Ovid includes the story of Pan and Syrinx in the first of fifteen books from the Metamorphoses, a collection of about 250 mythological and legendary stories in which metamorphosis is a common element. The story of Syrinx is told by Hermes to Argos in order to put him to sleep and kill him. Ovid describes that when Pan saw Syrinx he immediately fell in love with her and began to pursue her in the mountains of Arcadia. The nymph huddled on the banks of the river Ladon, in extreme despair, and whith her strength leaving her, sought help from the river nymphs who transformed her into reeds. The god Pan, disappointed, hears the sweet, mournful sound of the wind in the reeds and, refusing to believe that he no longer has the possibility of obtaining Syrinx, gathers the reeds and constructs a pipe, which he names "syrinx", more commonly known today as "Pan's pipe". Thus, only the name and sound of the pipe will be all that reminds him of the elusive nymph.