Recent developments in low energy pion physics are reviewed, emphasizing the
strength of dispersion theory in this context. As an illustration of the
method, I discuss some consequences of the forward dispersion relation obeyed
by the isoscalar component of the scattering amplitude.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the workshop "Quark Confinement
and the Hadron Spectrum VII", Ponta Delgada, Azores Islands, Portugal,
September 200