Such solicitous and tender care had been won by Daphnis and Chloe through devotion. Out on the hills in the morning first of all they saluted their gods. They gathered flowers to crown their statues. They made them gifts of grapes and apples or of pipe. They sacrificed to them kids and lambs, and to the Nymphs and Pan they offered constantly their prayers and vows. In the cave of the Nymphs Chloe swore to share life and death with Daphnis. Under the pine Daphnis swore by Pan that he would not live a single day without Chloe.[231] Eros is a less familiar god to the children, but through Philetas’ instruction about the merry flying boy they come to be his votaries.[232] Dionysophanes gives all praise for the care of the children to the united protection of Pan, the Nymphs and Eros.[233] The betrothal takes place before the statues of the Nymphs.[234] And all their lives Daphnis and Chloe worshipped the Nymphs, Pan and Eros for their very present help in time of trouble.[235] This was no formal ritual: it was a vital faith offered with clean hands and a pure heart. The worship of Dionysus also entered into the life of the whole countryside. The song of the God of Wine is played by Philetas and danced by Dryas. The festival of Dionysus is celebrated by the sacrifice of a ram, a feast, libations poured by ivy-crowned worshippers. In the garden of the great estate of Dionysophanes there are an altar and a shrine to the god, and the temple had paintings about the life of Dionysus: Semele his mother, the sleeping Ariadne, the binding of Lycurgus, the rending of Pentheus, the conquered Indians, the transformed Tyrians, Pan piping to those treading the wine-press and to those dancing.[236] On the first day after he arrived at his estate Dionysophanes made sacrifice to this god for whom he was named along with the other rural deities, Demeter, Pan, the Nymphs.[237] And Daphnis for his happiness dedicated his bag and cloak to Dionysus, to Pan his whistle and his pipe, to the Nymphs his crook and milk-pails.[238] The god of the vintage must always have his share of honor in the country. So because the gods are omnipresent in country life, religion is as much a part of the set of the romance as is locality. For the monotony which might result from the single background of the great estate near Mytilene in Lesbos is varied not only by descriptions of fair garden, pastures, trees, hills, seashore, but by the mystic vicinity of the cave of the Nymphs, the pine-tree of Pan, the grapevine of Dionysus and over all the unseen flying Eros shooting his darts.