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The Temple of Gnidus

Montesquieu

Thomas Nugent (1777)

A prose poem in seven cantos, published in 1725, The Temple of Gnidus is Montesquieu's venture into pastoral romance—an ornate, Anacreontic idyll of love set in an idealized Greece and presented as a translation from an ancient Greek manuscript. Lighter than his political works, it displays the literary elegance and sensuous imagination of the young Montesquieu.

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Contents

1. Canto I
2. Canto II
3. Canto III
4. Canto IV
5. Canto V
6. Canto VI
7. Canto VII