Satyrs- sex pests of the forests

Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena, Nymphs and Satyrs

I’ve already alluded to this numerous times here, but I thought it was worthwhile bringing out the point in a dedicated posting. Satyrs have two preoccupations according to most accounts- they like drinking and revelry, and- pretty much as a necessary consequence of this- they like chasing and seducing nymphs.

The satyrs by no means always force themselves on the nymphs. Many of the latter enjoy playing hard to get, it appears, the thrill of the chase being part of the stimulation for both parties. The German artist Gerda Wegener in the plate Satyr and Nymph, from the Pleasures of Eros (1917), gave us the most explicit representation of the fornication in the forests, whilst Georges Redon has given us a saucy, jokey version..

Dirk Ravesteyn, Venus and a Satyr

William Etty’s Nymph and Satyr is a painting that embodies these more tender interactions. The pair embrace lovingly, their foreheads lightly touching in a gesture of loving union. The nymph is only a slender girl with rosy cheeks, her pale flesh offset by the sun-tanned torso of her lover. The French painter Louis Priou also reminded us that these couplings could very well result in domestic bliss: in The Satyr’s Family a faun and his nymph bride are founded sitting contentedly together in a clearing enjoying their child’s efforts to learn to play the pipes.

William Etty, Nymph and Satyr

A bit of rough sex likewise seems to be tolerated, as in poet Ruben Dario’s description of how “the satyr fornicates… and the mouth of the faun bites the nipple.” All the same, no means no- but satyrs aren’t good listeners, as poet Josephine Peabody captured in the uncomprehending words of a chorus of satyrs addressing Syrinx as she flees Pan:

“The foolish maiden that would flee from Love
With shaggy ears!
Is it his wild, bright eyes, wild locks above,
The maiden fears?”

Pan Idyll

The initial reaction of nymphs to Pan and the other woodland creatures seems consistently to be alarm: “didst thou know the god/ from but the imprint of whose cloven feet/ the shrieking dryad sought her leafy goal?”

Alexander Cabanel

Plenty of artists have depicted this less pleasant side of the satyr character. Alexandre Cabanel in 1860 painted a Nymph and Satyr in just such an apparent struggle: he has grabbed her and is trying to restrain her flailing arms; she looks away as she desperately tries to free herself from his grip.

Bonnard, L’Apres midi d’un faun

Far more ambiguous is Paul Cezanne’s Battle of Love of 1880- is it a gang rape of four nymphs by satyrs or just a lively orgy? The same is the case in Pierre Bonnard’s L’Apres midi d’un faun, which sees a nymph and a satyr sat upon a log. Whilst he may be in the process of kissing her neck, her flailing limbs indicate that the encounter is plainly an assault.

Tassaert, Nymph and Faun

The French artist Octave Tassaert in 1860 pursued this theme to its most unpleasant conclusion. His Nymph and Faun shows the girl awakening from a rest by a pool to find that her wrists have been bound behind her back and that she is now under the control of a leering faun whose intentions can only be malign. Even less palatable is Max Slevogt’s Faun and Girl, an image of pure sexual violence in which the satyr holds the nymph down with his hands around her throat.

Slevogt, Faun and Girl

Annibale Carracci, Satyr and Shepherd

We should also remind ourselves here, perhaps, that Pan and his priapic band might be as ready to pursue and seduce a shepherd boy as a cow girl or a nymph. Aleister Crowley depicted this in no uncertain terms- and with his typical histrionic style- in The Garden of Janus. He depicts himself kissing a goat and being molested “like a satyr ravishing a lamb.” As Schiller had written, “No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race.”

Today, perhaps, we are less at ease with our carnal natures. This may be reflected in the Spanish Symbolist painting, The Abyss (1906), by Baldomer Gili I Roig. Naked women are shown indulging themselves wildly with satyrs, but in the foreground, there is a trench into which several of the women have fallen and become trapped. One is trying to get a companion to pull her out; others lie asleep or dead along the bottom of the ditch.

Gili i Roig, The Abyss

For more information, see my Great God Pan (Green Magic, 2021).