Pan, n.2
(pæn)
[a. Gr. Πάν.]
The name of a Greek rural deity, represented as having the head, arms, and chest of a man, while his lower parts were those of a goat, of which he sometimes also bore the horns and ears.
The original seat of his worship was in Arcadia, and he was supposed to preside over shepherds and flocks, and to delight in rural music; he was also regarded as the author of sudden and groundless terror seizing upon beasts or men (panic); in later times, from association of his name with τὸ πᾶν the all, everything, the universe, he was considered as an impersonation of Nature, of which his attributes were taken as mysterious symbols.
| c 1369 Chaucer Dethe Blaunche 512 Pan that men clepe the god of kynde. c 1420 Lydg. Assembly of Gods 324 The rewde god Pan, of sheperdys the gyde. 1579 E. K. Gloss. Spenser's Sheph. Cal. Apr. 50 Christ..is the verye Pan and God of Shepheardes. 1584 R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. vii. xv. (1886) 122 They have so fraied us with bull beggers, spirits,..elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, fauns. 1606 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iv. ii. Magnif. 870 Heer, many a horned Satyre, many a Pan. 1678 Norris Coll. Misc. (1699) 55 The gentle God of the Arcadian plains, Pan that regards the sheep, Pan that regards the swains, Great Pan is dead. 1844 Mrs. Browning Dead Pan, (Refrain) Pan, Pan is dead. |