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| Giulio Bonasone (active in Bologna) Pan carrying pipes 1555 engraving British Museum |
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| Giulio Bonasone (active in Bologna) Pan discovering Pitys changed by Boreas into a pine tree 1555 engraving British Museum |
From the gloaming of the oak-wood
O ye Dryads, could ye flee?
At the rushing thunderstroke would
No sob tremble through the tree? –
Not a word the Dryads say,
Though the forests wave for aye,
For Pan is dead.
Have ye left the mountain places
Oreads wild, for other tryst?
Shall we see no sudden faces
Strike a glory through the mist?
Not a sound the silence thrills
Of the everlasting hills.
Pan, Pan is dead.
O twelve gods of Plato's vision
Crowned to starry wanderings –
With your chariots in procession
And your silver clash of wings!
Very pale ye seem to rise
Ghosts of Grecian deities –
Now Pan is dead!
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| Giulio Bonasone (active in Bologna) Pan vanquished by Cupid 1555 engraving British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini (active in Bologna) Pan and other Bacchic figures dancing before arcaded loggia (after a Roman sarcophagus-relief) ca. 1530-40 drawing British Museum |
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| Nicoletto da Modena (active in Modena) Pan with pipes, child and goat ca. 1500-1510 engraving British Museum |
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| Benedetto Montagna (active in Vicenza) Musical contest between Apollo and Pan ca. 1500-1520 engraving British Museum |
Ha, Apollo! Floats his golden
Hair all mist-like where he stands,
While the Muses hang enfolding
Knee and foot with faint wild hands?
'Neath the clanging of thy bow,
Niobe looked lost as thou!
Pan, Pan is dead!
Shall the casque with its brown iron
Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse,
And no hero take inspiring
From the God-Greek of her lips?
'Neath her olive dost thou sit,
Mars the mighty, cursing it?
Pan, Pan is dead.
Bacchus, Bacchus! on the panther
He swoons – bound with his own vines!
And his Maenads slowly saunter,
Head aside, among the pines,
While they murmur dreamingly –
"Evohe – ah – evohe – !"
Ah, Pan is dead.
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| Marcantonio (active in Rome) Bacchanal after Roman sarcophagus-relief, formerly in Rome, now in Naples ca. 1510-27 engraving British Museum |
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| Jacob Binck (active in Germany) after Marcantonio Female Satyr and statue of Priapus (right-hand detail of Bacchanal directly above) ca. 1530-60 engraving British Museum |
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| Marco da Ravenna (active in Rome) after design by Raphael for fresco painted by Giulio Romano in the bathroom of Cardinal Bibbiena at the Vatican Pan spying on Syrinx 1516-20 engraving British Museum |
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| Giovanni Battista Palumbra (active in Rome) Priapus approaching sleeping Lotis ca. 1500-1510 engraving British Museum |
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| Jacopo de' Barbari (active in Venice and in Germany) Sacrifice to Priapus ca. 1501-1503 engraving British Museum |
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| Nikolaus Wilborn (active in Germany) after Jacopo de' Barbari Sacrifice to Priapus ca. 1531-38 engraving British Museum |
Gods! we vainly do adjure you –
Ye return nor voice nor sign!
Not a votary could secure you
Even a grave for your Divine!
Not a grave, to show thereby,
Here these gray old gods do lie.
Pan, Pan is dead.
Even that Greece who took your wages,
Calls the obolus outworn;
And the hoarse deep-throated ages
Laugh your godship unto scorn –
And the poets do disclaim you,
Or grow colder if they name you –
And Pan is dead.
Gods bereavèd, gods belated,
With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!
Now, the goats may climb and crop
The soft grass on Ida's top –
Now Pan is dead.
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| Master of 1515 (active in Italy) Trophy of Arms with Term of Pan 1515 engraving British Museum |
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| Master of the Die (active in Rome) Sacrifice to Priapus 1532 engraving British Museum |
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| Pieter van der Heyden (active in Antwerp) Sacrifice to Priapus 1553 engraving British Museum |
Calm, of old, the bark went onward,
When a cry more loud than wind,
Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward,
From the pilèd Dark behind;
And the sun shrank and grew pale,
Breathed against by the great wail –
"Pan, Pan is dead."
And the rowers from the benches
Fell – each shuddering on his face –
While departing influences
Struck a cold back through the place;
And the shadow of the ship
Reeled along the passive deep –
"Pan, Pan is dead."
And that dismal cry rose slowly,
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair!
And they heard the words it said –
"Pan is dead – Great Pan is dead –
Pan, Pan is dead."
– stanzas excerpted from The Dead Pan (1844) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning