Who is Pan? What is a realistic picture of him and what he is supposed to do? Is his nature constructive or...

Question

destructive?

Answer 1

Pan is the god of hillsides and pastures, and was worshipped by goatherders and shepherds. His parentage is confusing. Most often, he is the son of Hermes and Amalthea. His connection with shepherds and their stock eventually led to Pan being depicted as having the legs of a goat, the body and head of a man, and goat horns on his head. Interestingly, centuries later, Pan's image served as the visual representation of the Christian Devil. He was always in love with one nymph of another but was usually rejected because of his ugliness. In one story, Pan was pursuing a chaste female named Syrinx. Just as he was about to catch her, her sister nymphs turned her into a reed in the river Ladon. When Pan couldn't figure out which one she was, he cut several and made them into his trademark instrument, the panpipe. He did have some children: Iynx from Echo and Crotus from Eupheme. He was never allowed to sit with the Olympians, but he did entertain and amuse them. He was a wonderful musician, and Hermes copied his pipes to spread their use. The concept of panic was derived from Pan's name and traits. A traveler walking through the wilderness at night hearing sounds, trembled with fear, so it's easy to see how the expressions "panic" fear arose. Pan's Roman name is Faunus.

Answer 2

Pan was a somewhat minor god... today, his name is practically used as ammunition by a few of the more zealous "most persectued" people who I unfortunately share a religion with. You know the BS myth... *Back in the good old days when everyone was a bisexual pagan and women ruled and everyone lived in peace, they stole our most holy god (Pan) and turned him into the devil just to persecute us*

Answer 3

Pan is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music: paein means to pasture. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr.

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 trademark pan flute. Syrinx was a beautiful nymph beloved by the satyrs and other wood dwellers. She scorned them all. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. She ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments, and he pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to the bank of the River Ladon where he overtook her. She had only time to call on the water nymphs for help. Just as Pan laid hands on her, she was turned into the river reeds. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god took some of the reeds to make an instrument which he called a syrinx, in honor of the nymph.

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.

Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related the myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to his beloved shepherds.

He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds, such as Daphnis. 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.

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 judgment. 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.

The constellation Capricornus is often depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish's tail. 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.