[164] Ovid, Metam. 11, 583-748.
[165] Homeric Hymn to Venus; Horace, Odes, 1, 22; 2, 16; Apollodorus, 3, 12, § 4.
[166] Ovid, Metam. 13, 622, etc. Odyssey, 4, 188; 11, 522. Pindar, Pyth. 6, 30.
[167] Pausanias, 1, 42, § 2.
[168] Darwin, Botanic Garden.
[CHAPTER XII]
MYTHS OF THE LESSER DIVINITIES OF EARTH, ETC.
129. Pan, and the Personification of Nature. It was a pleasing trait in the old paganism that it loved to trace in every operation of nature the agency of deity. The imagination of the Greeks peopled the regions of earth and sea with divinities, to whose agency it attributed the phenomena that our philosophy ascribes to the operation of natural law. So Pan, the god of woods and fields,[169] whose name seemed to signify all, came to be considered a symbol of the universe and a personification of Nature. "Universal Pan," says Milton in his description of the creation:
Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.
Later, Pan came to be regarded as a representative of all the Greek gods and of paganism itself. Indeed, according to an early Christian tradition, when the heavenly host announced to the shepherds the birth of Christ, a deep groan, heard through the isles of Greece, told that great Pan was dead, that the dynasty of Olympus was dethroned, and the several deities sent wandering in cold and darkness.