Essays on the Greek Romances

Book excerpt: Essays on the Greek Romances Original Author: Elizabeth Hazelton Haight Edited/Added and Translated By: M. Meenachi Sundaram TABLE OF CONTENTS Essays on the Greek Romances. 1 PREFACE.. 4 ESSAYS ON THE GREEK ROMANCES. 7 Chapter I : THE GREEK ROMANCES AND THEIR RE-DATING.. 7 Chapter II : CHARITON’S CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE.. 18 Chapter III: THE EPHESIACA OR HABROCOMES AND ANTHIA BY XENOPHON OF EPHESUS 36 Chapter IV: THE AETHIOPICA OF HELIODORUS. 54 Chapter V: THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON BY ACHILLES TATIUS 80 Chapter VI: THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE BY LONGUS. 98 Chapter VII : LUCIAN AND HIS SATIRIC ROMANCES: THE TRUE HISTORY AND LUCIUS OR ASS 117 Chapter VIII: A COMPARISON OF THE GREEK ROMANCES AND APULEIUS’ METAMORPHOSES 148 INDEX.. 160 ABOUT THE AUTHOR.. 173 PREFACE If all the world loves a lover, as the old proverb says, then this my book should win wide fame. For these Greek Romances of the first to the fourth century of our era seem still to be singing the immemorial refrain from the old spring-time song of “The Vigil of Venus”: Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet. “Let those love now, who never lov’d before; Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.” At a time when fiction is the most popular form of literature, these wonderful old Greek stories of love, adventure and worship are half forgotten and rarely read except by the scholar. Yet here, as in epic, lyric, elegy, drama, oratory and history, the Greeks were pioneers. In the second and third centuries they had created four different types of romance (of love, of adventure, the pastoral, the satiric) which were to have great influence on French, Italian and English fiction. The student of comparative literature, the student of the history of fiction cannot afford to neglect these pioneer Greek novels. Their appeal, however, should be just as great for the general reader as for the scholar. For here are stories that mirror the life of the Mediterranean world in the Roman Empire with all its new excitements of travel, piracy, kidnapping, the new feminism, the new religious cults. And through all the different types of romance except viii the satiric the Love-God holds supreme sway over the hearts of men. So human, so vivacious are the love-stories that I offer to my readers Longus’ assurance of profit in his introduction to his Pastoral Romance: