Les Amours pastorales de daphnis et Chloe

ELEGANT RED LEATHER LONDON EDITION, FRENCH TRANSLATION OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE WITH 30 FINE ENGRAVINGS.

6 3/4 inches tall hardcover (12mo), full red leather binding with gilt fillets bordering cover, spine with raised bands and gilt compartments and title, Moire patterned endpapers, [1], engraved title page (frontispiece) with tissue guard, [1], i-viii, pp 10-176, [1], 29 engraved copper plates (13 folding), each with tissue guard. Woodcut title page vignette, headpieces and tailpieces.

LONGUS was the author of an ancient Greek novel or romance, Daphnis and Chloe. Nothing is known of his life. It is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbosthe setting for Daphnis and Chloe, a Greek pastoral novel written during the Roman Empire. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are wholly conventional, but the author imparts human interest to this idealized world. The story is of a boy (Daphnis) and a girl (Chloe), each of whom is abandoned at birth along with some identifying tokens. A goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. Daphnis and Chloe grow up together, herding the flocks for their foster parents. They fall in love but, being naive, do not understand what is happening to them. Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. Daphnis, however, decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, because Lycaenion tells Daphnis that Chloe will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]. Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped by a drunkard. In the end, after being recognised by their birth parents, Daphnis and Chloe get married and live out their bucolic lives in the country. This copy is the French translation from the Greek by

JACQUES AMYOT (1513 1593), French Renaissance bishop, scholar, writer and translator. It was published in London with text in French, to shield the erotic tale from prying eyes.

Engravings in this edition are reproduced from the Paris edition of 1718, engraved by BENOIT AUDRAN (1661 1721) under the direction of Philippe of Orleans, Regent of France.

Product Info

Year: 1779

Type: Used

Binding: Softcover

Seller Info

BiomedRareBooksLLCABAAILABIOBA

Address: P.O. Box 193 North Garden, Virginia

Website: https://www.biomedrarebooks.com

Country: United States