Pan (god)

He's like a man you'd meet any place
until you recognize that ancient Face
The Great God Pan is alive!

Pan (Greek: Πᾶν, Pān), in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates in the Ancient Greek language, from the word πάειν (paean), meaning "to pasture."

Quotes

Come with me on a journey beneath the skin
We will look together for the Pan within.

• In Arcady there lies a crystal spring
  Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds
  Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind.
  Here on its time-defaced pedestal
  The image of a half-forgotten God
  Crumbles to its complete oblivion.
  • Eleanor Farjeon, in "Pan-Worship", in Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908)

• O evanescent temples built of man
  To deities he honoured and dethroned!
  Earth shoots a trail of her eternal vine
  To crown the head that men have ceased to honour.
  Beneath the coronal of leaf and lichen
  The mocking smile upon the lips derides
  Pan's lost dominion; but the pointed ears
  Are keen and prick'd with old remember'd sounds.
  All my breast aches with longing for the past!
  Thou God of stone, I have a craving in me
  For knowledge of thee as thou wert in old
  Enchanted twilights in Arcadia.
  • Eleanor Farjeon, in "Pan-Worship", in Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908)

• In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest.
  They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.
  • Khalil Gibran, in Jesus, The Son of Man (1928), Sarkis an old Greek Shepherd, called the madman: Jesus and Pan

• "And now let us play our reeds together."
  And they played together.
  And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things.
  I heard the bellow of beasts and the hunger of the forest. And I heard the cry of lonely men, and the plaint of those who long for what they know not.
  I heard the sighing of the maiden for her lover, and the panting of the luckless hunter for his prey.
  And then there came peace into their music, and the heavens and the earth sang together.
  All this I saw in my dream, and all this I heard.
  • Khalil Gibran, in Jesus, The Son of Man (1928), Sarkis an old Greek Shepherd, called the madman: Jesus and Pan

• Come with me on a journey beneath the skin
  We will look together for the Pan within.
  • Mike Scott, in "The Pan Within" on This Is the Sea (1985)

• He's like a man you'd meet any place
  until you recognize that ancient Face
  The Great God Pan is alive!
  • Mike Scott, in "The Return Of Pan" on Dream Harder (1993)

• At sea on a ship in a thunderstorm
  on the very night the Christ was born
  a sailor heard from overhead
  a mighty voice cry "Pan is Dead!"
  So follow Christ as best you can
  Pan is dead — Long live Pan!
  • Mike Scott, in "The Return Of Pan" on Dream Harder (1993)

• Some say the Gods are just a myth
  but guess Who I've been dancing with...
  The Great God Pan is alive!
  • Mike Scott, in "The Return Of Pan" on Dream Harder (1993)