Pan - God of the Woods

De: Lawrence R. Spencer

Narrado por: Alicia Rose

Pan, the Greek god of forests, shepherds and fertility, has long represented the pagan gods in general. With the advent of the Christian church communication with the pagan gods was very heavily suppressed by priests who have a vested interest in eliminating religious competition, by any means required, including, but not limited to lying, stealing, cheating, murder, mayhem, extortion, torture and blackmail. As a result, general public attention to the pagan gods disappeared about 2,000 years ago. This book assumes that the pagan gods may still be active, living beings. If any of the ancient gods are still around in the 21st century, what are they doing now? If they are here now - still watching, still powerful, still immortal - where or how might we contact them? If Pan is still around which of us mortals could not use the helping hand of a friendly god once in awhile?

©2005, 2017 Lawrence R. Spencer (P)2017 Lawrence R. Spencer

Io pan! Io pan

Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white *ss, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Come with Apollo in bridal dress
(Shepherdess and pythoness)
Come with Artemis, silken shod,
And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God,
In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount,
The dimpled dawn of the amber fount!
Dip the purple of passionate prayer
In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare,
The soul that startles in eyes of blue
To watch thy wantonness weeping through
The tangled grove, the gnarled bole
Of the living tree that is spirit and soul
And body and brain – come over the sea,
(Io Pan! Io Pan!)
Devil or god, to me, to me,
My man! my man!
Come with trumpets sounding shrill
Over the hill!
Come with drums low muttering
From the spring!
Come with flute and come with pipe!
Am I not ripe?
I, who wait and writhe and wrestle
With air that hath no boughs to nestle
My body, weary of empty clasp,
Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp –
Come, O come!
I am numb
With the lonely lust of devildom.
Thrust the sword through the galling fetter,
All-devourer, all-begetter;
Give me the sign of the Open Eye,
And the token erect of thorny thigh,
And the word of madness and mystery,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan,
I am a man:
Do what thou wilt, as a great god can,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The gods withdraw:
The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I race and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end,
Mannikin, maiden, Maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!

Mixed feelings

I have mixed feelings about this book. The premise and story is initially very intriguing but then turns preachy about two thirds the way through. It manages to recover in the end by posing interesting questions for the reader to contemplate but the preachiness of the final act was borderline juvenile diatribe.

Primary school level narration let's it down

The narration of this story is so bad that it renders writing an honest review impossible.

Horribly mispronounced words, irritating dialects, wandering voice characterizations and ultimately inexperienced renderings of the text (I am aware the narrator has multiple books to her credit on Audible) makes me doubt most will make it through to the end. Spoiler alert: if you do, you can enjoy the word deity being pronounced as diety (sic) numerous times.

I persisted because the germ of the idea that I think the author wanted to convey was intriguing. It sadly deteriorates into a manifesto for greening up our world, and the story idea becomes secondary. Childish names for characters (Kissweiner - are you kidding me?) do nothing in attempts to take the story seriously as a work of art.

The idea of world Pantheons making a comeback is an excellent one, and marrying it to an eco-consciousness message should work, but in this case it does not. Maybe a focused rewrite, restructure, and most definitely a competent narrator might make a future version palatable.

The survey at the end is ridiculous.