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Syrinx, a MythSource painting
Greek

Syrinx

01Identity

Syrinx in Greek tradition

When Pan pursued her along the river Ladon, Syrinx fled until deep water blocked her escape. As he reached for her, the nymphs changed her into reeds, leaving Pan to gather them and hear their mournful sound. He joined the reeds into the first syrinx, or Pan’s pipe, making the instrument a lasting symbol of her transformation.

Top questions

The quick answers

02Family

Syrinx’s family, at a glance

Ladon
Syrinx
03The myths

The myths of Syrinx

1 myth, with sources recorded for each, with 1 reviewed modern rework linked where the evidence supports it.

Syrinx and the Reeds

Syrinx, an Arcadian nymph devoted to Artemis, fled when Pan pursued her. She was beautiful and had often escaped the attentions of satyrs and other woodland gods. Pan followed her from Mount Lycaeum towards the river Ladon. She reached the riverbank, but the water was too deep for her to cross, and Pan was close behind.

With escape impossible, Syrinx called for help. In one account, she prayed to the gods. In another, she asked the water nymphs to change her form. Her prayer was answered just as Pan was about to seize her. Syrinx became a reed growing beside the river, and Pan caught only the reeds in his arms.

Pan did not recognise which reed had been Syrinx. He cut several of them at random. When the wind moved through the reeds, they made a soft, mournful sound. Pan listened and took comfort from it, believing that Syrinx still lamented within them. He joined reeds of different lengths with wax and made a pipe. The Greeks called this instrument the syrinx, or Pan’s pipe. Another account describes it as a flute of seven reeds.

Syrinx and the Reeds, a MythSource painting of the scene

In the modern world

Syrinx

Film

Ryan Larkin's 1965 short directly animates Syrinx fleeing Pan's advances, her transformation into reeds, and Pan cutting and fashioning the reeds into pipes.

3 sources· checked 2026-08-19

  1. 1Greek Myths & TalesT1
  2. 2Ovid, MetamorphosesT1

    Quote

    “When Syrinx became reeds beside the river, Pan cut them and made a pipe whose notes preserved the sound of her lament.”

    Ovid, Metamorphoses

  3. 3Shakespeare's Ovid, being Arthur Golding's translation of the MetamorphosesT1

The wider mythology

Works that draw on more of the mythology than any single story: full retellings of the saga, and worlds built out of the material.

Pan & Syrinx

Film

The 2024 short retells Pan's pursuit of the nymph Syrinx as a queer 'trans fantasia' exploring identity and performance; available synopses confirm the pursuit but not that the specific reed-transformation or pipe-making beat survives on screen.

Also mentioned in

Stories elsewhere on MythSource that mention Syrinx, each on that figure’s page.