With such a setting, naturally the order of events follows the seasons. In spring the story begins when the lad of fifteen and the girl of thirteen are sent out to tend the flocks in meadows and on hills. Summer brings the adventures of the trap-ditch and the Tyrian pirates. Autumn has its vintage and the menace of the Methymnaean roisterers. Winter houses and separates the lovers until Daphnis makes bold to go fowling. Spring returning, Daphnis finds a purse and wins his shepherdess’ hand. Summer passes in tending the flocks and making love. Then as autumn again brings the vintage the lord of the manor comes to his estate. There follows the recognition of Daphnis as his son and soon Chloe is found to be as noble. The weather is still fair, so after a royal feast in the city, the wedding is celebrated in the country for their hearts were rural. Indeed the characters are for the most part country wights: the worthy foster-parents, Chloe’s suitors, Philetas the wise old herdsman. They are all serfs and Daphnis and Chloe were given pastoral names by their foster-parents to make them seem truly theirs. They are noble slaves full of hospitality and kindness. When corruption menaces and brings temptation, it comes from the city. Lycaenium is a young bride from the city. Gnatho is a city parasite. Astylus, the son of Dionysophanes, although he is a great-hearted youth who pities Lamo for the destruction of his garden and welcomes his newly found brother Daphnis with open arms, shows the effects of city life by making his boon companion the worthless parasite Gnatho whose only thoughts were of eating, drinking and lechery. Dionysophanes is nobler than his son: though gray-haired, he is still tall, handsome, able to wrestle with young men, and though wealthy he is good. Indeed some virtue must be attributed in this fairy-story even to the villains. Dorco who tried to rape Chloe makes a beautiful end by giving her his pipe and teaching her how to call the cattle and Daphnis back from the raiders’ ship. Gnatho redeems himself by rescuing Chloe from her second kidnapping. And even Lampis, the rough herdsman, was deemed worthy of forgiveness and invited to the wedding. Daphnis and Chloe are brave, beautiful and virginal. Chloe keeps her chastity to the end. Daphnis sins but once, to learn what love is that he may teach his maid. Dalmeyda has pointed out another striking feature of the plot beside the unity of place and the strictly pastoral coloring. This is its two-part division of which the first might be entitled “the search for love” and the second “the marriage of Chloe.” The first part ends with the lesson of Lycaenium, the second with the country wedding.[239]