In the island of Lesbos there is an extensive city called Mitylene, the appearance of which is beautiful; the sea intersects it by various canals, and it is adorned with bridges of polished white stone. You might imagine you beheld an island rather than a city.
About twenty-four miles from Mitylene, were the possessions of a rich man, which formed a very fine estate. The mountains abounded with game, the fields produced corn, the hills were thick with vines, the pastures with herds, and the sea-washed shore consisted of an extent of smooth sand.
As Lamon, a goatherd, was tending his herds upon the estate, he found a child suckled by a she-goat. The place where it was lying was an oak coppice and tangled thicket, with ivy winding about it, and soft grass beneath; thither the goat continually ran and disappeared from sight, leaving her own kid in order to remain near the child. Lamon watched her movements, being grieved to see the kid neglected, and one day when the sun was burning in his meridian heat he follows her steps and sees her standing over the infant with the utmost caution, lest her hoofs might injure it, while the child sucked copious draughts of her milk as if from its mother's breast. Struck with natural astonishment, he advances close to the spot and discovers a lusty and handsome male-child, with far richer swathing clothes than suited its fortune in being thus exposed; for its little mantle was of fine purple, and fastened by a golden clasp, and it had a little sword with a hilt of ivory.
At first Lamon resolved to leave the infant to its fate, and to carry off only the tokens; but feeling afterwards ashamed at the reflection, that in doing so, he should be inferior in humanity, even to a goat, he waited for the approach of night, and then carried home the infant with the tokens, and the she-goat herself to Myrtale his wife.
Myrtale was astonished, and thought it strange if goats could produce children, upon which her husband recounts every particular; how he found the infant exposed; how it was suckled; and how ashamed he felt at the idea of leaving it to perish. She shared his feelings, so they agreed to conceal the tokens, and adopt the child as their own, committing the rearing of it to the goat; and that the name also might be a pastoral one they determined to call it Daphnis.
Two years had now elapsed, when Dryas, a neighbouring shepherd, tending his flock, found an infant under similar circumstances.
There was a grotto[1] sacred to the Nymphs; it was a spacious rock, concave within, convex without. The statues of the Nymphs themselves were carved in stone. Their feet were bare, their arms naked to the shoulder, their hair falling dishevelled upon their shoulders, their vests girt about the waist, a smile[2] sat upon their brow; their whole semblance was that of a troop of dancers. The dome[3] of the grotto rose over the middle of the rock. Water, springing from a fountain, formed a running stream, and a trim meadow stretched its soft and abundant herbage before the entrance, fed by the perpetual moisture. Within, milk-pails, transverse-flutes, flageolets and pastoral pipes[4] were suspended—the offerings of many an aged shepherd.
An ewe of Dryas's flock which had lately lambed had frequently resorted to this grotto, and raised apprehensions of her being lost. The shepherd wishing to cure her of this habit, and to bring her back to her former way of grazing, twisted some green osiers into the form of a slip knot, and approached the rock with the view of seizing her. Upon arriving there, however, he beheld a sight far contrary to his expectation. He found his ewe affectionately offering from her udder copious draughts of milk to an infant, which without any wailing, eagerly turned from one teat to the other its clean and glossy face, the animal licking it, as soon as it had had its fill.
This child was a female: and had beside its swathing garments, by way of tokens, a head-dress wrought with gold, gilt sandals, and golden[5] anklets.
Dryas imagining that this foundling was a gift from the Deity, and instructed by his sheep to pity and love the infant, raised her in his arms, placed the tokens in his scrip, and prayed the Nymphs that their favour might attend upon him in bringing up their suppliant; and when the time was come for driving his cattle from their pasture, he returns to his cottage, relates what he had seen to his wife, exhibits what he had found, urges her to observe a secrecy, and to regard and rear the child as her own daughter.