Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates
RELIGION AND ErRorTic
which one hears on lonely mountains, the echo of the towering rocks of Arcadia, had given birth to the beautiful story according to which Pan loves the nymph Echo, but she prefers the charming Narcissus and pines away in unfulfilled desire for him until her body gradually withers and of all her being only the voice is left (the story of Echo is variously told; cf. Moschus, 6; Longus, iii, 23). Narcissus, who had seen himself mirrored in a stream, fell madly in love with his own marvellous beauty, until in his unassuaged passion for himself he pines away—an ingenious and infinitely touching symbol of the spring flower, which, being reflected in the brook, dies after a short bloom. (For Narcissus, see Ovid, Metam., III, 339 ff.; Pausanias, ix, 31, 7; Conon, 24. On the symbolism of the story, see Plutarch, Conviv., 5, 7, 4; Artemidorus, ul, 7.) Similarly ingenious stories are attached by Greek poetry to the form of the nymph Syrinx (Ovid, Metam., I, 690 ff. ; Longus, ii, 34, 37), the personification of the shepherd’s flute, or the Pitys, the personified pine-tree (Lucian, Dial. Deorum, 22,4), with whose branches Pan is accustomed to adorn his head.
The most important feature in the character of Pan, for the purpose of the present work, is his continual lustfulness. As Longus says (ii, 39), no nymph has any rest from him, but he is not always fortunate in his adventures. Ovid (Fasti, 11, 303 ff.) tells a story about him, which he himself describes as exceedingly humorous. Pan once caught sight of the youthful Heracles together with Omphale, in compulsory service to whom destiny had compelled the hero to languish as a punishment for the murder, committed in madness, of his friend Iphitus, and in this service he degenerated till he became like a woman himself, spinning wool and wearing female attire, as poets and artists often representhim. Nosooner had Pan seen Omphale than he fell madly in love with her. “ Away with the
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