This week we stopped giving animal crackers to the goats. Well, we didn’t stop entirely, we just cut way back. We used to give them pretty liberally. Or, at least, I did. There were a lot of goats, in the back pen, particularly, who would run up to me in the morning in order to get animal crackers. This is part of how the goats learn their names. I would say, “Oh! Rosa! What a good goat! Would you like an animal cracker?” And, of course, she would!
But, as a result of the pandemic, we’re finding it harder to get the animal crackers. Jan used to buy them in enormous plastic canisters from the Costco. No more. Often, they’re sold-out on-line.
I was explaining to the goats how the pandemic was responsible for the shortage of animal crackers when I was struck with the idea that Pan was the root of the word pandemic, and thought it was highly interesting that Pan would be causing a shortage for the goats.
When I got back indoors, I went to the internet, just to confirm that Pan is the root of pandemic, and discovered that he is not! There was a Greek word pan, which meant “all”, that had nothing to do with Pan. So, although the god Pan is the root of the word panic - Pan loved to cause humans to flee in unreasoning terror, and was responsible for all the noises in the forest - he is unrelated to pandemic (all people), Pandora (all gifts), and pancreas (all flesh).
He is also unrelated to companion. The pan in that word is bread. "Com" means with, so that a companion is someone with whom you break bread. But that’s a tangent. The more I delved into pan words, the more interesting the god Pan became. We all know that he’s half goat, half human. Which is why I thought he’d interest our goats. We all know he played the pan pipes. But, because he was worshiped in forest groves, caves, and grottoes, he never had temples built in his honor. But, here’s the most interesting part: he died. He is the only Greek god who died. There are some gods in some cultures who die and are reborn. But gods who die and stay dead are extremely rare. He died “in the reign of Tiberius” which was 14-37 c.e. The Greek historian, Plutarch, tells us that a stalwart sailor was on his way to Italy, when a divine voice suddenly said to him, “when you reach the shore, take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead”. I’m thinking about this sailor getting an announcement in the middle of an ocean voyage. If it hadn’t been so bizarre and random, perhaps that sailor might have asked how Pan had died. That's what I would like to find out. Sadly, he did not, and now we’ll never know. But, there are about a gazillion opinions on why he died - and what that means. Many writers have explored the idea that Pan died because Christ was born. That the two couldn’t co-exist. Others call Pan’s death a symbol of mankind’s growing distance from the natural world. In any case, Pan was also famous for his sexual powers. Many sources say that it was Pan who brought masturbation to humans. He learned it from his father, Hermes, and taught it, in turn, to shepherds, who spent long lonely hours watching their flocks on isolated mountain slopes. Years ago, women who were involved with more than one man at a time were called “Pan girls”. I don’t think this is etymologically related to “pan pan girls” which were World War II prostitutes. Pan had a resurgence of popularity in the late 19th century. He gave his name to Peter Pan, who J. M. Barrie described as ‘a betwixt and between’, part animal and part human. And he is the “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” in Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows”. Grahame’s Pan casts a spell of forgetfulness on everyone he helps. Pan is a major character in Tom Robbins’ “Jitterbug Perfume”, and Robert Ogilvie Crombie claims to have met Pan many times in various locations in Scotland, including the Findhorn Foundation. My favorite, though, is the Robert Frost poem, which I've included here because Frost has been dead over 50 years: Pan with Us Pan came out of the woods one day,— His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they,— And stood in the sun and looked his fill At wooded valley and wooded hill. He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, On a height of naked pasture land; In all the country he did command He saw no smoke and he saw no roof. That was well! And he stamped a hoof. His heart knew peace, for none came here To this lean feeding save once a year Someone to salt the half-wild steer, Or homespun children with clicking pails Who see so little they tell no tales. He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach A new-world song, far out of reach, For a sylvan sign that the blue jay’s screech And the whimper of hawks beside the sun Were music enough for him, for one. Times were changed from what they were: Such pipes kept less of power to stir The fruited bough of the juniper And the fragile bluets clustered there Than the merest aimless breath of air. They were pipes of pagan mirth, And the world had found new terms of worth. He laid him down on the sun-burned earth And ravelled a flower and looked away— Play? Play?—What should he play?