Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.689-712
Then Mercury told this story: ‘Once there lived
On the cold mountainsides of Arcady
A Naiad, who among the forest sprites
Of lofty Nonacris was most renowned.
Syrinx the Naiads called her. Many a time
She foiled the chasing satyrs and those gods
Who haunt the shady copses and the coverts
Of the lush countryside. In her pursuits—
And in her chastity—Syrinx revered
Diana; girt like her she well might seem
(So easy to mistake) Diana’s self,
Were not her bow of horn, Diana’s gold.
Indeed she was mistaken. Pan returning
From Mount Lycaeus, crowned with his wreath of pine,
Saw Syrinx once and said—’ but what he said
Remained to tell, and how the scornful nymph
Fled through the wilderness and came at last
To Ladon’s peaceful sandy stream, and there,
Her flight barred by the river, begged her sisters,
The water-nymphs, to change her; and, when Pan
Thought he had captured her, he held instead
Only the tall marsh reeds, and, while he sighed,
The soft wind stirring in the reeds sent forth
A thin and plaintive sound; and he, entranced
By this new music and its witching tones,
Cried ‘You and I shall stay in unison!’
And waxed together reeds of different lengths
And made the pipes that keep his darling’s name.’
Translation by A. D. Melville