Literary Flautists
to Sturges. Denmark has also produced a poet-flautist and novelist in the person of Sten. Stenson Blicher (1782-1848).
The classical tales of Minerva, Pan, Syrinz, Apollo, and Marsyas are often alluded to by English poets and dramatists; amongst others by LydgateLegends
connected
with the
Flute (who makes Pan's instrument a bagpipe), by Spenser, by Kyd, by Campion, by the author of Lingua, by Cowper, by Mrs. Browning, by Matthew Arnold. Heywood gives a comic version, and Lyly has a most amusing comedy on Midas. In O'Hara's burlesque of the same name Apollo's instrument is the guitar and Pan's is the bagpipe.
The following modern Greek legend is said to have been derived from Asia Minor:—
A great king had a son who was a fine flute-player but very shy and a woman-hater. His father, wishing him to marry, ships him off to a foreign court to select a wife from amongst the princesses. The ship is wrecked, but the prince is carried by the waves to a beautiful island. Here he exchanges clothes with a poor fisherman and sets out for the palace of the king of the island, where he obtains employment as a stable-boy In the evening he plays so enchantingly upon his flute that even the nightingales stop their singing to listen. The king's daughter hears him play and persuades her father to make him her music-master. Perceiving that the princess loves him, he discloses to her that he is a king's son, and ere long they are happily married.
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