A tender novel describing eager and inept young love, Daphnis and Chloe tells the story of a baby boy and girl who are discovered separately, two years apart, alone and exposed on a Greek mountainside. Taken in by a goatherd and a shepherd respectively, and raised near the town of Mytilene, they gro[...]

'he sat down and wept, to think that even the rams knew more about the deeds of love than he did' Daphnis is fifteen years old, Chloe thirteen. They are drawn to each other and long to make love. But no one has told them what love is, nor do they know how to accomplish the physical act. Round thei[...]

In Longus' ravishing "Daphnis and Chloe" (second or early third century CE), one of the great works of world literature, an innocent boy and girl gradually discover their sexuality in an idealized pastoral environment. In Xenophon's "Anthia and Habrocomes" (first century CE), perhaps the earliest ex[...]