Listening to the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, like a medieval monk preaching a crusade, denouncing "evil", invoking the virus that must be defeated, I think we have a long way to go before we eradicate stupidity or superstition. Just he didn't add, hands clasped and looking up at the sky, "Sed libera nos a malo". Unless it is wanting to govern by infantilizing, with sticks, "argumentum baculinum".

      "We know very well that pathology is more the science of illnesses than the science of evil, that there are diseases and not the disease," wrote Pierre de Graciansky and Henri Péquignot in their preface to the Pléiade encyclopedia devoted to medicine.Even if covid-19 is a disease caused by an unknown virus, albeit a member of the known coranovirus family, it is part of the whole and should be treated as such rather than as an absolute evil.

      Of the four thousand or so viruses listed among the hundreds of thousands that attack us, more than a hundred are pathogenic to humans. We encounter them all the time, and the encounter can be violent or beneficial. New ones appear, aggresives, and the body has to defend itself against them. The war is not waged by societies, but by each individual, at every moment of his or her life, in order to postpone the deadline as much as possible, knowing that every being, in spite of everything, is only a future carrion,  many bacteria and viruses are biding their time. Society is only there to help, a sort of arms dealer with health aid. Sometimes, and we have to accept this, despite everything, despite all the care, we are powerless for a while, the body gives up, retreats, is defeated. Because we are not all equal when it comes to genetics, immune defences, response to treatment or simply luck. Unfortunately. Even if, in the grand scheme of things, only a few people are affected.

        This irrational but legitimate panic that is gripping the population reminds me of the fear of the god Pan, from whom it takes its name.

      Greek mythology, like Roman mythology, which is almost identical, was imaginative, as mischievous as a virus, unlike other religions, which were dogmatic and rigorous. The gods created by Hesiod, Homer, Diodorus, Apollodorus and the other poets of successive eras could have different origins, depending on the mood of the moment. Sometimes by the same author. Like the coronavirus, Pan's birth is shrouded in mystery. According to legend, Pan, who was a hell of a fellow, and was worshipped by the people as the first of the rustic gods, the protector of herds, pastures and forests, was not born of the bestial love affairs of a mortal, but either from the meeting of Hermes with the nymph Dryope, or from that of Hermes and Penelope, or from Penelope herself, who, in revenge for the absence of Ulysses, conceived him with the suitors. He is also said to be the son of Zeus and Callisto, or Zeus and Hybris.

     Whatever his mother was, she was stunned by his ugliness, with his horned head and cloven feet, and abandoned him to the nymphs, who took charge of his upbringing. A good or bad god, he personified nature, the great whole, as his name suggests and as we find in Pandemic.

     Dyonisos' favourite companion, Pan, the " goat's foot", Half man, half goat, like a virus on man, leaping from rock to rock, agile in running or lurking in the bushes, on the lookout for nymphs, mortals and shepherds, jumped on everything he came across. His conquests were many and varied. From Selene to Echo. His lechery was legendary. The beautiful Syrinx chose to turn herself into a reed rather than endure his advances. To take revenge on the nymph, he cut down seven reeds. It is said that a soft murmur came from the bush as he cut the stems and assembled them to make the flute of Pan or Syrinx.

     But the god was often angry and frightening when he disturbed the peace of the fields. He was blamed for all sorts of evils, especially when disease decimated herds and flocks and epidemics struck people. In a bad mood, it was said, he roamed the world, causing confusion and disorder. No amount of prayer or human sacrifice could appease him. He inspired a fear in humans and animals known as panic, causing stampedes by day and nightmares by night. Everyone went into hiding, trying to escape his ferocity. And no one to stop it.

     Then it would calm down. We just had to wait for better days.