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“Without music life
would be a mistake”
Friedrich
Nietzsche |
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"If you live in rock
and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of
male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It
attracts women. It doesn't repel them.
Camille Paglia |
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They
used flute, drum, and timbrel or castinets, and
cymbals.
Plato considered that the flute, rather
than the drums, were the instrument of possession.
Aristotle and many of the major playwrights agreed
with him that the melody of the flute was the
carrier |
The precise origin of the pan flute is unclear, but
the Roman poet
Ovid provides a clue to this mystery
in his poem, “Metamorphoses“:
"Sitting on the riverbank,
Pan noticed the bed of reeds was swaying in the
wind, making a mournful moaning sound, for the wind
had broken the tops of some of the reeds. Pulling
the reeds up, Pan cut them into pieces and bound
them together to create a musical instrument, which
he named "Syrinx", in memory of his lost love. " |
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Pan is the inventor of the shepherd's or pan pipes |
The Andean music from Bolivia
and Peru features the magnetic pan pipes and can be
heard on the streets throughout the world
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Is Pan Dead? |
"The lonely mountains o'er
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent:
With flower-enwoven tresses torn,
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets
mourn."
Milton in his "Hymn
on the Nativity"
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Toledo Museum
of Art Attributed to the Creusa Painter
Date: ca 380 - 360 BC |
An early Christian
tradition has it that when the heavenly host told
the shepherds at Bethlehem of the birth of Christ, a
deep groan, heard through all the isles of Greece,
told that the great Pan was dead, and that the
royalty of Olympus was thus dethroned by the
Christian mythology.
Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas,
Can ye listen in your silence?
Can your mystic voices tell us
Where ye hide? In floating islands,
With a wind that evermore
Keeps you out of sight of shore?
Pan, Pan is dead.
. . . .
[Elizabeth
Barret Browning, 1806-61, The Dead Pan]
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SATYRS,
[SAY-ter] half-man
half-beast nature spirits that haunted the woods and
mountains and were the companions of Pan and Dionysus. These
followers of the god of the vine, are great lovers of
festivals, revels, drinking, dancing, singing, and generally
wild kinds of behavior.
Satyrs have a deserved reputation
for assaulting nymphs, and stealing cattle. Satyrs bear on
their foreheads small bony protuberances that in a goat
would grow into horns. They are often depicted as
intoxicated and sexually aroused.
Though Roman satire is sometimes thoughtlessly linked to the
Greek satyr plays, satire's only connection to the satyric
drama is through the subversive nature of the satyrs
themselves, as forces in opposition to urbanity,
decorum, and civilization itself.
While satyrs have been
called a worthless race, satyrs teach us it is
foolish to underestimate the overwhelming power that the
sexual instinct possesses to create complex delusions and
illusions.
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Bacchic dance: Plato tells us there was a
specific dance done by the characters in a
Dionysian ritual: Nymphs, Pans, Silenoi, and
Satyrs The Satyr and Silenoi dance
had several steps and aspects. Like the Mænads,
they would bend deeply forward and backward, but
they would also leap --- crouching on one leg,
then launching themselves to fall upon the other
one. They capered with the Mænads, and would
sway their hips accompanied by angular arm
movements. Beyond the 'joined hand' gesture and
the animal imitations, we do not know
specifically what these gestures were. It is
likely that the dance steps, like orisha and
voudon dances, had strong symbolic aspects but
this is lost to us. |
Pan
the most famous Satyr
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leader
of the eternal Spring |
Pan god of woods and
fields, of flocks and shepherds, Pan is known as
"The Pasturer," "the Feeder of Flocks." God of herds,
fertility and male sexuality,
Pan amuses himself with
the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs.
Pan has the horns and legs of a goat and plays a syrinx, a
pipe with seven reeds. An ancient god, he has no moral or
social aspect whatsoever, and is simply the embodiment of
pure, basic instinct. Some said that Pan taught Apollo the
art of prophecy. Pan especially loves mountains and wild
country. Pan has a dark aspect as well, causing men and
animals to go suddenly mad with terror in distant, lonely
places or because your superstitious fears have got the best
of you. His name is therefore the root word of "panic."
Pan was fond of music, and
known as the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's pipe,
which he himself played in a such a masterly manner he once
competed against Apollo himself.
Pan and Syrinx.
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One day
Pan saw the nymph Syrinx returning to her home.
Immediately he started after her and she ran until
she came to a river. Syrinx turned into a reed that
lined the bank of the river so Pan could not
recognize her. Pan grabbed a hand full of reeds in
hopes that he could capture Syrinx, but he was
unable to locate her. Pan sat down beside the river
and started tying the reeds together that he had
gathered and soon he came up with a contraption that
is known today as the "Pipes of Pan." |
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Here
is the original version translated to
English |
English
poet John Keats
(1795-1821),
tells the story of Pan and Syrinx best:
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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.
Poor nymph- poor Pan- how he did weep to
find
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation, balmy pain.
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Selene the moon
goddess is known for her countless love affairs including
the shepherd Endymion. Pan's seduction began with a
gift of a herd of white oxen. Pan accomplished the
seduction of Selene by disguising his hairy black
goatishness with white fleece. Selene consented to ride on
his back, unaware of who he was, and Pan proceeded to ravish
her.
Titans:
Pan was present at the great battle between the
Olympian gods and the Titans and claimed that it has
his yelling that caused the Titans to flee.
Marsyas was a satyr who challenged Apollo to a
contest of music.
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The deal was, that the winner could treat the
defeated party any way he wanted. Since the
contest was judged by the Muses, Marsyas
naturally lost and was flayed alive in a cave
near Calaenae in Phrygia for his hubris to
challenge a god. His blood turned into the river
Marsyas.
There are several versions of the contest;
according to some Marsyas was departing as
victor when Apollo, turning his lyre upside
down, played the same tune. This was something
that Marsyas could not do with his flute.
According to another version Marsyas was
defeated when Apollo added his voice to the
sound of the lyre. Marsyas protested, arguing
that the skill with the instrument was to be
compared, and not the voice. However, Apollo
replied that when Marsyas blew into the pipes,
he was doing almost the same thing as himself.
The Muses found Apollo's claim to be the most
just, leading to his victory |
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Midas let it be known that he though
Marsyas was the
better musician. Apollo punished Midas making his
ears grow like those of a donkey. |
Pan and Echo. The nymph ran from him. Pan
instilled "panic" in local shepherds and they killed her,
destroying her body. Only her voice remains.
He was the god of green
fields and the guardian of the shepherds associated
with the worship of Dionysus, and as a mountain
deity with that of Cybele. He is at home in any wild
place but, is favorite is Arcady, where he was born.
He was fond of sportive dances, singing with
woodland nymphs and playing on pipes. He is always in pursuit of
a nymph, but, is
rarely successful.
Sylvanus and Faunus
are
Pan's Latin counterparts
LINKS

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Albrecht
Dürer's 1505 engraving, Musical Satyr and Nymph with
Baby (Satyr's Family). |
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The Italian version of the satyr is the Faun
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But if you ask me why I appear before you in this
strange dress, be pleased to lend me your ears, and
I'll tell you; not those ears, I mean, you carry to
church, but abroad with you, such as you are wont to
prick up to jugglers, fools, and buffoons, and
such as our friend Midas once gave to Pan. For I
am disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not
of their sort who nowadays boozle young men's heads
with certain empty notions and curious trifles, yet
teach them nothing but a more than womanish
obstinacy of scolding: but I'll imitate those
ancients who, that they might the better avoid that
infamous appellation of sophi or wise, chose rather
to be called sophists. Their business was to
celebrate the praises of the gods and valiant men.
And the like encomium shall you hear from me, but
neither of Hercules nor Solon, but my own dear self,
that is to say, Folly:
The Praise of
Folly (Moriae Encomium), 1509
considered one of the most influential works of
literature in Western civilization and one of the
catalysts of the
Reformation.
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