al
love is coarse enough, in all truth: but this story is infinitely more
immoral than, for instance, the frank and natural sensualism of the
twenty-seventh Idyl of Theocritus. Professor Anthon (755) described
the story of _Daphnis and Chloe_ as

"the romance, _par excellence_, of physical love. It is a
history of the senses rather than of the mind, a picture of
the development of the instincts rather than of the
sentiments.... _Paul and Virginia_ is nothing more than
_Daphnis and Chloe_ delineated by a refined and cultivated
mind, and spiritualized and purified by the influence of
Christianity."

This is true; but Anthon erred decidedly in saying that in the Greek
story "vice is advocated by no sophistry." On the contrary, what makes
this romance so peculiarly objectionable is that it is a master work
of that kind of fiction which makes vice alluring under the
sophistical veil of innocence. Longus knew very well that nothing is
so tempting to libertines as purity and ignorant innocence; hence he
made purity and ignorant innocence the pivot of his prurient story.
Professor Rohde (516) has rudely torn the veil from his sly sophistry:

"The way in which Longus excites the sensual desires of
the lovers by means of licentious experiments going
always only to the verge of gratification, betrays an
abominably hypocritical _raffinement_[331] which
reveals in the most disagreeable manner that the
naivete of this idyllist is a premeditated artifice and
he himself nothing but a sophist. It is difficult to
understand how anyone could have ever been deceived so
far as to overlook the sophistical character of this
pastoral romance of Longus, or could have discovered
genuine naivete in this most artificial of all
rhetorical productions. No attentive reader who has
some acquaintance with the ways of the Sophistic
writers will have any difficulty in apprehending the
true inwardness of the story... As this sophist, in
those offensively licentious love-scenes, suddenly
shows the cloven foot under the cloak of innocence, so,
on the other hand, his eager desire to appear as simple
and childlike as possible often enough makes him cold,
finical, trifling, or utterly silly in his
affectation."[332]

HERO AND LEANDER

Our survey of Greek erotic literature may be brought to a close with
two fam