As we read this pastoral romance, the unknown author becomes to us a real personality. His delight in the country is spontaneous and real. He is a cultured person with genuine appreciation of art, music and literature. Their influence enriches his story. Longus in his preface tells how a painting which he chanced to see in the grove of the Nymphs gave the inspiration for the writing of his novel, for the painting pictured a history of love and he longed to write something that would correspond to the picture. Paintings again he mentions in his description of a shrine of Dionysus, paintings telling all the myths of the god.[248] The images of the Nymphs in the cave are described carefully by him: cut out of the rock they were, feet unshod, arms bare to the shoulders, hair falling on their necks, their garments belted, a smile in their eyes.[249] A statue of Pan stood under his sacred pine until at the end Daphnis and Chloe built him a shrine.[250] Over and over these representations are referred to as symbols of very present gods. The music that fills the romance is the sound of the shepherds’ pipes and the voice of song. Daphnis makes a pipe of reeds and teaches Chloe how to play on it.[251] So well did she learn that on Dorco’s pipe she could call the cattle back from the raiders’ ship.[252] When spring brought them out-doors, both Daphnis and Chloe challenged the nightingales with their piping and the birds answered.[253] Philetas the old herdsman outdid all in playing on the great organ-pipe of his father. He played special strains for cows and oxen, for goats, for sheep. He played too the melody of Dionysus and to it Dryas footed the dance of the vintage. Daphnis too played on Philetas’ pipe a love-song and danced with Chloe the story of the origin of the pipe, Pan’s wooing of the maid Syrinx.[254] Daphnis displayed his art for his own father and mother, before he was recognized as their son, to do them pleasure. He blew the call of the goats; he blew their soft lullaby; he blew their grazing tune; he blew the alarm for a wolf; he blew the recall. And the goats responded to all his different strains.[255] After the wedding the shepherds piped the bride and groom to bed and sang outside their door a rude, harsh song, no Hymenaeus, but such as they were wont to sing when with their picks they broke the earth.[256] For country people sang at all their tasks: the boatman on the river,[257] the herdsman in the pastureland.