176 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
faithful worshipper of Diana and loved only the 
chase. In her hunting dress she looked like 
Diana’s very self, save that her bow was of horn 
and Diana’s was of silver. 
One day, as she returned from the hunt, she 
was pursued by passionate Pan, who had long 
sighed for her. 
Just as he overtook her she cried for help to her 
friends, the water nymphs. 
They heard the prayer, and granted it, so that 
Pan, who had pursued a maiden, clasped only a 
tuft of reeds. = 
As he breathed a sigh the air sounded through 
the reeds and produced a plaintive melody. The 
god was charmed with the sweetness of the music. 
He bound together bits of reed of unequal length 
and made that primitive wind instrument which he 
called a ‘‘syrinx,”” in honor of the loved and _ lost 
Arcadian nymph. 
But her fear dwells ever in the reeds, and so 
does the music of Pan. ‘‘He once played upon 
’ 
their foremother,” says Stevenson, ‘‘and so, by the 
hand of his rivers, he still plays upon these later 
generations, and plays the same air, both sweet 
and shrill, to tell us of the beauty and the terror 
of the world.” 
