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Pan (mythology)
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Pan (Greek , genitive ), in Greek religion and mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein, meaning "to pasture". He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.
In Roman mythology, Pan's counterpart was Faunus, a nature spirit who was the father of Bona Dea (Fauna).
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Pan (Greek , genitive ), in Greek religion and mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein, meaning "to pasture". He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.
In Roman mythology, Pan's counterpart was Faunus, a nature spirit who was the father of Bona Dea (Fauna). In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the romanticist movement of western Europe, and also in the 20th century Neopagan movement.
Origins
In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar's Pythian Ode iii. 78, Pan appears as the "agent", "guardian" or "attendant" of the Great Goddess (Cybele).
The parentage of Pan is unclear; in some myths he is the son of Zeus, though generally he is the son of Hermes, with whom his mother is said to be a nymph, sometimes Dryope or, in Nonnus, Dionysiaca (14.92), a Penelope of Mantineia in Arcadia. Following Plato's inventive etymology, his name is sometimes mistakenly thought to be identical to the Greek word pan, meaning "all", when it is more likely to be cognate with paein, "to pasture", and to share an origin with the modern English word "pasture". Greek Pan and Indic Pushan might have a common, Indo-European or at least "Graeco-Aryan", origin. In the Mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era Pan is made cognate with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros.
Probably the beginning of the linguistic misunderstanding is the Homeric Hymn to Pan, which describes him as delighting all the gods, and thus getting his name. The Roman Faunus, a god of Indo-European origin, was equated with Pan. However, accounts of Pan's genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time. Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo. 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 Arcas, and one a son of Kronos. "In the retinue of Dionysos, or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the Satyrs".
Worship
The worship of Pan began in Arcadia, and Arcadia was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people whom other Greeks disdained. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase (Theocritus. vii. 107).
Pan inspired sudden fear in lonely places, Panic (panikon deima). Following the Titans' assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had inspired disorder and fear in the attackers resulting in the word 'panic' to describe these emotions. 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 BC to 510 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.
Mythology
The goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus' battle with Typhon, Aegipan 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. According to some traditions, Aegipan was the son of Pan, rather than his father.
One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his eponymous pan flute. Syrinx was a lovely water-nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Landon, the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into a reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth Pan was seldom seen without it.
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.
Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him.
Erotic aspects
Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to shepherds.
He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds. 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 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 judgement. 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.
In another version of the myth the first round of the contest was a tie so they were forced to go to a second round. In this round, Apollo demanded that they play standing on their heads. Apollo, playing on the lyre, was unaffected, however Pan's pipe couldn't be played while upsidedown, so Apollo won the contest.
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 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.
Epithets
Aegocerus was an epithet of Pan descriptive of his figure with the horns of a goat.
The Death of 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.
Influence
Symbolism of Satan
It is likely that the demonized images of the incubus and even the horns and cloven hooves of Satan, as depicted in much medieval and post-medieval Christian literature and art, were taken from the images of Pan.
Revivalist imagery
In the late 18th century, interest in Pan revived among liberal scholars. Richard Payne Knight discussed Pan in his book on the Worship of Priapus as a symbol of creation expressed through sexuality. "Pan is represented pouring water upon the organ of generation; that is, invigorating the active creative power by the prolific element."
In the English town of Painswick in Gloucestershire, a group of 18th century gentry, led by Benjamin Hyett, organised an annual procession dedicated to Pan, during which a statue of the deity was held aloft, and people shouted 'Highgates! Highgates!". Hyett also erected temples and follies to Pan in the gardens of his house and a "Pan's lodge", located over Painswick Valley. The tradition died out in the 1830s, but was revived in 1885 by the new vicar, W.H. Seddon, who mistakenly believed that the festival had been ancient in origin. One of Seddon's successors, however, was less appreciative of the pagan festival and put an end to it in 1950, when he had Pan's statue buried.
In the late nineteenth century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. Patricia Merivale states that between 1890 and 1926 there was an "astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif". He appears in poetry, in novels and childrens' books such as The Wind in the Willows during this period.
Neopaganism
In 1933, the Egyptologist Margaret Murray published the book, The God of the Witches, in which she theorised that Pan was merely one form of a horned god who was worshipped across Europe by a witch-cult. This theory influenced the Neopagan notion of the Horned God, as an archetype of male virility and sexuality. In Wicca, the archetype of the Horned God is highly important, as represented by such deities as the Celtic Cernunnos, Indian Pashupati and Pan.
A modern account of several purported meetings with Pan is given by Robert Ogilvie Crombie (born Edinburgh, lived 1899-1975), in the books "The Findhorn Garden" (Harper & Row, 1975) and "The Magic Of Findhorn" (Harper & Row, 1975). Crombie claimed to have met Pan many times at various locations including Edinburgh, on the island of Iona and at the Findhorn Foundation, all in Scotland.
See also
External links
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