Homeric Hymns

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). As the offspring of Zeus’s transgressive dalliance, Hermes comes to embody the act of transgression itself. As the messenger of the gods, he travels between realms often. Further, as he guides souls into the Underworld, he helps mortals transgress the threshold between life and death.

Hermes mates with a mortal woman, Dryops, yet does not transgress the threshold into mortality in the same manner as his father, Zeus. While Dryops is not a god, she is a sheepherder, thus existing within Hermes’ domain of power over herders. Further, Hermes does not venture outside of his marriage to Dryops but creates an offspring with her. Pan’s half-human, half-goat appearance represents an intersection between gods, mortals, and the earth. Pan lives with nymphs who, much like in the hymn to Aphrodite, represent a unique intersection between mortality and immortality. Nymphs live long lives and interact with gods yet eventually perish. Therefore, Pan’s association with nymphs is attributed to both entities’ simultaneous adherence to thresholds and crossing boundaries. This association closely connects Pan to his father Hermes, himself a transgressor of thresholds, and his nymph grandmother, Maia. Hermes and Pan are also connected by their musical talents, Hermes with the lyre and Pan with the pan flute.