Pan (mythology)

Pan (Greek Πάν, genitive Πανός) is the Greek god of nature who watches over shepherds and their flocks: paein means to pasture. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, with the upper body and hands of a man in much the same manner as a faun or satyr. He often holds a logaobolon, a variation of the shepherd's crook which is used for hunting small game, or else a syrinx, a flute-like instrument also known as the panpipe. The Roman counterpart to Pan is Faunus, another nature spirit .

Pan teaching his eromenos, the shepherd Daphnis, to play the panpipes
2nd c. CE Roman copy of Greek original
ca. 100 B.C.E. attributed to Heliodorus
Found in Pompeii

Origins

The name of the god is of Indo-European derivation, following from the word pa-on, which means "herdsman" and shares its prefix with the Latin pastor and the modern English word "pasture". The name is often mistakenly thought to be identical to the Greek word pan, meaning "all". This misunderstanding probably originated out of the Homeric Hymn to Pan, which describes him as delighting all the gods, or else from a some Platonic wordplay. In Plato's work Cratylus, Pan is portrayed as the personification of the entire cosmos, embodying both the lower animal nature and the hihger spiritual of humanity.

Pan might be multiplied as the Panes (Burkert 1985, III.3.2; Ruck and Staples 1994 p 132) or the Paniskoi. Kerenyi (1951 p 174) notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arkas, and one a son of Cronos. In support of this theory, depictions of the retinue of Dionysos, as well as those of wild landscapes in ancient Greece often picture not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as Satyrs.

Pan was first venerated in ancient Arcadia, a mountainous area in central Peloponnessus. The majority of Greeks disdained Arcadia and its inhabitants, as the society was far removed from Classical Greece, with a pastoral economy and rudimentary political system. Furthermore, the mountain dwelling Arcadians were considered somewhat backwards and primitive. Thus, the fact that they held a figure of the wilderness in such high regard is not surprising.

Mythology

Birth

The parentage of Pan is unclear. In some myths he is the son of Zeus, though generally he is the son of Hermes with his mother said to be a nymph, either Dryope or else Penelope). The Homeric Hymn to Pan claims that, upon seeing his goatlike appearance, Pan's mother ran away in fright. Despite these suggestions that Pan was the son of an Olympian God, he often appears in myth to be older than the Olympians like other nature spirits. For instance, this is suggested in the story which explains that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo.

The goat-god Aigipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus' battle with Typhon, Aigipan and Hermes stole back Zeus' "sinews" that Typhon had hidden away in the Corycian Cave. Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by blowing his conch-horn and scattering them in terror.

Amorous Encounters

Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related the myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to his beloved shepherds.

He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds, such as Daphnis. Though he failed with Syrinx and Pitys, Pan didn't fail with the Maenads—he had every one of them, in one orgiastic riot or another. To effect this, Pan was sometimes multiplied into a whole tribe of Panes.

Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her.

Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him.

Pan and music

Once Pan had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge Apollo, the god of the lyre, to a trial of skill. Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen to umpire. Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. He dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer, and turned Midas' ears into those of a donkey.

One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his trademark pan flute. Syrinx was a beautiful nymph beloved by the satyrs and other wood dwellers. She scorned them all. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. She ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments, and he pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to the bank of the River Ladon where he overtook her. She had only time to call on the water nymphs for help. Just as Pan laid hands on her, she was turned into the river reeds. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god took some of the reeds to make an instrument which he called a syrinx, in honor of the nymph.

Echo was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Pan, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over earth. The goddess of the earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan first had one child: Iambe.

Capricornus

The constellation Capricornus is often depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish's tail: see Aigaion or Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires. One myth^{[citation needed]} that would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn says that when Aigipan, that is Pan in his goat-god aspect, was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dove into the Nile; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish.

Worship

As mentioned above, worship of Pan began in Arcadia, and as such, Arcadia was always the principal seat of his worship. Pan was considered Lord of Arcadia and guardian of its sanctuaries. One enclosure dedicated to Pan stood on Mount Lycaeus and functioned as a sanctuary for animals who were stalked by the wolf, consistent with the idea that Pan protected all creatures. Pan was also considered to be the adjudicator of the human activities of hunting and animal husbandry. His ability to bestow sterility or fertility upon domesticated animals gave him particular significance in the worship of Arcadian hunters and shepherds. In fact, Theocritus notes that if Arcadian hunters or shepherds had been disappointed in the chase or the sterility of their animals, respectively, they would undertake a rite in which the statue of Pan was whipped and scourged in hopes of calling the god back from inactivity.

Pan inspired sudden fear in lonely places, Panic (panikon deima). Apparently when Pan was a newborn, the first onlookers saw the ugly "child" and ran in fright (or panic [which is where this word was derived]). Of course, Pan was later known for his music, capable of arousing inspiration, sexuality, or panic, depending on his intentions. In the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.E.), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.

Legacy

Pan, Mikhail Vrubel 1900

It is likely that the demonized images of the incubus and even the horns and cloven hooves of Satan, as depicted in much Christian literature and art, were taken from the images of the highly sexual Pan.

If one were to believe the Greek historian Plutarch (in "The Obsolescence of Oracles" (Moralia, Book 5:17)), Pan is the only Greek god who is dead. During the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), the news of Pan's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes, take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

Robert Graves (The Greek Myths) suggested that the Egyptian Thamus apparently misheard Thamus Pan-megas Tethnece ('the all-great Tammuz is dead') for 'Thamus, Great Pan is dead!' Certainly, when Pausanias toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Pan's shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented.

Despite the declaration of his death, however, Pan is widely worshiped by Neopagans and Wiccans today, where he is considered a powerful deity and an archetype of male virility and sexuality, called the Horned God.

Pan makes guest appearances in The Wind in the Willows, Jitterbug Perfume, and The Circus of Dr. Lao, is the primary, metaphorical theme in Knut Hamsun's Pan, and in Shepherds of Pan on the Big Sur-Monterey Coast by Elayne Wareing Fitzpatrick. Pan also features in various supernatural fiction such as Arthur Machen'sThe Great God Pan, as well as Donna Jo Napoli's young adult novel of the same title. It is also probable that the faun in the movie "Pan's Labyrinth" is inspired by Pan, and that the movie itself is named after him.

Pan in fiction

• The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen.
• The Blessing of Pan by Lord Dunsany.
• "The Touch of Pan" by Algernon Blackwood.
• The Garden at 19 and The Horned Shepard by Edgar Jepson.
• In Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, Pan plays a prominent role throughout the whole plot.
• The Great God Pan by Donna Jo Napoli.
• "Pan With Us" by Robert Frost, Poem 26 from A Boy's Will.
• Pan makes an appearance in Bat Boy: The Musical.
• "The Lawnmower Man" by Stephen King.
• "The Call of Wings" by Agatha Christie
• Pan guest stars in "Class of the Titans".
• Duke Phillips in The Critic proclaimed, "Well, like most of America's cultural elite, I worship Pan, Goat God!"
• Pan guest stars in "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy".
• In the short story "The Magic Barrel" by Bernard Malamud, main character Pinye Salzman is compared to Pan.
• Hymn To Pan by Aleister Crowley.
• The Pan Within and The Return of Pan by The Waterboys.
• Pan appears (playing a pan flute) as part of Cosmo's band, "The Faeries," in The Fairly Odd Parents
• Pan by Knut Hamsun
• Pan as The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame.
• Pan was the inspiration for the Progressive Rock Band: Pans Motive.
• Pan makes an appearance in the computer game Freedom Force as a villain. His flute has the power to hypnotize people.
• Pan appears as the embodiment of lust in the 1963 movie "7 Faces of Dr. Lao".
• In the 2006 Guillermo del Toro film Pan's Labyrinth, the title refers to the faun-like Pan.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Harvard University Press. 
• Kerenyi, Karl (1951). The Gods of the Greeks. Thames & Hudson. 
• Ruck, Carl A.P. and Danny Staples (1994). The World of Classical Myth. Carolina Academic Press. 
• Borgeaud, Philippe (1979). Recherches sur le Dieu Pan. Geneva University. 

External links

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Pan (mythology)

• The story of Pan and Daphnis
• Original resources on Faunus/Phaunos
• Original resources on Pan
• Pan Mythology

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