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Pan was so far from beautiful that even his nurse could not find a compliment for him, and in fact dropped him and ran. Considering what one usually expects of a new-born infant, Pan must have been really unattractive. His lack of personal charm was the origin of the invention of Pan's pipes or syrinx.
We speak of Apollo and of Diana they were born here; of the metamorphosis of Syrinx into a reed it was done here; of the great god Pan he dwelt in the caves of this hill of Coressus; of the Amazons this was their best prized home; of Bacchus and Hercules both fought the warlike women here; of the Cyclops they laid the ponderous marble blocks of some of the ruins yonder; of Homer this was one of his many birthplaces; of Cirmon of Athens; of Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus they visited here; so did Alexander the Great; so did Hannibal and Antiochus, Scipio, Lucullus and Sylla; Brutus, Cassius, Pompey, Cicero, and Augustus; Antony was a judge in this place, and left his seat in the open court, while the advocates were speaking, to run after Cleopatra, who passed the door; from this city these two sailed on pleasure excursions, in galleys with silver oars and perfumed sails, and with companies of beautiful girls to serve them, and actors and musicians to amuse them; in days that seem almost modern, so remote are they from the early history of this city, Paul the Apostle preached the new religion here, and so did John, and here it is supposed the former was pitted against wild beasts, for in 1 Corinthians, xv. 32 he says: "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus," &c.,
The sun, the scent of the roses, the song of the wood and of the water, and the Syrinx, the beautiful scene before her, the happy children all these called up suddenly into her breast that summer of the heart, in which all sentiments, all thoughts, are like beautiful flowers, and which makes life seem so light and so lovely: she conceived a friendship for that young man who had occasioned it, and whose good heart beamed forth from his eyes, which at one moment were fixed on the blue heavens, and then on her own soft blue eyes, with an expression of devotion and a certain pure earnestness, which she had never observed in him before.
Emeralds of a rare beauty hung upon them so negligently that it seemed as though they would fall off at any second, and suddenly she began laughing. "Look" she said; "what a funny figure, or, to put it more correctly, what a funny profession! There, there, that one who's playing on a 'syrinx of seven reeds." Everyone looked in the direction of her hand. And really, the picture was funny enough.
Ovid, also, tells how the gods listened to the prayer of penitent Myrrha, and eventually turned her into a tree. Although, as Mr. The sisters of Phaëthon, bewailing his death on the shores of Eridanus, were changed into poplars. We may, too, compare the story of Daphne and Syrinx, who, when they could no longer elude the pursuit of Apollo and Pan, change themselves into a laurel and a reed.
You have in these pictures the romances of the human mind made irresistible with melodic certainty. They are chansons sans paroles, sung to the syrinx in Sicilian glades. I feel that it is our own romantic land transposed into terms of classical metre. The color is mostly Greek, and the line is Greek.
Poet, b. in London or Yorkshire, studied at Oxf., and was an attorney in London. In 1585 he pub. a collection of seven tales in prose entitled Pan his Syrinx, and in 1595 a translation of the Menæchmi of Plautus. His chief work was Albion's England, pub. in 1586 in 13 books of fourteen-syllabled verse, and republished with 3 additional books in 1606.
Men called them Oracles; for here the gods spoke in answer to the prayers of folk in sorrow or bewilderment. Sometimes they built a temple around such a befriending voice, and kings would journey far to hear it speak. As for Pan, only one grief had he, and in the end a glad thing came of it. One day, when he was loitering in Arcadia, he saw the beautiful wood-nymph Syrinx.
She was hastening to join Diana at the chase, and she herself was as swift and lovely as any bright bird that one longs to capture. So Pan thought, and he hurried after to tell her. Begging her to listen, Pan followed; and Syrinx, more and more frightened by the patter of his hoofs, never heeded him, but went as fast as light till she came to the brink of the river.
Not without meaning has myth endowed woman with the power of metamorphosis, to change at will like the maidens in the legend into wild white swans, or like Syrinx, fleeing from the too ardent pursuit of Pan, into a flowering reed, or like Lamia, into a jewelled serpent Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd; And full of silver moons.
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