Hermes fathered Daphnis by the nymph Pimeleia in Sicily. The infant was exposed among laurel trees, giving him his name, and was raised by nymphs who tended Hermes's cattle.
In Theocritus's first Idyll, the dying Daphnis defies Eros, declaring he will remain a grief to Love even in the underworld. His death resulted from resisting and then succumbing to erotic passion.
In Theocritus's first Idyll, Aphrodite visits the dying Daphnis and gloats over his suffering. Daphnis defies her, boasting that even in Hades he will remain a source of grief to Eros.
Nomia loved Daphnis and made him swear an oath of eternal fidelity. When he broke the oath after being seduced by a Sicilian princess, Nomia blinded him in divine retribution.
Pan taught the shepherd Daphnis to play the pipes in the hills of Sicily. In Theocritus's Idylls, Daphnis is Pan's protégé and the inventor of pastoral song, grieved by Pan at his death.
Daphnis lived and herded cattle in the hills of Sicily, where he invented pastoral poetry. The island's landscape inspired the bucolic tradition that Theocritus, a Syracusan, later immortalized.
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