Chapter Danaw to Darby and Joan of D by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Daphnis and Chloe, a prosepastoral love story in Greek, by Longos (a Byzantine), not unlike the tale of The Gentle Shepherd, by Allan Ramsay. Gessner has also imitated the Greek romance in his idyll called Daphnis. In this love story Longos says he was hunting in Lesbos, and saw in a grove consecrated to the nymphs a beautiful picture of children exposed, lovers plighting their faith, and the incursions of pirates, which he now expresses and dedicates to Pan, Cupid, and the nymphs. Daphnis, of course, is the lover of Chloê.

(Probably this Greek pastoral story suggested to St. Pierre his story of Paul and Virginia. Gay has a poem entitled Daphnis and Chloe.)

Daphnis and Lycidas, a pastoral, by W. Browne (1727).

Daphnis and Lityerses. Daphnis was a Sicilian shepherd, who went in search of his lady-love, Piplea, who had been carried off by Lityerses king of Phrygia. When he reached the place, Lityerses made him contend with him in a corn-reaping match. Hercules came to the shepherd’s aid and slew the king.

Thou [his deceased friend] hear’st the immortal song of old!
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
In the hot corn-field of the Phrygian king,
For thee the Lityerses-song again
Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing!
   —Matthew Arnold: Thyrsis.

Dapper, a lawyer’s clerk, who went to Subtle “the alchemist,” to be supplied with “a familiar” to make him win in horse-racing, cards, and all games of chance. Dapper is told to prepare himself for an interview with the fairy queen by taking “three drops of vinegar in at the nose, two at the mouth, and one at either ear,” “to cry hum thrice and buzz as often.”—Ben Fonson: The Alchemist (1610).

Dapple, the donkey ridden by Sancho Panza, in Cervantês’ romance of Don Quixote (1605–1615).

Darby and Joan. This ballad, called The Happy Old Couple, is printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, v. 153 (March, 1735). It is also in Plumptre’s Collection of Songs, 152 (Camb. 1805), with the music.

Darby and Joan are an old-fashioned, loving couple, wholly averse to change of any sort. It is generally said that Henry Woodfall was the author of the ballad, and that the originals were John Darby (printer, of Bartholomew Close, who died 1730) and his wife Joan. Woodfall served his apprenticeship with John Darby.

“You may be a Darby [Mr. Hardcastle], but I’ll be no Joan, I promise you.”—Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer, i. 1 (1773).