PROLOGUE.

BY THE CELEBRATED PHILOSOPHER AND
PHYSICIAN XENOPHILOS.

Nothing is more difficult than to separate the true from the false in a narrative in which it is necessary for the most part to rely on the testimony of one person only, and that person a woman whose mind had been shaken by extraordinary perils and vicissitudes. A task so laborious I shall not attempt, but shall simply set forth in order what Daphne, the daughter of Philetos, told me in fragments at various times, although I confess that some things seem in their nature impossible.

This much, however, I will say for the benefit of posterity, and that it may not be imagined this writing is from beginning to end the figment of a poet’s fancy: Daphne was, without question, by far the most beautiful woman of her time, and excited a most violent and extreme passion in some of the wisest and most celebrated Athenians, before the events occurred which I am about to record. And I do not think it at all incredible that a man, driven by the madness of his love for her, should be induced to sacrifice everything he held most dear. Nor do I think it wonderful, considering the haughty ambition of many of no great worth or power, that a man who had a marvellous genius in making discoveries of the hidden nature of things, should try to emulate the might of far-darting Apollo, who in his anger slays people in multitudes by the shafts of his plagues and pestilences. And if any one should think the conduct of this Egyptian and his ancestors, as manifested in their deeds, altogether contrary to human nature (as if one should say that doves chased hawks, or any other creature acted in a way quite different from its kind), I would not only remind him of the horrible and perverse sins even of Greeks in former times, but would also ask him to remember that for ages the Egyptians had been soured by a gloomy and cruel superstition.

Then, again, as to all the matters which are said to have occurred in Athens, I have made the most careful inquiries, and, even in the most minute particulars, I find that the testimony of Daphne is confirmed.

But to him who will be admonished, this narrative, whether true or false, certainly declares that no human skill or strength of purpose can altogether conquer nature and chance, and may thus serve, like the tragedies of our poets, as a notable warning against pride and presumption.