The pre-Hellenic, Creto-Mycenaean culture was, for the Greeks, the prehistoric Great Mother period, since her cult was dominant in that culture. In Greece and in Graeco-Roman times the cult had become divided into many goddesses. This development in Greece occurred between 1500 and 500 b.c. The corresponding process took place in Egypt long before 3300 b.c.
The original mother cult predated ancient Crete in Eastern Europe, the Near East, and Egypt, but it seems to have spread from there throughout Western Europe, although perhaps the mother cult preexisted Mycenaean culture in Western Europe also.
The goddess of this cult had a male consort. Although it seems to have been a later development, the god of this cult was widely revered and worshiped throughout Europe. What his original name was is unknown, although he was known throughout Europe as the Horned One, for he had goats horns in Crete, Greece, and Italy, and had deer antlers in Gaul and the British Isles and elsewhere. The name of the mother was various in Greece and Rome (in Latin she is called Mater Magna, or "Great Mother"), and in Egypt she was Isis, or Nuit, or Bast. In the Palestine cult she was Jehovah's consort, named Asherah. Jehovah was also represented with horns.
The mother goddess and her priestesses represented the feminine archetype. Her consort, the Horned God, typified many of the qualities of the masculine.
The Horned God became known as Pan, or Dionysus (Dionysos), or Bacchus. Pan was a satyr, The Satyr, and became the basis for the folklore of satyrs. The satyrs were primary to the Greek scepticism, and to the idea of a grinning god who mocked and laughed. The sceptic of the satires, the epiphanous phantom of play and theatre, scoffed at other gods; indeed at all challenges to his sceptic wit. He was a god of forest and glade, associated originally with springs and sap but later with wine; he was the playful, mirthful spirit of nature and of trees.
Beyond his correspondence to his bride, the mother goddess, Pan was the Satyr. The exact nature of the source of his strength in myth is conjecture, but he was the god of sap, that which rose and endured in phallic form. In earliest European times he was a god of primal lust, not as a god of warrior and carnal rape, but as a force of nature. The mother goddess was considered the womb of nature, but did not penetrate herself; the masculine god was that which penetrated, the force in nature which would resolve its essence.
This force was identified with the male phallus. It eventually became known as satyriasis. What this force is is not known. It was considered the province of the satyrs and fauns, as with the feminine force with nymphs, priestesses, and amazons. Pan was the embodiment of this force and its motion and control, which, it was said, was only expressed in his legend.
The masculine power was that which renewed and in some part created nature. The figure of the half-goat, with goat's legs and hooves and goat's horns, symbolized the primary copulating, fertilizing, and impregnating energy. This energy was said to arise in the innate libido, or carnal lust.
The Horned God was also the Hanged God: he was a god hanged upon the sacred tree (as well as a goat, an "eater of trees"); he was sometimes represented by an herdsman shepherd, or piper, sacrificed upon a tree, as a theriomorphic deity of the woods. This god (or Pan, satyr, or Phrygian satyr [silenus]) was a tree-god: his affinity was with vegetation. He subsisted upon the vegetation he personifies; ceasing to be immanent in the vegetation, he came to be regarded as its owner or lord. The idea of owning the vegetation naturally leads to the idea of subsisting upon it. The story and ritual of Dionysus, as he became named, was that of the decay and revival of vegetation. Pan was Lord of the Wood, and therefore partook of the death and rebirth of nature. He had a soul for harmony even in death, hanging in his cave.
Pan was not only a vegetable god but also an animal god, and a god of the vine. As such he was the substance of food and wine itself. The goat's blood and bull's blood that was drunk at his ceremonies were perforce no more than he himself. The goat was sacrificed, it was said, because it had injured the vine; however, the rites were not purificatory or to avert evil influences. The sacrifice was meant to propitiate Pan, as god of the hunt and game, by releasing his reproductive energies. By stimulating Pan's reproductive powers with the act of death, Pan would be untainted with age, and his divine life would be maintained in perpetual vigor. The sacrificial scapegoat, if human, was intended to be the new embodiment of the old god.
Pan was not only a god of wine, but a god of food. If there was some failure in the generative powers of the god whose function it was to produce the fruits of the earth, then he was supposed to be growing old and feeble: thus his representative would be sacrificed, so that the god might be young again. Then also much food and drink would be consumed, to renew the stagnant energies of nature (at Rome he was the Sacrificial King or King of the Sacred Rites; his wife bore the corresponding title of Queen). While Dionysus was a god of the vine and its clusters, he was a god of trees in general; the Greeks sacrificed to "Dionysus of the Trees."
The oldest of these legends centers upon Cretan glades. There was the rite of the satyr conducted, as he copulated with woodland nymph. There the symbol of fertile glade, the rising sap of forest pine and oak, took shape. The image of the woodland god and his phallus was not inexplicable, but that which not only penetrated nature (in the form of trees), but also that which penetrated the goddess herself, who appeared in the form of a nymph. It was said this copulation took place at night, and satyr and nymph would rest at morning; but frequently the copulation would continue for many days of revel.
This rite of copulation was frequently associated, in early times, with fertilizing the fields and the growth of plants. In earlier times, conducted at night, this ritual may have been connected with the moon, and menstrual fluid: semen and menstrual blood were considered the most fertilizing substances for plants.
Some say Dionysus and Bacchus were Osiris imported directly from Egypt, but the preponderance of the evidence points to a Thracian origin. The typical image is of merely an upright post without arms, and with leafy boughs projecting from the head or body to shew the nature of the deity. This deity was a woodland deity and a spirit of the woods, with a great affinity to vegetation and agriculture. The vine, the ivy, the pine-tree, and the fig-tree were particularly associated with him. Pomegranates were said to have sprung from his blood.
Fruit growers would set up an image of him in their orchards. He was called "well-fruited," and "making the fruit to grow." One of his titles was "teeming or "bursting (as of sap or blossoms). This may have been a reference to his enormous sexual organ.
In the spring rites the god Dionysus was wedded to his queen. In the character of the slain god, half-man and half-goat, he would rise again: this he did by copulating with a priestess. This was not only an act of revelry, it was a solemn sacrament. This custom of renewing the vegetation was represented throughout Europe by the may-pole. In some parts of Sweden they still choose a Midsummer's Bride. The girl selects a Bridegroom, and the other youths also choose each his Bride. It is the May Bride, though, who usually represents the rebirth of vegetation with spring. Her marriage was an essential part of the rites, for the marriage of trees and plants could not be fertile without the real union of the human sexes. It was tradition that the planting by the man would follow intercourse with his wife, for promoting growth in the earth. These rites were usually performed only under certain conditions. The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally resulted in treating them as male and female, who can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or a poetical sense of the word.
In Greece there still lie many an Arcadian grove of pine and oak, whereby are pools, lakes, and rivers. Traditionally, the bride of the King of the Woods was a water-nymph, as water fed and reflected the forests and its cool murmur could be heard. In the rites and plays, the water-nymph would be played by a priestess or queen.
A stag was used elsewhere in Europe to represent the Horned One, and also symbolized the leaping forth of spring. Although his myth is not well-represented, as Dionysus is with the Classical authors, it seems clear he was also a god who copulated at the equinoxes and solstices to renew the seasons and the vegetative cycle. Pan was, therefore, in antiquity a god of the renewal of life. He was the masculine force in nature, who sprang life from the earth.
His qualities, as we have seen, include mirthfulness and the satirical. Yet his qualities of carnal lust remain a mystification. As the personification of the central male archetype, he represented the male libido. Further yet he represented the male's carnal desire for its mate, the attraction of the masculine libido and his phallus towards his love object, personified by the willing woodland nymphs. Here, then, was shown the attraction of the male phallus towards the satisfaction of its carnal appetite.
The question in antiquity was from whence did life arise. To people of that period it was symbolized by the union of the male with the female. It is not clear exactly what they thought, for it is mainly preserved by the Classical authors. However, it is clear from tradition that the Creto-Mycenaean peoples had a defined notion of the masculine archetype and power.
This god was not merely a god of the freedom of the wild, nor primarily a god of the harvest: he was the will of nature itself. He was of course, then, the sexual will of man. This principle has become the guiding light of the mythology of Pan.
The conjecture in the Greek and Roman plays is with the orgies of faun and nymph. This was not only allegory concerning man's passions, but also a somewhat youthful fascination with the sex act itself.
The basic notion was that Pan's ardor was unquenchable. The nymphs, being delighted with Pan's ardor, would parade and cavort until Pan, being overcome with lust, would copulate with one of them or several. The nymphs, being of great voluptuousness and sensual beauty, would always seduce Pan's carnality into the sex act. With a tremendous erection he would take them forcefully. this would last until dawn when the nymphs would bathe, or later.
Pan, then, was a symbol of pure libido expressing itself freely. He was the sap of the tree, which would always rise, and he was the power upon which nature thrived. The source of his power was the hidden glade, of which he was an embodiment. It was the sprouting staff of his phallus upon which he was hanged, which would penetrate and inject nature, and give nature the power to renew itself.
As his cult spread throughout Europe, the notion of the carnal will and desires became increasingly associated with nature. The ancient Druid's perceived in nature the signs of an earthly will, which seemed to grow in trees especially. As the Pan cult spread over Europe, the ideas pertinent to nature and the ideas pertinent to sexuality became increasingly inextricable.
Originally, these ideas were the simple perception that there existed an impulse in nature. This quickly became connected to the impulse of erective potency.
The question then arises, what is the will in nature, and what is the will in man. In the Pan mythology the male archetype only expresses itself fully when in the act of intercourse. From this springs the assumption that it is not enough to be a part of nature, one must also take part in it. The will of Pan was only ever spent temporarily, although in fact his erection never ceased: he was only finished copulating when he was playing his pipes or the nymphs needed to rest.
Pan's suffering, death, and succedent resurrection indicates that perhaps he was parted from the nymphs. The appearance of spring would show, however, that Pan was not dead and that he was still married to the Great Mother, as with womb and phallus. And, too, the appearance of the Druid's panacea mistletoe on oak and willow (another sacred tree) occurred throughout the year, clearly signifying that Pan could not really die and would always sprout anew. The Druid's sympathetic magic and homeopathy connected their faith indelibly to the renewal of the sun and plant life. The ancient festival of Harvest-May would betoken the successful completion of the cycle of death and rebirth.
The ancients perceived many departments in nature; these would frequently have a king or queen connected to them, such as the King of the Wood at Nemi and many nature-spirits of stone and grove throughout Europe, as well as many kings of rain, water, and fire. The Arcadian forests, however, are now only fragments of thee forests which clothed great tracts in antiquity. According to one report, the Hercynian forest in the 100's b.c. stretched eastward from the Rhine so that one could travel two months and not see the other side. The woods of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are remnants of the great forest of Andrida, which once clothed all of south-eastern England. It was said even in modern times that a squirrel might leap from tree to tree in the forest of Arden and travel the whole length of Warwickshire. Classical writers frequently refer to Italian forests that are no more. Rome was divided from central Etruria by the dread Ciminian wood, which Livy compares to the German forests: according to him no one had penetrated its pathless solitudes. Grimm has made it probable that amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were natural woods, in their analysis of Teutonic words for "temple." Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in Greece and Italy are abundant (the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Cos is a good example). During the Roman Empire the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped in the Forum, and on the Palatine Hill grew a cornet-tree considered one of the most sacred objects in Rome. These trees and the great forests, and the hidden solitary trees were said to be incorporated with a certain sylvan spirit. What the exact qualifications of tree-worship are is not known, for the original Kings and Queens of the Wood were not royalty as we commonly consider it (although they would become so later). How one became, as it were, a departmental head of nature is not known, although we have seen they could be sacrificed to propitiate the god. Probably they originally merely reigned over the revels conducted in woodland hall.
These revels are of utmost importance to our subject, for they became the epiphanous tragedies, satires, and plays of Pan, Bacchus, and Dionysus; they also explain the magic of the woodland kings; and this theatre later became the Greek Mysteries and the Delphic and Eleusinian oracles. It also spread into the Scandinavian cult of Yggdrasil, "greatest of all trees," and into the tree symbolism of later alchemy.
The Great Earth Mother who brings forth all life from herself is eminently the mother of all vegetation: the fertility rituals and myths of the whole world are based upon this archetypal context. The center of this vegetative symbolism is the tree, or the earth phallus, the male principle jutting out from the earth. This is particularly true for certain tree-shapes like the cypress, as opposed to the feminine forms of the fruit trees and leafy trees. In this respect trees in the matriarchal cult may have been viewed as hermaphroditic; however, the symbolism of trunk and branch and the nature of wood became the symbolism of the hard phallus, and then the necessary male counterpart and consort to the Mother Goddess. This was the self-renewing god. Depictions of the arbor philosophica in the Renaissance show a tree sprouting from Adam's genitals, whereas with Eve there is a tree sprouting from her head. C. Jung speculates this may show that Adam was concerned with the erotic aspect of the anima, whereas the woman is concerned with the animus, or, functions of the head. This idea may explain why, in ancient Crete and Greece, the female was considered a matriarch and oracle, whereas the male was primarily a sexual force. This idea also finds context in the Bacchanalian revels.
What was the Eleusinian mystery play from which our secular drama may have sprung? greek tragedy tried to be true to the "ritual sequences" of nature and its theophany of struggle and death; originally, though, the first attempts at drama were the "satyr-plays," which provided buffoonery and comic relaxation. We must trace our story back to the peoples called, in Classical Greek tradition as far back as Homer, the "Eteo," or "true," Cretans. Praesos was their centre, and it is certain they possessed a spoken language before the end of the Bronze Age. Although they may not have possessed a developed system of writing, they probably had the original stock of signs common to the Mediterranean race. Praesos does not appear to have been a centre of Minoan civilzation, although in Classical times the old religion was still preserved there. Wherever the Dionysian cult originated (perhaps Attica or Thrace), the first performance of the Dionysian tragedy was in Athens in 534 b.c. Traditionally, though, the Dionysian cult was an ecstatic religion and one of rapture; therefore the comedies can be considered to be substantially older. Comedy is derived from komos (as tragedy is derived from tragos, or "goat"), thus the comedies meant the song of the komast's (the reveler's), and originally perhaps the Horned One's, the kerastai. In the Lesser or Rural Dionysia, the reveler's recited the phallic chant in his honor: this was one of the festivals of Dionysus. Theatre was an act of religion and therefore took place at the festivals of Dionysus.
In Roman antiquity a satire was a poetic medley, especially a poem ridiculing prevalent vices or follies. The original Greek satyr-plays were quite simple: men and boys would dress as goats, and cavort in imitation of goats, and sometimes conduct a mock ritual sacrifice of a goat. Eventually music (originally flute) and singing accompanied it. All this was intended to represent and accentuate the lascivious priapism of Pan. As the mocking and irony increased over time, the satires came to also represent Pan the sceptic.
So the god of priapic fertility also had a sceptic wit. Although he was the youthful god a spring, he was also the old joker: his ironic sarcasm was said to be invincible in argument, and the genius of his humor would provoke unrestrained laughter.
Pan's relation to magic is perhaps not clear. From his cult came a number of ideas associated with the magic wand. The rod, or caduceus, also later called a divining rod and the scepter, allegedly formed the vital link with the goddess. The wand was what allowed Pan to enter nature and impregnate her. therefore it had power over nature and nature obeyed it. The staff of Pan, his priapus, was precisely the symbol of connecting to nature; it was the sap of strength, an indomitable will, a passionate ardor and lust for life, and a pronounced carnality.
The original mother cult predated ancient Crete in Eastern Europe, the Near East, and Egypt, but it seems to have spread from there throughout Western Europe, although perhaps the mother cult preexisted Mycenaean culture in Western Europe also.
The goddess of this cult had a male consort. Although it seems to have been a later development, the god of this cult was widely revered and worshiped throughout Europe. What his original name was is unknown, although he was known throughout Europe as the Horned One, for he had goats horns in Crete, Greece, and Italy, and had deer antlers in Gaul and the British Isles and elsewhere. The name of the mother was various in Greece and Rome (in Latin she is called Mater Magna, or "Great Mother"), and in Egypt she was Isis, or Nuit, or Bast. In the Palestine cult she was Jehovah's consort, named Asherah. Jehovah was also represented with horns.
The mother goddess and her priestesses represented the feminine archetype. Her consort, the Horned God, typified many of the qualities of the masculine.
The Horned God became known as Pan, or Dionysus (Dionysos), or Bacchus. Pan was a satyr, The Satyr, and became the basis for the folklore of satyrs. The satyrs were primary to the Greek scepticism, and to the idea of a grinning god who mocked and laughed. The sceptic of the satires, the epiphanous phantom of play and theatre, scoffed at other gods; indeed at all challenges to his sceptic wit. He was a god of forest and glade, associated originally with springs and sap but later with wine; he was the playful, mirthful spirit of nature and of trees.
Beyond his correspondence to his bride, the mother goddess, Pan was the Satyr. The exact nature of the source of his strength in myth is conjecture, but he was the god of sap, that which rose and endured in phallic form. In earliest European times he was a god of primal lust, not as a god of warrior and carnal rape, but as a force of nature. The mother goddess was considered the womb of nature, but did not penetrate herself; the masculine god was that which penetrated, the force in nature which would resolve its essence.
This force was identified with the male phallus. It eventually became known as satyriasis. What this force is is not known. It was considered the province of the satyrs and fauns, as with the feminine force with nymphs, priestesses, and amazons. Pan was the embodiment of this force and its motion and control, which, it was said, was only expressed in his legend.
The masculine power was that which renewed and in some part created nature. The figure of the half-goat, with goat's legs and hooves and goat's horns, symbolized the primary copulating, fertilizing, and impregnating energy. This energy was said to arise in the innate libido, or carnal lust.
The Horned God was also the Hanged God: he was a god hanged upon the sacred tree (as well as a goat, an "eater of trees"); he was sometimes represented by an herdsman shepherd, or piper, sacrificed upon a tree, as a theriomorphic deity of the woods. This god (or Pan, satyr, or Phrygian satyr [silenus]) was a tree-god: his affinity was with vegetation. He subsisted upon the vegetation he personifies; ceasing to be immanent in the vegetation, he came to be regarded as its owner or lord. The idea of owning the vegetation naturally leads to the idea of subsisting upon it. The story and ritual of Dionysus, as he became named, was that of the decay and revival of vegetation. Pan was Lord of the Wood, and therefore partook of the death and rebirth of nature. He had a soul for harmony even in death, hanging in his cave.
Pan was not only a vegetable god but also an animal god, and a god of the vine. As such he was the substance of food and wine itself. The goat's blood and bull's blood that was drunk at his ceremonies were perforce no more than he himself. The goat was sacrificed, it was said, because it had injured the vine; however, the rites were not purificatory or to avert evil influences. The sacrifice was meant to propitiate Pan, as god of the hunt and game, by releasing his reproductive energies. By stimulating Pan's reproductive powers with the act of death, Pan would be untainted with age, and his divine life would be maintained in perpetual vigor. The sacrificial scapegoat, if human, was intended to be the new embodiment of the old god.
Pan was not only a god of wine, but a god of food. If there was some failure in the generative powers of the god whose function it was to produce the fruits of the earth, then he was supposed to be growing old and feeble: thus his representative would be sacrificed, so that the god might be young again. Then also much food and drink would be consumed, to renew the stagnant energies of nature (at Rome he was the Sacrificial King or King of the Sacred Rites; his wife bore the corresponding title of Queen). While Dionysus was a god of the vine and its clusters, he was a god of trees in general; the Greeks sacrificed to "Dionysus of the Trees."
The oldest of these legends centers upon Cretan glades. There was the rite of the satyr conducted, as he copulated with woodland nymph. There the symbol of fertile glade, the rising sap of forest pine and oak, took shape. The image of the woodland god and his phallus was not inexplicable, but that which not only penetrated nature (in the form of trees), but also that which penetrated the goddess herself, who appeared in the form of a nymph. It was said this copulation took place at night, and satyr and nymph would rest at morning; but frequently the copulation would continue for many days of revel.
This rite of copulation was frequently associated, in early times, with fertilizing the fields and the growth of plants. In earlier times, conducted at night, this ritual may have been connected with the moon, and menstrual fluid: semen and menstrual blood were considered the most fertilizing substances for plants.
Some say Dionysus and Bacchus were Osiris imported directly from Egypt, but the preponderance of the evidence points to a Thracian origin. The typical image is of merely an upright post without arms, and with leafy boughs projecting from the head or body to shew the nature of the deity. This deity was a woodland deity and a spirit of the woods, with a great affinity to vegetation and agriculture. The vine, the ivy, the pine-tree, and the fig-tree were particularly associated with him. Pomegranates were said to have sprung from his blood.
Fruit growers would set up an image of him in their orchards. He was called "well-fruited," and "making the fruit to grow." One of his titles was "teeming or "bursting (as of sap or blossoms). This may have been a reference to his enormous sexual organ.
In the spring rites the god Dionysus was wedded to his queen. In the character of the slain god, half-man and half-goat, he would rise again: this he did by copulating with a priestess. This was not only an act of revelry, it was a solemn sacrament. This custom of renewing the vegetation was represented throughout Europe by the may-pole. In some parts of Sweden they still choose a Midsummer's Bride. The girl selects a Bridegroom, and the other youths also choose each his Bride. It is the May Bride, though, who usually represents the rebirth of vegetation with spring. Her marriage was an essential part of the rites, for the marriage of trees and plants could not be fertile without the real union of the human sexes. It was tradition that the planting by the man would follow intercourse with his wife, for promoting growth in the earth. These rites were usually performed only under certain conditions. The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally resulted in treating them as male and female, who can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or a poetical sense of the word.
In Greece there still lie many an Arcadian grove of pine and oak, whereby are pools, lakes, and rivers. Traditionally, the bride of the King of the Woods was a water-nymph, as water fed and reflected the forests and its cool murmur could be heard. In the rites and plays, the water-nymph would be played by a priestess or queen.
A stag was used elsewhere in Europe to represent the Horned One, and also symbolized the leaping forth of spring. Although his myth is not well-represented, as Dionysus is with the Classical authors, it seems clear he was also a god who copulated at the equinoxes and solstices to renew the seasons and the vegetative cycle. Pan was, therefore, in antiquity a god of the renewal of life. He was the masculine force in nature, who sprang life from the earth.
His qualities, as we have seen, include mirthfulness and the satirical. Yet his qualities of carnal lust remain a mystification. As the personification of the central male archetype, he represented the male libido. Further yet he represented the male's carnal desire for its mate, the attraction of the masculine libido and his phallus towards his love object, personified by the willing woodland nymphs. Here, then, was shown the attraction of the male phallus towards the satisfaction of its carnal appetite.
The question in antiquity was from whence did life arise. To people of that period it was symbolized by the union of the male with the female. It is not clear exactly what they thought, for it is mainly preserved by the Classical authors. However, it is clear from tradition that the Creto-Mycenaean peoples had a defined notion of the masculine archetype and power.
This god was not merely a god of the freedom of the wild, nor primarily a god of the harvest: he was the will of nature itself. He was of course, then, the sexual will of man. This principle has become the guiding light of the mythology of Pan.
The conjecture in the Greek and Roman plays is with the orgies of faun and nymph. This was not only allegory concerning man's passions, but also a somewhat youthful fascination with the sex act itself.
The basic notion was that Pan's ardor was unquenchable. The nymphs, being delighted with Pan's ardor, would parade and cavort until Pan, being overcome with lust, would copulate with one of them or several. The nymphs, being of great voluptuousness and sensual beauty, would always seduce Pan's carnality into the sex act. With a tremendous erection he would take them forcefully. this would last until dawn when the nymphs would bathe, or later.
Pan, then, was a symbol of pure libido expressing itself freely. He was the sap of the tree, which would always rise, and he was the power upon which nature thrived. The source of his power was the hidden glade, of which he was an embodiment. It was the sprouting staff of his phallus upon which he was hanged, which would penetrate and inject nature, and give nature the power to renew itself.
As his cult spread throughout Europe, the notion of the carnal will and desires became increasingly associated with nature. The ancient Druid's perceived in nature the signs of an earthly will, which seemed to grow in trees especially. As the Pan cult spread over Europe, the ideas pertinent to nature and the ideas pertinent to sexuality became increasingly inextricable.
Originally, these ideas were the simple perception that there existed an impulse in nature. This quickly became connected to the impulse of erective potency.
The question then arises, what is the will in nature, and what is the will in man. In the Pan mythology the male archetype only expresses itself fully when in the act of intercourse. From this springs the assumption that it is not enough to be a part of nature, one must also take part in it. The will of Pan was only ever spent temporarily, although in fact his erection never ceased: he was only finished copulating when he was playing his pipes or the nymphs needed to rest.
Pan's suffering, death, and succedent resurrection indicates that perhaps he was parted from the nymphs. The appearance of spring would show, however, that Pan was not dead and that he was still married to the Great Mother, as with womb and phallus. And, too, the appearance of the Druid's panacea mistletoe on oak and willow (another sacred tree) occurred throughout the year, clearly signifying that Pan could not really die and would always sprout anew. The Druid's sympathetic magic and homeopathy connected their faith indelibly to the renewal of the sun and plant life. The ancient festival of Harvest-May would betoken the successful completion of the cycle of death and rebirth.
The ancients perceived many departments in nature; these would frequently have a king or queen connected to them, such as the King of the Wood at Nemi and many nature-spirits of stone and grove throughout Europe, as well as many kings of rain, water, and fire. The Arcadian forests, however, are now only fragments of thee forests which clothed great tracts in antiquity. According to one report, the Hercynian forest in the 100's b.c. stretched eastward from the Rhine so that one could travel two months and not see the other side. The woods of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are remnants of the great forest of Andrida, which once clothed all of south-eastern England. It was said even in modern times that a squirrel might leap from tree to tree in the forest of Arden and travel the whole length of Warwickshire. Classical writers frequently refer to Italian forests that are no more. Rome was divided from central Etruria by the dread Ciminian wood, which Livy compares to the German forests: according to him no one had penetrated its pathless solitudes. Grimm has made it probable that amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were natural woods, in their analysis of Teutonic words for "temple." Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in Greece and Italy are abundant (the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Cos is a good example). During the Roman Empire the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped in the Forum, and on the Palatine Hill grew a cornet-tree considered one of the most sacred objects in Rome. These trees and the great forests, and the hidden solitary trees were said to be incorporated with a certain sylvan spirit. What the exact qualifications of tree-worship are is not known, for the original Kings and Queens of the Wood were not royalty as we commonly consider it (although they would become so later). How one became, as it were, a departmental head of nature is not known, although we have seen they could be sacrificed to propitiate the god. Probably they originally merely reigned over the revels conducted in woodland hall.
These revels are of utmost importance to our subject, for they became the epiphanous tragedies, satires, and plays of Pan, Bacchus, and Dionysus; they also explain the magic of the woodland kings; and this theatre later became the Greek Mysteries and the Delphic and Eleusinian oracles. It also spread into the Scandinavian cult of Yggdrasil, "greatest of all trees," and into the tree symbolism of later alchemy.
The Great Earth Mother who brings forth all life from herself is eminently the mother of all vegetation: the fertility rituals and myths of the whole world are based upon this archetypal context. The center of this vegetative symbolism is the tree, or the earth phallus, the male principle jutting out from the earth. This is particularly true for certain tree-shapes like the cypress, as opposed to the feminine forms of the fruit trees and leafy trees. In this respect trees in the matriarchal cult may have been viewed as hermaphroditic; however, the symbolism of trunk and branch and the nature of wood became the symbolism of the hard phallus, and then the necessary male counterpart and consort to the Mother Goddess. This was the self-renewing god. Depictions of the arbor philosophica in the Renaissance show a tree sprouting from Adam's genitals, whereas with Eve there is a tree sprouting from her head. C. Jung speculates this may show that Adam was concerned with the erotic aspect of the anima, whereas the woman is concerned with the animus, or, functions of the head. This idea may explain why, in ancient Crete and Greece, the female was considered a matriarch and oracle, whereas the male was primarily a sexual force. This idea also finds context in the Bacchanalian revels.
What was the Eleusinian mystery play from which our secular drama may have sprung? greek tragedy tried to be true to the "ritual sequences" of nature and its theophany of struggle and death; originally, though, the first attempts at drama were the "satyr-plays," which provided buffoonery and comic relaxation. We must trace our story back to the peoples called, in Classical Greek tradition as far back as Homer, the "Eteo," or "true," Cretans. Praesos was their centre, and it is certain they possessed a spoken language before the end of the Bronze Age. Although they may not have possessed a developed system of writing, they probably had the original stock of signs common to the Mediterranean race. Praesos does not appear to have been a centre of Minoan civilzation, although in Classical times the old religion was still preserved there. Wherever the Dionysian cult originated (perhaps Attica or Thrace), the first performance of the Dionysian tragedy was in Athens in 534 b.c. Traditionally, though, the Dionysian cult was an ecstatic religion and one of rapture; therefore the comedies can be considered to be substantially older. Comedy is derived from komos (as tragedy is derived from tragos, or "goat"), thus the comedies meant the song of the komast's (the reveler's), and originally perhaps the Horned One's, the kerastai. In the Lesser or Rural Dionysia, the reveler's recited the phallic chant in his honor: this was one of the festivals of Dionysus. Theatre was an act of religion and therefore took place at the festivals of Dionysus.
In Roman antiquity a satire was a poetic medley, especially a poem ridiculing prevalent vices or follies. The original Greek satyr-plays were quite simple: men and boys would dress as goats, and cavort in imitation of goats, and sometimes conduct a mock ritual sacrifice of a goat. Eventually music (originally flute) and singing accompanied it. All this was intended to represent and accentuate the lascivious priapism of Pan. As the mocking and irony increased over time, the satires came to also represent Pan the sceptic.
So the god of priapic fertility also had a sceptic wit. Although he was the youthful god a spring, he was also the old joker: his ironic sarcasm was said to be invincible in argument, and the genius of his humor would provoke unrestrained laughter.
Pan's relation to magic is perhaps not clear. From his cult came a number of ideas associated with the magic wand. The rod, or caduceus, also later called a divining rod and the scepter, allegedly formed the vital link with the goddess. The wand was what allowed Pan to enter nature and impregnate her. therefore it had power over nature and nature obeyed it. The staff of Pan, his priapus, was precisely the symbol of connecting to nature; it was the sap of strength, an indomitable will, a passionate ardor and lust for life, and a pronounced carnality.
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