Difference between revisions of "Two Stories of Pangos"

Latest revision as of 08:52, 6 April 2007

A text from the shelf of a Gnostic Christian sect, found beneath the Monastery of St. Maximus in Chrysopolis.

[Greek; a prefatory note explains that this is a “faithful translation” from the Persian]

    Many strange tales are spread along the Silk Road. Your recorder has heard 
    many things from others, who heard them from others, who believe much folly 
    and wonder.
    
    In the beginning, the heavens and the earth were all one and all was the 
    void, i.e. chaos. All there was an enormous black egg, carrying Pangos 
    inside. After eighteen thousand years Pangos awoke from a long sleep. He 
    wanted to stretch, so he took up a two-headed broadax and swung it with all 
    his might to crack open the egg. The light, clear part of it floated up and 
    formed the heavens, the cold, turbulent matter stayed below to form earth. 
    Pangos stood in the middle, his head touching the sky, his feet planted on 
    the earth. The heavens and the earth began to grow at a rate of ten paces 
    per day, and Pangos grew along with them. After another eighteen thousand 
    years, the sky was higher, the earth thicker, and Pangos stood between them 
    like a pillar nine million stades in height so that they would never join 
    again.
    
    When Pangos died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the 
    thunderbolts of Zeus. One eye became the sun and on the moon. His body and 
    limbs turned to mountains and his blood formed the infinite Ocean. His veins 
    became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. The innumerable 
    stars in the sky came from his hair and beard, and flowers and trees from 
    his skin and the fine hairs on his body. His marrow turned to gold and 
    pearls. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all 
    things on earth. His tears flowed to make rivers and radiance of his eyes 
    turned the storms and the dawn. Only his teeth remained teeth. When he was 
    happy the sun shone, but when he was angry black clouds gathered in the sky. 
    Some say the fleas and lice on his body became the ancestors of mankind, as 
    Ikulu concurs. Even now, “since Pangos created the heavens and the earth” 
    means since time immemorial, as we would say “since the reign of Jamshyd,” 
    i.e. Chronos. This is the story they tell in the south, but there is 
    another.
    
    For others say that in Olympus the God in charge of the earth, King Geupsin, 
    owned a beautiful spotted dog. He reared him on a plate, i.e. “pan,” inside 
    a gourd, i.e. “gos,” so the dog was known as Pangos. Among the Gods there 
    was great enmity between King Geupsin and his rival King Fangs. “Whoever can 
    bring me the head of King Fangs may marry my daughter,” he proclaimed, but 
    nobody was willing to try because they were afraid of King Fangs’ valiant 
    soldiers and swift horses.
    
    The dog Pangos overheard what was said, and when Geupsin was sleeping, 
    slipped out of the palace and ran to King Fangs, who was glad to see him 
    standing there wagging his tail. “You see, King Geupsin is nigh unto 
    finished; even his dog has left him,” Fangs said, and held a banquet for the 
    occasion whereat the dog sat at his side.
    
    At midnight when all was quiet and Fangs was overcome with drink, Pangos 
    jumped onto the king’s bed, bit off his head and ran back to his master with 
    it. King Geupsin was overjoyed to see the head of his rival, and gave orders 
    to bring Pangos some fresh meat. But Pangos left the meat untouched and 
    curled himself up in a corner to sleep. For three days he ate nothing and 
    did not stir.
    
    The king was puzzled and asked, “Why don’t you eat? Is it because I failed 
    to keep my promise of marrying a dog?” To his surprise Pangos began to 
    speak. “Don’t worry, my King. Just cover me with your golden bell and in 
    seven days and seven nights I’ll become a man.” The King did as he said, but 
    on the sixth day, fearing he would starve to death, out of solicitude the 
    princess peeped under the bell. Pangos’s body had already changed into that 
    of a man, but his head was still that of a dog. However, once the bell was 
    raised, the magic change stopped, and he had to remain a man with a dog’s 
    head.
    
    He married the princess, but she didn’t want to be seen with such a man so 
    they moved to the earth and settled in the remote mountains, the highest in 
    all the world. There they lived happily and had four children, three boys 
    and a girl, who became the ancestors of mankind. They sought to preserve 
    forever the memory of Pangos, but in the mountains many things were 
    forgotten, and Pangos’s teeth were lost and scattered across the earth, 
    except for some that remained in the mountains.

[Other, less interesting tales follow]