A History of Pantomime | Page 6

regions said to have been traversed by Dionysus,
Osiris, or Bacchus were, at different times, passed through by the
posterity of Ham, and in many of them they took up their residence. In
his journeyings the chief attendants of Osiris, or Bacchus, were Pan,
Anabis, Macedo, the Muses, the Satyrs, and Bacchic women were all in
his retinue. The people of India claim him as their own, and maintain
that he was born at Nusa in their country. Arrian speaks of the Nuseans
as being the attendants of Dionysus. In all traditions Dionysus appears
as the representative of some power of Nature.
The first who reduced Mythology to a kind of system were, in all
probability, the Egyptians. Egypt was ever the land of graven images,
and under the veil of Allegory and Mythology the priests concealed
religion from the eyes of the vulgar. In the beginning, brute animals
and certain vegetables were represented as the visible symbols of the
deities to which they were consecrated. Hence Jupiter Ammon was
represented under the figure of a Ram; Apis under a Cow; Osiris of a
Bull; Mercury or Thol of an Ibis; Diana or Babastis of a Cat; and Pan
of a Goat. From these sources are derived the fabulous transformation
of the gods celebrated in Egyptian Mythology, and afterwards imported
into Greece and Italy to serve as the subjects of the Grecian and Roman
Pantomimes.
Pantomime as we now know the term, means, not only the Art of acting
in dumb show, but also that of a spectacle or Christmas entertainment.
(I may add in parenthesis, that in the early part of the last century--the
nineteenth--the dictionaries only refer to Pantomime as meaning the
former of the above two definitions, and not the latter.)
Pan, regarded as the symbol of the universe, was also the god of flocks,
pastures, and shepherds in classic Mythology, and the guardian of bees,
hunting and fishing in his Kingdom of Arcadia. His form, like the
Satyrs, both supposed to have been the offsprings of Mercury, was that
of a man combined with a goat, having horns and feet like the latter

animal.
Mimos (Gr.), as I have stated in the beginning, means an "imitator," or
a "mimic," and from which word we have the derivation of the words
"mimicry," "mimetic," and the like.
Pan was the traditional inventor of the Pandean pipes, and also from his
name we derive many words that are in our language, such as "panic"
(Pan used to delight in suddenly surprising the shepherds whilst tending
their flocks), and the other attributes of this noun, including that
recently coined term of the Americans, "panicy."
Pan is said to have been the son of Mercury, or even Mercury himself,
and others say that he was the son of Zeus. Mercury and Zeus, it will be
remembered in Mythology, were only names for Noah. Pan is
unnoticed by Homer.
A heathen deity of Italy, Lupercus, the guardian of their flocks and
pastures, has also been identified with Pan, and in whose honour annual
rural festivals, known as Lupercalia, were observed.
The Lupercalian festivals were held on the 15th of the Kalends of
March. The priests, Luperci, used to dance naked through the streets as
part of the ceremonies attached to the festival.
Mention has been made by Dr. Clarke, in his "Travels," Vol. IV., that
Harlequin is the god Mercury, with his short sword herpe, or his rod,
the caduceus (which has been likened to the sceptre of Judah), to render
himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to
the other, and that the covering on his head, the winged cap, was the
petasus. Apropos of this, the following lines in the tenth Ode, of the
first book of Horace, will probably occur to the reader:
"Mercury! Atlas' smooth-tongued boy, whose will First trained to speed
our wildest earliest race, And gave their rough hewn forms with supple
skill The gymnast's grace.
"'Tis thine the unbodied spirits of the blessed, To guide to bliss, and
with thy golden rod To rule the shades; above, below, caressed By

every god."
Mercury, as we have seen, was among the Ancients, only another name
for Noah. "Indeed," says Dr. Clarke, "some of the representations of
Mercury upon ancient vases are actually taken from the scenic
exhibitions of the Grecian theatre; and that these exhibitions were also
the prototypes whereon D'Hancarville shows Mercury, Momus, and
Psyche delineated as we see Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown on our
stages. The old man (Pantaloon), is Charon (the ferryman of hell). The
Clown is Momus, the buffoon of heaven, the god of raillery and wit,
and whose large gaping mouth is in imitation of the ancient masks."
Amongst the Aryans, Medians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Babylonians,
and other nations