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Homeric Hymns
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Hymns 18-19 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Hymn 18 Summary: “To Hermes”
Hymn 19 Summary: “To Pan”
The hymn praises Pan, son of Hermes and close companion of the nymphs. Pan’s body has combined human and goat features, and the hymn refers to him as “goat-hoofed” and “goat-horned” (81). Pan is associated with the pan flute.
The hymn flashes back to Pan’s birth. Hermes falls in love with Dryops, a sheepherder. The two marry, and Dryops soon bears Pan. Yet, the young Pan’s goat-like features frighten mortals. Hermes brings his son to the gods, who are delighted by Pan’s odd features. The gods bestow upon Pan his name, meaning “all.”
Hymns 18-19 Analysis
These two hymns recall Hermes’s and Pan’s lineages and continue the theme of transgressing thresholds. Zeus, just as he breaks the boundaries of his marriage to Hera, transgresses the threshold of the mortal world when he mates with a nymph, Maia: “Quick messenger of the gods and son of Maia [Atlas’s modest child, Zeus’s seduction]! / She shunned the blissful crowd of the immortals” (80).
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