Pandar

Etymology of Pandar

From Chaucer’s character Pandare (in Troilus and Criseyde), from Italian Pandaro (found in Boccaccio), from Latin Pandarus, from Ancient Greek Πάνδαρος (Pándaros). See also Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.

Contrary to popular belief about the social stuffiness of people of English descent, the Anglo-Saxons (that is, the Germanic inhabitants of England from their arrival in the 5th century up to the Norman Conquest in 1066) were a bawdy group of people. This dubious celebrity continued full blown into the 16th and 17th centuries. Among its famous authors is John Dryden (19 August 1631 – 12 May 1700) who coincidentally was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745).  Dryden was associated with high Anglicanism; Swift was an Anglican cleric.

Pander (clearly related to the word pandar) was a word from that era. On the indelicate coattails of Chaucer (1400) and reacting to the Puritan censorious morals, the evolution of the printed word abounded with lasciviousness and sexual innuendo. Interestingly it was a German goldsmith, printer and publisher, Johannes Gutenberg (1455) who  invented the mechanical moveable type printing press and this invention started the Printing Revolution. His first major work was the Gutenberg Bible (known as the 42-line Bible). But his invention quickly became alive with the undercurrent of ribaldry.

Pander: “arranger of sexual liaisons, one who caters for the lusts of others,” 1520s, “procurer, pimp,” from Middle English Pandare (late 14c.), used by Chaucer (“Troylus and Cryseyde”), who borrowed it from Boccaccio (who had it in Italian form Pandaro in “Filostrato”) as name of the prince (Greek Pandaros), who procured the love of Cressida (his niece in Chaucer, his cousin in Boccaccio) for Troilus. The story and the name are medieval inventions. The name turns up in ancient Greek, but without the story; in Homer he is a Lycian participant in the Trojan War. The name is thus perhaps non-Greek. Spelling in English was influenced by the agent-noun suffix -er.

Currently we are inclined to define the word pander as a verb, “to indulge (another), to minister to base passions, cater for the lusts of others,” c. 1600, from pander (n.). Meaning “to minister to others’ prejudices for selfish ends” is from c. 1600.

Modern business and politics are frequently aligned with the uncontested value of pandering in order to secure one’s own ends. It is a hard tool to dismiss from one’s catalogue of persuasive devices. Without venturing into a consideration of possible duplicity, it is not inappropriate first to question the legitimacy of one’s own merits and calculations. That is, it is far easier to accommodate the shortcomings of another when recalling what are as often inherently convincing (though perhaps doubtful) theorems of one’s own. The ingredient of pandering then becomes only a strain of social fluidity as congenial as a fortified wine.  And well it may be so.  Better however to keep in mind that “the best mask for a treacherous heart is an honest face” or that “flattery is a net before another man’s feet”.  These cautionary signals do not have to detract from the venturous spirit of the provocateur. But it remains constant that succumbing to honeyed words is no project for the uninitiated.

The pleasure of raw drama was not confined to the rabble in the pits.  The elegant ladies and gentlemen in the stalls, balcony and loges are renowned to this day for their peculiar indulgences.  I have it on good authority from a former gadabout that, when dining in Italy, the pousse-café was more corporeal than a tiny crystal goblet. I speak of the paradoxical reversion to the alliance with the local brothel-keeper. Pandering is infused with this base appeal. I suspect the extent of pandering, though of necessity specific, would otherwise be shrouded in obfuscation and lyrical though suggestive poetry. By any account pandering of this nature is both toxic and alluring. Granted its appeal is restricted to those athletic enough to undertake the exploit. Limitless indulgence is never pretty. Meanwhile others confine their absorption to recording the putative details. The vicarious immersion may in fact be as entertaining, as artistic as the popular rendition of Bacchus, the god of wine, vegetation, fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy and theatre.

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherios (“the liberator”), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.