Le dieu Pan fait pan pan pan de son pied de chèvre: Daphnis and Chloe on the stage at the end of the nineteenth century

In 1860 Offenbach composed a funny operette based on Longus’ novel. In 1885 F. Le Borne composed a ‘drame pastoral’ performed in Brussels; in 1897 and 1899 Paris hosted the ‘pastorale en un acte’ by H. Busser and the ‘comédie lyrique en trois actes’ by C. Maréchal. In 1894 A. Casirola set into music a parody where the turning point of the novel – Daphnis and Chloe’s discovery of sex – becomes a funny farce. Through the analysis of these librettos, the paper throws new light upon the appeal of this Greek novel at the end of the nineteenth century.