With the exception of Menaphon, Greene’s romances offer little that is important in pastoral, apart from the more notable works which they inspired.  And even Menaphon, in so far as the general conception is concerned, can hardly be said necessarily to involve the existence of any antecedent pastoral tradition.  Greene’s novel is, indeed, far from being purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney’s, to use Professor Herford’s happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta.  In this it undoubtedly resembles the Spanish romances, but the resemblance does not appear to go much further; it is on the whole warlike without being chivalric, the tone Greek, or what Greene considered such, rather than medieval—­indeed it might be argued that in its martial incidents it rather recalls Daphnis and Chloe than the Diana.  There is certainly nothing chivalric about King Democles, who, when some ten score shepherds are besieging a castle, sends to the ‘General of his Forces,’ and not only has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days’ notice—­in itself a notable piece of strategy—­but when they arrive on the scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush!  No wonder that when the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain masters of the situation.

The plot might perhaps be considered improbable as well as intricate for anything but a pastoral or chivalric romance:  judged by the standards prevailing in these species it is neither.  Democles, king of Arcadia, has a daughter Sephistia, who contrary to his wishes has contracted a secret marriage with Maximus.  When the birth of a son leads to discovery, Democles has them placed in an oarless boat and so cast adrift.  A storm arising they are not unnaturally wrecked, and ultimately husband and wife are cast upon different points of the Arcadian coast(!), where, either supposing the other to have perished, they adopt the pastoral life, assuming the names respectively of Melicertus and Samela.  The young mother has with her child Pleusidippus, but while still in early boyhood he is carried off by pirates and presented as a gift to the King of Thessaly.  In the meantime Menaphon, ‘the king’s shepherd of Arcadia,’ has fallen in love with Samela, but while accepting his hospitality she meets her husband in his shepherd’s guise, and without recognizing one another husband and wife again fall in love.  Years pass on and Pleusidippus, who has risen to fame at court, hears of the beauty of the shepherdess of Arcadia, and must needs go to test the truth of the report himself.  He does so, and promptly falls in love with his own mother.  Nor is this all, for Democles equally hears of Samela’s fame, and disguising himself as a shepherd falls in love with his own daughter.  He endeavours to command Samela’s affection by revealing to her his own identity, but Pleusidippus is beforehand with more drastic measures, and with the help of a few associates carries Samela off to a neighbouring castle, to which Democles and the shepherds, headed by Melicertus, proceed to lay siege.  A duel between father and son is unceremoniously interrupted by the inroad of Democles’ soldiery.  Upon this the identity of Samela is revealed by a convenient prophetess, and all ends happily.