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 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 3 Summary
Although the country folk are content with the return of their possessions, the citizens of Mytilene are furious that their territory has been plundered and resolve to launch a military response against the Methymnaeans. General Hippasus leads the Mytilene force but before he reaches Methymna, he is intercepted by a Methymnaean herald. The herald informs Hippasus that the Methymnaeans only recently learned that the city of Mytilene was innocent of any involvement in the dispute between the country folk and the young Methymnaean men, and that Methymna regrets sending forces to pillage the Mytilene coast. After negotiations, peace is agreed between Methymna and Mytilene.
Following the conflict, winter sets in and frustrates Daphnis and Chloe’s budding romance, as they are unable to spend time together outside in the pastures. Daphnis makes the excuse of hunting birds to visit Chloe’s adoptive family’s farm but fails to catch sight of her. Inside Chloe’s farm, her family and their farmhands are just sitting down to dinner, when one of the sheepdogs steals the meat from the table. Dryas chases the dog outside and bumps into Daphnis, who he invites to stay the night. Daphnis and Chloe are delighted to see each other, even though they spend the night in separate beds. After this, Daphnis invents many more reasons to visit Chloe’s household throughout the winter, so they can continue their relationship.
When spring arrives, Daphnis and Chloe can meet each other freely. Observing how the sheep and goats mate, Daphnis suggests that he and Chloe attempt to satisfy their lust by lying naked together and copying the animals, but he still can’t figure out how to make love to Chloe, which leaves him frustrated and upset.
Daphnis’s neighbor, Chromis, lives with a young woman called Lycaenion, who is attracted to Daphnis and plans to make him her lover. However, Lycaenion realizes that Daphnis is in love with Chloe and when she follows the pair, she learns that they are miserable because they don’t understand how to consummate their love. Lycaenion concocts a plan that she regards as a “double opportunity” (53): She will seduce Daphnis and have sex with him while teaching him the art of lovemaking that he can then practice with Chloe.
Lycaenion asks Daphnis to help her find one of her geese and lures him into the woods. There, Lycaenion tells Daphnis that the nymphs have instructed her to teach him the art of lovemaking so that he can consummate his relationship with Chloe—and Daphnis thankfully agrees. After Daphnis has sex with Lycaenion, he cannot wait to practice lovemaking with Chloe, but Lycaenion warns him that Chloe will bleed the first time she has sex. Lycaenion’s advice troubles Daphnis, and he resolves not to have sex with Chloe for fear of hurting her.
Spring turns to summer and suitors begin to arrive to ask for Chloe’s hand in marriage. Nape believes they should accept, but Dryas thinks they should be more cautious. When Chloe learns of Nape’s plans, she tells Daphnis, who is heartbroken but vows to fight for her hand. Daphnis’s adoptive parents are not encouraging of his suggested proposal; Lamon believes that Daphnis is destined for greater things. However, Myrtale lies and says their objections are based on the fact they are poor and cannot afford for him to marry Chloe.
Daphnis cries hopelessly to the nymphs, asking them for help once again. The nymphs appear and tell Daphnis that the ship lost by the young Methymnaean men has been sunk, but a bag containing “three thousand silver drachmae […] was washed ashore” (60). Daphnis recovers the money, then eagerly visits Dryas to beg for his permission to marry Chloe. Impressed by the large sum of money, Nape and Dryas agree to the marriage and Dryas goes to tell Lamon that he need not pay anything for Chloe. However, Lamon is still unenthusiastic about the marriage but, as he cannot make his poverty the excuse, he explains that as he is a slave, he must wait for his master to visit in the autumn and seek his permission for Daphnis to marry. Daphnis is elated at seemingly overcoming his adoptive parents’ objections and rushes to tell Chloe. As the summer wears on, the lovers spend all their spare time together, eating ripe fruit and enjoying each other’s company. One day, Daphnis scales a tree that is empty of fruit apart from one lone apple on the topmost branch. The young goatherd plucks the apple and gives it to Chloe as a symbol of his love for her.
Book 3 Analysis
The movement of the seasons measures periods of separation and closeness within Daphnis and Chloe’s relationship. The onset of winter, which freezes crops and makes valleys impassable with snow, also metaphorically cools Daphnis and Chloe’s romance, as they are unable to spend much time with each other. The arrival of spring, when “the snow thawed, the earth was laid bare, and the new grass peeped forth” (51), symbolizes the reinvigoration of the young couple’s relationship, especially the physical aspect. Watching the springtime behavior of the billy-goats’ “pursuing and amorous mounting of the she-goats” (52), makes Daphnis question how he can satisfy his desire for Chloe. The young man is possessed by “animal spirits after his confinement indoors […] the kissing made him feel wanton and the embracing made his feel lascivious” (52). Daphnis’s desire and animalistic urges are part of the natural cycle of life. However, Longus injects some humor into his novel with the couple’s naivety and fruitless attempts at lovemaking, which culminate in Daphnis “cl[inging] to [Chloe] from behind in imitation of the billy-goats” (52).
The difficulties that the couple experience further develop the theme of Navigating Love and Lust. It is ironic that Daphnis and Chloe—who are presented as children of nature—find it impossible to understand how to sexually consummate their relationship, a natural part of human procreation. By the end of Book 3, the sun is “growing hotter every day, as the end of spring passed into the beginning of summer” (57). At this point, Daphnis is given in principle agreement to marry Chloe and presents her with an “apple / the lovely Seasons of the Year brought forth” (64). Just as the seasons have produced ripe and nourishing fruit, the passing of time has also nurtured Daphnis and Chloe’s relationship to the point of maturity, where they are now ready to celebrate the culmination of their love through marriage.
The introduction of Lycaenion as a teacher in lovemaking is framed as part of the solution to Daphnis and Chloe’s problems. Once Lycaenion has Daphnis alone, she claims that the nymphs have asked her to teach him lovemaking so that he can have sex with Chloe, telling him: “If you want to banish the blues and sample the delights you’ve set your heart on, all you have to do is make yourself my pupil” (54). In reality, there is no message from the nymphs, as Lycaenion just desires Daphnis for herself. Daphnis does not feel guilty or consider that he has been unfaithful to Chloe, as there is no emotional connection between himself and Lycaenion. Indeed, once Daphnis’s lesson is over, he “want[s] to run hot-foot to Chloe and do what he had been taught” (55). However, Lycaenion advises Daphnis to be cautious, warning him that when Chloe has sex for the first time, she will “wail and weep and lie in a pool of blood” (55). The discomfort traditionally associated with the female loss of virginity re-invokes the motif of pain and pleasure.
The Nymphs’ further intervention to ensure Daphnis can present himself to Chloe as a wealthy suitor is additional evidence of the pair’s destiny to end up together. From the start of the novel, when the narrator sees the romantic picture, Longus establishes the genre as a romance. Even when events threaten to separate the lovers—be it pirates, warring Methymnaeans, or poverty—supernatural intercession ensures Daphnis and Chloe remain together. When Daphnis is downcast after his adoptive mother tells him they are too poor for him to marry Chloe, he does “what penniless lovers have always done—he wept, and once more begged the Nymphs to come to his rescue” (59). The immediate response from the Nymphs, coupled with the symbolic inversion of the Methymnaean ship from symbol of malevolent intrusion to a representation of auspicious prosperity, develops the idea that Daphnis and Chloe are bound to each other by fate. It is ironic that Daphnis believes his poverty is the obstacle preventing him from marrying Chloe, when the reader already knows that Daphnis is from a wealthy birth family. Longus’s use of irony returns attention to the protagonists’ true identities, foreshadowing the revelation of their birth parents in the final book.
