Syrinx

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Nicolas Poussin , Pan and Syrinx
Jan Breughel and Rubens workshop, Pan and Syrinx

Syrinx ( ancient Greek Σύριγξ ) is the name of a hamadryad known for its chastity in Greek mythology . Since she calls waves of the Ladon river her "liquid sisters", she is possibly to be regarded as the daughter of the river god Ladon .

myth

In Ovid's Metamorphoses (1st book, verses 689–713), the naiad Syrinx, as a follower of the virgin Artemis , to whose retinue she belonged, disdains the love of the shepherd god Pan . While fleeing from him, she is turned into reeds at her request on the Ladon River . When the breath of the frustrated god brushes through the reeds, there is a moving sound. Pan then cuts himself reed and uses wax to make the shepherd's flute ( pan flute ) called syrinx and plays his songs on it. This version of Ovid is also followed by the story ascribed to Lactantius Placidus in the Narrationes fabularum.

However, the motif "Syrinx and Pan" is older and already contained in a poem associated with the name Theocrits . Whether it is in this oldest tangible version of the saga, which thus only began in the 3rd century BC. BC and did not belong to the inventory of classical mythology, came to a transformation, is uncertain. In the poem presumably titled Syrinx , which belongs to the genre of character poems , the name of the nymph itself does not appear, but is hidden in riddles. However, the figure represented by the poem corresponds to that of the instrument and it was written on the occasion of the dedication of a syrinx to Pan.

The story found its way into the romance novels of antiquity and is performed by the protagonists in Daphnis and Chloe des Longos . According to the ancient historian Timaeus , Daphnis was considered the inventor of the instrument. The story of Syrinx and Pan was recorded in the Roman Empire by Achilleus Tatios and in late antiquity by Nonnos . Niketas Eugenianos was still processing the material in the 12th century .

reception

The scientific name of the bird's vocal head , which works like an organ pipe (or shepherd's flute), is derived from the instrument and the myth . In most species, it lies at the fork between the windpipe and bronchi and contains vibrating membranes with which the birds sing.

Claude Debussy composed a solo piece for transverse flute under the title Syrinx in 1913 , which places high demands on the interpreter. The Greek myth is also the basis for the orchestral piece Pan og Syrinx ( Pan and Syrinx ) by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, composed in 1917-18 (op. 49 [FS 87]). Benjamin Britten processed the story under the title “Pan” as the first piece of his Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (op. 49) for a solo oboe . The Canadian rock band Rush processed the name in the second part of their 1976 album 2112 .

The asteroid (3360) Syrinx is named after this mythological figure.

literature

Web links

Commons : Syrinx  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Lactantius Placidus, Narrationes fabularum 1.12.
  2. ↑ For a discussion of the assignment see Jan Kwapisz: The Greek Figure Poems (= Hellenistica Groningiana. Volume 19). Peeters, Löwen u. a. 2013 pp. 23–29.
  3. ↑ For the poem, its form and interpretation, see Heather White : Textual and Interpretative Problems in Theocritus' Syrinx. In: L'Antiquité classique . Volume 67, 1998, pp. 213-215; Timo Christian: Formed stones: on the reception of literary techniques in verse inscriptions since Hellenism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, pp. 111–114.
  4. ↑ Longos, Daphnis and Chloe 2, 34-37.
  5. ↑ Timaeus in Diodorus 4.84.
  6. ↑ Achilles Tatios 8,6.
  7. ↑ For example Nonnos 2,118; 16,332-340; 42,383-386.
  8. ↑ Niketas Eugenianos 3,298 ff. (Hercher).