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Mercury made haste, put his winged slippers on his feet, and cap on his head, took his sleep-producing wand, and leaped down from the heavenly towers to the earth. There he laid aside his wings, and kept only his wand, with which he presented himself as a shepherd driving his flock. As he strolled on he blew upon his pipes. These were what are called the Syrinx or Pandean pipes.
It has in it the passion of violet and silver dreaming, the hue of an endless dawn before the day descends upon the world. You expect the lute to regain its jaded tune there. You expect the harp to reverberate once again with the old fervors. You expect the syrinx to unfold the story of the reed in light song.
There was Daphne, too, who disdained the love of Apollo himself, and would never listen to a word of his suit, but fled like Syrinx, and prayed like Syrinx for escape; but Daphne was changed into a fair laurel-tree, held sacred by Apollo forever after. All these maidens were as untamed and free of heart as the wild creatures they loved to hunt, and whoever molested them did so at his peril.
Pan, the god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, dwelt in grottos, wandered on the mountains and in valleys, and amused himself with the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs. He was fond of music, and as we have seen, the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's pipe, which he himself played in a masterly manner.
Potter Palmer, the Chanler sisters of New York, and many more. He has painted landscapes, as well. Professor Barrett Wendell possesses a charming example. Most recently he has been engaged on a large mural decoration, best fitted, perhaps, for a music room, showing Pan seated on a tree trunk by a lake, making into a pipe the broken reeds in his hand after Syrinx eluded him. No horizon line shows.
In a poem dedicated to Leigh Hunt, by Keats, the following allusion to the story of Pan and Syrinx occurs: "So did he feel who pulled the bough aside, That we might look into a forest wide, Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.
A few days before, I had made a careful study of the syrinx of this bird, whom we may call rather euphoniously Trogonurus curucui, and had been struck by the simplicity both of muscles and bones. Now, having summoned his mate in regular accents, there followed this unexpected whisper song.
The god, charmed with the novelty and with the sweetness of the music, said 'Thus, then, at least, you shall be mine. And he took some of the reeds, and placing them together, of unequal lengths, side by side, made an instrument which he called Syrinx, in honor of the nymph." Before Mercury had finished his story, he saw Argus's eyes all asleep.
Yon bay, chaste Daphne wreathed, Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel, The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill Heard Cytherea mourn!
They suddenly break cover, follow and seize the flying girls, and are on the point of enjoying the success of their plot when Diana intervenes, transforming her outraged followers into trees, streams, and so forth. The metamorphosis is related by Pan himself, who returns bearing in his hand a reed, all that is left of his beloved Syrinx.
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