The Pipes of Pan

The story of Syrinx is another that bears much fruit for the tree fetishist.

It's pretty much the same story as Daphne, except with an even more explicit relationship between desire, loss, compensation, violence, and art. Syrinx is transformed into the reeds from which Pan makes his pipes.

So here are some thoughts on Pan and Syrinx.

Here's a comic take from Richard Niccols, In Syringam Panafugientem:

From rugged Pan though lovely Syrinx fled,
Pretending so to save her maidenhead;
Yet in the end the chaster Nymph did stay
To be the pipe, when Pan would please to play.

And here's one for the Canadians, by Bliss Carman, from his Sappho series:

LOVER, art thou of a surety
Not a learner of the wood-god?
Has the madness of his music
Never touched thee?

AH, thou dear and godlike mortal,
If Pan takes thee for his pupil,
Make me but another Syrinx
For that piping.