Pandarus/ˈpændərəs/ orPandar/ˈpændər/ (Ancient Greek: ΠάνδαροςPándaros), son of Lycaon, is a skilled Lycian archer who lived in the Troad city ofZeleia. In the Iliad, he is allied withTroy and appears in stories about theTrojan War. He is infamous for breaking the truce between theTrojans and theAchaeans in Homer's Iliad, Book 4.
In Homer'sIliad , Book 4, he is portrayed as a skilled archer, but in medieval literature he becomes a witty and licentious figure who facilitates the affair betweenTroilus andCressida.[citation needed]
InShakespeare's playTroilus and Cressida, he is portrayed as an aged degenerate and coward[1] who ends the play by telling the audience he will bequeath them his "diseases".[2]
In Homer'sIliad, Pandarus is a renowned archer and the son ofLycaon. Pandarus, who fought on the side ofTroy in theTrojan War[3] and led a contingent fromZeleia, first appeared in Book Two of theIliad. In Book Four, he is tricked byAthena, who wishes for the destruction of Troy and assumes the form ofLaodocus, son ofAntenor, to shoot and woundMenelaus with an arrow, sabotaging a truce that could potentially have led to the peaceful return ofHelen of Troy. He then attempts to killDiomedes at close range, since Athena is protecting him from his deadly arrows, whileAeneas acts as his charioteer.Diomedes narrowly survives the attack, though, retaliating with a deadly blow that knocks Pandarus out of the chariot. Diomedes then pursuesAeneas, who is saved by his motherAphrodite.[4]
Pandarus is also the name of a companion ofAeneas inVirgil'sAeneid. His skull is cut in half vertically byTurnus' sword in Book IX of the Aeneid, ending his life and causing a panic among the other Trojans.[5]
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Pandarus appears inIl Filostrato byGiovanni Boccaccio,[6] in which he plays the role of a go-between in the relationship of his cousin Criseyde and the Trojan prince Troilus, the younger brother of Paris and Hector. Boccaccio himself derived the story fromLe Roman De Troie, by 12th-century poetBenoît de Sainte-Maure. This story is not part ofclassical Greek mythology. Both Pandarus and other characters in the medieval narrative who carry names from theIliad are quite different from Homer's characters of the same name.
InGeoffrey Chaucer’s poemTroilus and Criseyde (1370), Pandarus plays the same role, though Chaucer's Pandarus is Criseyde's uncle, not her cousin.[7] Chaucer's Pandarus is of special interest because he is constructed as an expert rhetorician, who uses dozens of proverbs and proverbial sayings to bring the lovers Troilus and Criseyde together. When his linguistic fireworks fail at the end of the story, the proverb and human rhetoric in general are questioned as reliable means of communication.[8]
William Shakespeare used the medieval story again in his playTroilus and Cressida (1609). Shakespeare's Pandarus is more of a bawd than Chaucer's, as well as being lecherous and degenerate.[9]
InThe Duke's Children byAnthony Trollope, when the Duke of Omnium suspects Mrs. Finn of encouraging his daughter's romance, he refers to her as a 'she-Pandarus'.[10]
In "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea" byYukio Mishima, Pandarus is mentioned briefly during an internal contemplation by the character Ryuji Tsukazaki.[11]
The plot function of the aging lecher Pandarus in Chaucer's and Shakespeare's famous works has given rise to the English termsa pander (in later usagea panderer), from Chaucer, meaning a person who furthers other people's illicit sexual amours;[7] andto pander, from Shakespeare, as a verb denoting the same activity.[1][12]A panderer is, specifically, a bawd — a male who arranges access to female sexual favors: the manager of prostitutes. Thus, in law, the charge ofpandering is an accusation that an individual has sold the sexual services of another. The verb "to pander" is also used in a more general sense to suggest active or implicit encouragement of someone's weaknesses.
This article contains content from theOwl Edition ofNordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published between 1904 and 1926, now in thepublic domain.