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DAPHNIS

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 826 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DAPHNIS , the legendary See also:

hero of the shepherds of See also:Sicily, and reputed inventor of bucolic See also:poetry. The See also:chief authorities for his See also:story are Diodorus Siculus, See also:Aelian and See also:Theocritus. According to his countryman Diodorus (iv.84), and Aelian ( See also:Var. Hist., x.18), Daphnis was the son of See also:Hermes (in his See also:character of the shepherd-See also:god) and a Sicilian nymph, and was See also:born or exposed and found by shepherds in a See also:grove of laurels (whence his name.) He was brought up by the See also:nymphs, or by shepherds, and became the owner of flocks and herds, which he tended while playing on the See also:syrinx. When in the first See also:bloom of youth, he won the See also:affection of a nymph, who made him promise to love none but her, threatening that, if he proved unfaithful, he would lose his See also:eye-sight. He failed to keep his promise and was smitten with See also:blindness. Daphnis, who endeavoured to See also:console himself by playing the See also:flute and singing shepherds' songs, soon afterwards died. He See also:fell from a cliff, or was changed into a See also:rock, orswas taken up to See also:heaven by his See also:father Hermes, who caused a See also:spring of See also:water to gush out from the spot where his son had been carried off. Ever afterwards the Sicilians offered sacrifices at this spring as an expiatory offering for the youth's See also:early See also:death. There is little doubt that Aelian in his See also:account follows See also:Stesichorus (q.v.) of See also:Himera, who in like manner had been blinded by the vengeance of a woman (See also:Helen) and probably sang of the sufferings of Daphnis in his recantation. Nothing is said of Daphnis's blindness by Theocritus, who dwells on his amour with Nails; his victory over Menalcas in a poetical competition; his love for Xenea brought about by the wrath of See also:Aphrodite; his wanderings through the See also:woods while suffering the torments of unrequited love; his death just at the moment when Aphrodite, moved by compassion, endeavours (but too See also:late) to See also:save him; the deep sorrow, shared by nature and all created things, for his untimely end (Theocritus i. vii. viii.). A later See also:form of the See also:legend identifies Daphnis with a Phrygian hero, and makes him the teacher of See also:Marsyas.

The legend of Daphnis and his early death may be compared with those of See also:

Narcissus, See also:Linus and Adonis—all beautiful youths cut off in their See also:prime, typical of the luxuriant growth of vegetation in the spring, and its sudden withering away beneath the scorching summer See also:sun. See F. G. See also:Welcker, Kleine Schriften zur griechischen Litteraturgeschichte, i. (1844); C. F. See also:Hermann, De Daphnide Theocriti (1853); R. H. Klausen, See also:Aeneas and See also:die Penaten, i. (1840) ; R. Reitzenstein, Epigramm and Skolion (1893) ; H. W.

See also:

Prescott in Harvard Studies, x. (1899); H. W. Stoll in See also:Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie; and G. Knaack in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopddie.

End of Article: DAPHNIS

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