Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
In 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "The Afternoon of a Faun", a first-person narrative poem about a faun who attempts to kiss two beautiful nymphs while they are sleeping together. He accidentally wakes them up. Startled, they transform into white water birds and fly away, leaving the faun to play his pan pipes alone. Claude Debussy composed a symphonic poem "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" ("Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"), which was first performed in 1894.