymnaeans’ avaricious abduction of Chloe—an event that parallels Daphnis’s kidnapping in Book 1—provides an opportunity for the gods to demonstrate their power. The mortal Daphnis is helpless to rescue Chloe and can only give “loud cries and piteous wails” and “fl[ing] himself to the ground” (35), prostrate before the nymphs. Pan’s intervention is not only proof of his power but also that the gods have other plans for Daphnis and Chloe. After the nymphs reassure Daphnis that Pan will rescue Chloe, they comment that “all else concerning you and Chloe will be for Love to accomplish” (36). This reinforces the concept that the central characters are not in control of their emotions and are under the influence of an external force.
