Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern

by Various

P A N.

Pan was the god of shepherds, and of all inhabitants of the country; he was the son of Mercury by Driope, and is usually described as possessing two small horns on his head, his complexion ruddy, his nose flat, and his legs, thighs, tail and feet hairy, like those of a goat. When he was brought into the world, the nurse, terrified at sight of him, ran away in horror, and his father wrapping him up in the skins of beasts, carried him to Heaven, where Jupiter and the other Gods, entertained themselves with the oddity of his appearance; Bacchus was delighted with him, and gave him the name of Pan.

———————"Sprung the rude God to light;

Of dreadful form, and horrible to sight;

Goat-footed, horned, yet full of sport and joy,

The nurse, astonished, fled the wondrous boy:

His shaggy limbs, the trembling matron feared,

His face distorted, and his rugged beard:

But Hermes from her hands received the child,

And on the infant god auspicious smiled.

In the thick fur wrapped of a mountain hare,

His arms the boy to steep Olympus bear;

Proudly he shows him to imperial Jove,

High seated 'mid the immortal powers above.

With friendly joy and love, the race divine,

But chiefly Bacchus, god of mirth and wine,

Received the dauntless god, whom Pan they call,

Pan, for his song delights the breast of all."

Horace.

This god of the shepherds chiefly resided in Arcadia, where the woods and the mountains were his habitation.

——————"His mighty palace roof doth hang

From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth

Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death,

Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness.

Who loves to see the hamadryads dress

Their ruffled locks, where meeting hazels darken,

And through whole solemn hours, dost sit and harken

The dreary melody of bedded reeds."

Keats.

The flute was invented by Pan, and formed of seven reeds, which he called Syrinx, in honour of a beautiful nymph of the same name, who, refusing his addresses, was changed into a reed.

————————"A nymph of late there was,

Whose heavenly form her fellows did surpass,

The pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains,

Beloved by deities, adored by swains.

Like Phœbe clad, e'en Phœbe's self she seems,

So tall, so straight, such well proportioned limbs,

The nicest eye did no distinction know

But that the goddess bore a golden bow,

Descending from Lycæus, Pan admires

The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.

A crown of pine upon his head he wore,

And then began her pity to implore.

But ere he thus began, she took her flight,

So swift she was already out of sight,

Nor staid to hear the courtship of the god:

But bent her course to Ladon's gentle flood:

There by the river stopped, and tired before

Relief from water-nymphs her prayers implore,

Now while the rural god with speedy pace,

Just thought to strain her in his strict embrace,

He filled his arms with reeds, new rising in the place:

And while he sighs his ill success to find,

The tender canes were shaken by the wind,

And breathed a mournful air unheard before,

That much surprizing Pan, yet pleased him more,

Admiring this new music, 'Thou' he said,

'Who cans't not be the partner of my bed,

At least shall be the consort of my mind,

And often, often to my lips be joined.'

He formed the reeds, proportioned as they are,

Unequal in their length and waxed with care,

They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair."

Ovid.

He was continually employed in deceiving the neighbouring nymphs, and often with success. Though deformed in shape and features, he had the good fortune to captivate Diana in the appearance of a beautiful white goat.

His adventure with Omphale is amusing; while the latter was travelling with Hercules, a sacrifice which was to take place on the following day, caused Omphale and the hero to seek separate apartments. In the night, Pan introduced himself, and went to the bed

of the queen; but there seeing the lion's skin of Hercules, he fancied he had made a mistake, and repaired to that of the hero; where the female dress which the latter had adopted, deceived the rural God, and he laid himself down by his side. The hero awoke, and kicked the intruder into the middle of the room. The noise aroused Omphale, and Pan was discovered lying on the ground, greatly discomfited and ashamed.

The worship of Pan was well established, particularly in Arcadia, and his statue was usually placed under the shadow of a pine-tree. Upon his altars were laid both honey and milk, fit offerings for a rural divinity.

"With cloven feet and horned front who roves

With choirs of nymphs, amid the echoing groves;

He joins in active dance the virgin throng,

To Pan, the pastoral god, they raise the song.

"To Pan, with tangled locks, whose footsteps tread

Each snow-crowned hill, and mountain's lofty head;

Or wander careless through the lowly brake,

Or by the borders of the lucid lake."

Horace.

He loved the nymph Echo, but in this instance was unsuccessful in his passion, for the latter adored the beautiful Narcissus, and

wandered over hill and dale in search of the youth on whom she had lavished all her affections, but who unfortunately returned them not.

To whom is not the tale of the self-slain Narcissus known, though perhaps the exquisite story of Echo's love for him may be less familiar to the mind.

After Echo had been dismissed by Jupiter, for her loquacity in proclaiming his numerous amours, she fell in love with the beautiful Narcissus.

"And at the sight of the fair youth she glows,

And follows silently where'er he goes."

Unable, however, to address him first, she waited the sound of his beloved voice.

"Now several ways his young companions gone,

And for some time Narcissus left alone,

'Where are you all?' at last she hears him call,

And she straight answers him, 'where are you all?'

"'Speak yet again,' he cries, 'is any nigh?'

Again the mournful Echo answers, 'I,'

'Why come not you,' he said, 'appear in view,'

She hastily returns, 'why come not you?'

"'Then let us join,' at last Narcissus said,

'Then let us join,' replied the ravished maid."

In vain had the wondering youth up to this moment looked for the frolic companions, whom he imagined had hid themselves in play. But Echo, charmed with his last exclamation, hastily appeared, and threw herself on the bosom of the astonished youth, who, far from submitting with pleasure to the intrusion,

"With all his strength unlocks her fold,

And breaks unkindly from her feeble hold;

Then proudly cries, 'life shall this breast forsake,

Ere you, loose nymph, on me your pleasure take;'

'On me your pleasure take,' the nymph replies

While from her the disdainful hunter flies."

As the youth wandered on, anxious only to escape from the society of Echo, he suddenly came upon a fountain, in which, as he reclined on the ground, he fancied he saw the figure of a beautiful nymph.

"Deep through the spring, his eye-balls dart their beams,

Like midnight stars that twinkle in the streams,

His ivory neck the crystal mirror shows,

His waving hair, above the surface flows,

His own perfections all his passions moved,

He loves himself, who for himself was loved."

Half maddened by the appearance of a beauty, of which hitherto he had been unconscious, he made every possible effort to grasp what appeared to be the guardian spirit of the water.

"Oft with his down-thrust arms he thought to fold,

About that neck that still deludes his hold,

He gets no kisses from those cozening lips,

His arms grasp nothing, from himself he slips;

He knows not what he views, and yet pursues

His desperate love, and burns for what he views."

Nothing could win the self-enamoured boy from his devoted passion; but bending over the lucid spring, he fed his eyes with the delusive shade which seemed to gaze on him from the depths. At last

"Streaming tears from his full eye-lids fell,

And drop by drop, raised circles in the well,

The several rings larger and larger spread,

And by degrees dispersed the fleeting shade."

Narcissus fancied that the nymph upon whom he supposed he had been gazing, was deserting him, and unable to bear the misery which the thought occasioned, he wounded himself in his agony, deeming that life without her would be insupportable. Echo, however resentful she had felt for the scorn with which he had treated her, hovered near his footsteps and witnessed this last infatuation with redoubled sorrow.

"Now hanging o'er the spring his drooping head,

With a sad sigh these dying words he said,

'Ah! boy beloved in vain,' thro' all the plain

Echo resounds, 'Ah! boy beloved in vain!'

'Farewell,' he cries, and with that word he died,

'Farewell,' the miserable nymph replied.

Now pale and breathless on the grass he lies,

For death had shut his miserable eyes."

The Gods, however, taking pity upon his melancholy fate, changed him into the flower Narcissus.

Many morals have been attempted to be deduced from this beautiful fable, but in none of them have their authors been very successful, unless we may gather a warning of the fatal effects of self-love.

"What first inspired a bard of old to sing

Narcissus pining o'er the mountain spring?

In some delicious ramble, he had found

A little space, with boughs all woven round,

And in the midst of all a clearer pool

Than ere reflected in its pleasant cool

The blue sky, here and there divinely peeping

Through tendril wreaths, fantastically creeping;

And on the bank a lonely flower he spied,

A meek and forlorn flower with nought of pride,

Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness

To woo its own sweet image unto nearness;

Deaf to light Zephyrus, it would not move,

But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love;

So while the poet stood in this sweet spot;

Some fainted dreamings o'er his fancy shot;

Nor was it long ere he had told the tale

Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's vale."

Keats.

Poor Pan, undeterred by the zealous passion of Echo for Narcissus, still continued to love her, and pleased himself by wandering in the woods and deserts, there calling upon her, for the pleasure of hearing her voice in reply.

"In thy cavern-hall,

Echo! art thou sleeping?

By the fountain's fall

Dreamy silence keeping?

Yet one soft note borne

From the shepherd's horn,

Wakes thee, Echo! into music leaping,

Strange sweet Echo! into music leaping.

"Then the woods rejoice,

Then glad sounds are swelling,

From each sister voice

Round thy rocky dwelling;

And their sweetness fills

All the hollow hills,

With a thousand notes of one life telling!

Softly mingled notes, of one life telling.

"Echo! in my heart

Thus deep thoughts are lying,

Silent and apart,

Buried, yet undying,

Till some gentle tone

Wakening haply one,

Calls a thousand forth, like thee replying!

Strange sweet Echo, even like thee replying."

Hemans.

This god, so adored and loved in the country, had the power of spreading terror and confusion when he pleased. The Gauls, who under Brennus, invaded Greece, when on the point of pillaging the Temple at Delphi, were seized with a sudden panic and took to flight. This terror was attributed to Pan, and they believed all panics, the cause of which was unknown, were produced by him.

It was by the counsel of Pan, that the Gods at the moment of the assault of Typhon, took the figures of various animals, changing himself into a goat, the skin of which was transported to Heaven, and formed the sign of Capricorn.

"From the forests and highlands,

We come, we come!

From the river-girt islands,

Where the loud waves are dumb,

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

The bees in the bells of the lime,

The birds in the myrtle bushes,

The cicale above in the thyme,

And the lizard below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing

The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the nymphs of woods, and waves,

To the edge of the moist river lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did there attendant follow,

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

With envy of my sweet pipings.

"I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dædal earth,

And of heaven, and giant wars,

And love, and death, and birth,—

And then I changed my pipings.

Singing how down the vale of Menalus,

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed;

Gods and men were all deluded thus,

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:

All wept, as I think both ye now would,

If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings."

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