[330] _Der Griechische Roman_, 432-67. An excrescence of this theory
is the foolish story that "Bishop" Heliodorus, being called upon by a
provincial synod either to destroy his erotic books or to abdicate his
position, preferred the latter alternative. The date of the real
Heliodorus is perhaps the end of the third or the first half of the
fourth century after Christ.

[331] He refers in a footnote to such scenes as are painted in I., 32,
4; II., 9, 11; III., 14, 24, 3; IV., 6, 3--scones and hypocritically
naive experiments which he justly considers much more offensive than
the notorious scene between Daphnis and Lykainion (III., 18).

[332] Rohde (516) tries to excuse Goethe for his ridiculous praise of
this romance (Eckermann, II., 305, 318-321, 322) because he knew the
story only in the French version of Amyot-Courier. But I find that
this version retains most of the coarseness of the original, and I see
no reason for seeking any other explanation of Goethe's attitude than
his own indelicacy and obtuseness which, as I noted on page 208, made
him go into ecstacies of admiration over a servant whom lust prompted
to attempt rape and commit murder. As for Professor Murray, his
remarks are explicable only on the assumption that he has never read
this story in the original. This is not a violent assumption. Some
years ago a prominent professor of literature, ancient and modern, in
a leading American university, hearing me say one day that _Daphnis
and Chloe_ was one of the most immoral stories ever written, asked in
a tone of surprise: "Have you read it in the original?" Evidently _he_
never had! It is needless to add that translations never exceed the
originals in impropriety and usually improve on them. The Rev. Rowland
Smith, who prepared the English version for Bohn's Library, found
himself obliged repeatedly to resort to Latin.

Apart from his coarseness, there is nothing in Longus's conception of
love that goes beyond the ideas of the Alexandrians. Of the symptoms
of true love--mental or sentimental, esthetic and sympathetic,
altruistic and supersensual, he knows no more than Sappho did a
thousand years before him. Indeed, in making lovers become indolent,
cry out as if they had been beaten, and jump into rivers as if they
were afire, he is even cruder and more absurd than Sappho was in her
painting of sensual passion. His whole idea of love is summed up in
what the old shepherd Philetas says to Daphnis and Chl