"It was now the beginning of spring, the snow melting, the earth uncovering herself, and the grass growing green, when the other shepherds drove out their flocks to pasture, and Chloe and Daphnis before the rest, as being servants to a greater shepherd. And forthwith they took their course up to the Nymphs and that cave, and thence to Pan and his pine; afterwards to their own oak, where they sat down to look to their flocks and kiss each other. They sought about for flowers too to crown the statues of the Gods. The soft breath of Zephyrus, and the warm Sun, had but now brought them forth; but there were then to be found the violet, the daffodil, the anagall, with the other primes and dawnings of the spring. And when they had crowned the statues of the Gods with them, they made a libation with new milk, Chloe from the sheep and Daphnis from the goats. They paid too the first-fruits of the pipe, as it were to provoke and challenge the nightingales with their music and song. The nightingales answered softly from the groves, and as if they remembered their long intermitted song, began by little and little to jug and warble their ' and ' again."