Paean

Paean (pronounced pee-uhn)

(1) A hymn of invocation or thanksgiving, sun in Ancient Greece to Apollo or some other deity.

(2) By extension, a song of praise, joy or triumph, especially if sung loudly and joyously).

(3) By extension, an expression of reverential or enthusiastic praise.

1535–1545: From the Latin paean, (religious or festive hymn; hymn of deliverance, hymn to a help-giving god), from the Ancient Greek (παιάν (also παιήων or παιών)) (paiān) (hymn to Apollo), from his title Paiā́n (or Paiōn) (denoting the physician to the gods), from the phrase Ἰὼ Παιᾱ́ν (Iṑ Paiā́n) (“O Paean!, Thanks to Paean!).  As well as the name (from Homer) by which the divine physician was known, paiān was later an epithet of Apollo and thus of interest is the literal translation "one who touches" (in the sense of “curing by a touch of the hand”), perhaps from a word in the hymn like paio (to touch, strike).  English picked it up as paean (as did Middle French) which was adopted in many languages but variations include the French péan (although the Middle French paean peacefully co-exists), the Italian peana and the Portuguese peã & péan.

The Greek παιάν was from παιάϝων (paiáwōn) (one who heals illnesses with magic) but the origin is contested.  Some etymologists link it with παῖϝα & παϝία (blow), related to παίω (beat), from the primitive Indo-European pēu-, pyu- & pū- (to hit; to cut)- or παύω (paúō) (withhold; to bring to an end; to abate, to stop), from the primitive Indo-European pehw- (few, little; smallness).  Paiān remains however mysterious and may be from the Archaic Greek or indeed be pre-Greek.  Paean (present participle paeaning & past participle paeaned) & paeanism are nouns, paeanic is an adjective, paeanically seems to have been used as an adverb and paeanize is a verb (apparently first used by philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in the early seventeenth century).  The noun plural is paeans and the alternative spelling (in occasional US use) is pean (pæan the traditional form).  A paean may variously be referred to variously as a hymn, acclamation, anthem, ode, praise, psalm, song, laud or laudation and, outside the technical use in texts from Antiquity, the choice is probably dictated by context and desired literary effect.

A fresco of Apollo playing the kithara, from a building in the Forum of Rome (Augustan period), Museum of the Forum Romanum, Rome.

As the lyrical phrase “O Paean!” hints, in Antiquity, a Paean was a song of joyful triumph.  Most surviving texts suggest the paean was written usually in the ancient Greek Dorian mode and was accompanied by the kithara, the instrument of Apollo, god of music.  The military, when paeans were sung on the battlefield, augmented the kithara by the aulos and kithara.

Confusion still sometimes surrounds the understanding of the Greek Dorian Mode because it was long confused with the modern use of “Dorian” mode.  Like many of the tangled constructions and interpretations from Greek & Latin which endure to this day, the fault lies mostly with medieval ecclesiastical scholars.  Some of the names of musical modes in use today, (Mixolydian, Dorian et al), are direct borrowings in spelling but not meaning, the scribes of the Church misunderstanding the mechanics of Greek texts.  In Athens and beyond, intervals were counted from top to bottom whereas the practice during the Middle Ages was (sometimes) to work from bottom to top, hence the jumble.  The error was recognized by the seventeenth century but such had been the proliferation of the new conventions of use that the misinterpretations were allowed to remain, labelled “Church Modes” to distinguish them from the ancients.

The problems began with the translation of a treatise on music (De institutione musica (The Structure of Music (circa 507)) by Boethius (Saint Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius; circa 478-524, a Roman and historian and philosopher) which was neglected until unearthed by scholars during the ninth century who found it so compelling it was soon the most widely translated and disseminated medieval work on the subject.  The influence of Boethius was immense, his De consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolation of Philosophy (523)) one of the classic works through which the classical age was understood during the centuries which followed although modern historians do caution the medieval (and later) reverence of antiquity did lead to some idealized and romantic visions of the lost world taking hold.

Both Plato & Aristotle fancied themselves as musicologists and thought the ancient Greek Dorian the most "manly" of all the musical modes, suggesting it could move soldiers to heroic acts in battle.  The famous Battle of Thermopylae, a paean composed for a solo lyre, was inspired by the tale of two-thousand-odd Spartans, Thespians & Thebans, a rear-guard which for two days defied a whole Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.  Professional musicians today note that to convey the martial spirit which should be summoned in performance, it’s vital to understand the ancient Greek Dorian mode so it’s played with the vigor Plato & Aristotle described when writing of the technique.

The USS Pueblo, moored on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, part of the DPRK’s Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.

The USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a lightly-armed, US Navy scientific research vessel which in January 1968 was attacked and captured by the DPRK (North Korean) military which alleged she was engaged in espionage activities while in their territorial waters.  One US sailor was killed during the attack, the surviving 82 seized and not released for almost a year, a period described variously as the Pueblo “affair”, “incident" or “crisis".  The Pueblo is still held in the DPRK as a war-prize (although the legal status of that is dubious) and the US Navy has never struck the vessel from the active list, Washington’s position that it was seized illegally and should be returned.

Bowing North Koreans make their grateful paeans before the statue of Kim Il-sung (1912-1994, Great Leader of the DPRK 1948-1994).

The word paean came in handy as a diplomatic device.  As part of the deal securing the sailors’ release, the captain issued a statement "confess(ing) to his and the crew's transgression."  Before he recorded the brief speech, the text was checked by the DPRK government and they were presumably pleased at the capitalist lackeys saying: "We paean the DPRK.  We paean the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung.  We paean the DPRK flag" but missed an essential nuance, the captain pronouncing "paean" as "pee on".  Nor did seizing the hardly imposing Pueblo achieve the Great Leader’s strategic objective, the US increasing its diplomatic and military support for the ROC (South Korea).