Hypnos: Sleeping God of Greek Mythology

01/12/2020

     Hypnos is the Sleep God of Greek Mythology and he is also a twin brother of Thanatos. This Greek God is the son of Nix with Erebus and was much worshiped in Ancient Greece.

Hypnos in Greek Mythology:

     Hypnos, is the god of sleep in Greek Mythology. Personification of sleep, and drowsiness; but not from tiredness when it comes to fatigue. Hipnos is one of the Greek daemons: gods that interfere in the spirit of mortals. According to Hesiod's Theogony, he is the fatherless son of Nix, the night goddess, but other sources say that the father is Erebus (The Primordial Darkness, which personifies the deep and primitive darkness that formed at the time of creation). 

     He has nine brothers, among whom the most important is his twin Thanatos, the personification of death. So much so that in Sparta, it is common for his image to always be placed beside death, represented by his brother. His other brothers were born only from Nix's will or from Erebus's help. Its Roman equivalent is Somno.

Hypnos Myth:

     Hipnos lived in a palace built inside a large cave in the far west, where the sun never reached, because no one had a cock that would wake the world, nor geese or dogs, so Hipnos always lived in tranquility, in peace and silence. On the other side of all this peculiar place passed Lete, the river of forgetfulness, and on the margins, plants grew that, together with the murmur of the clear waters of the river, helped men to sleep. In the middle of the palace there was a beautiful bed, surrounded by black curtains where Hipnos rested, and Morpheus was careful that no one woke him.

     He is often seen wearing gold pieces, as opposed to his twin brother who normally wore silver tones. He can also be portrayed as a naked young man with wings, playing the flute. It is sometimes shown as sleeping in a feather bed with black curtains around it. Its attributes include a horn containing opium, a poppy stalk, a branch dripping water from the river Lete ("Forgetfulness") and an inverted torch.

     Pausânias, in his work Description of Greece, mentions several times the presence of statues of Hypnos beside his brother Thanato.


Your Brothers Are:

  • Fantasy - goddess of delusion and fantasy.
  • Fantasus - creator of inanimate objects monsters, chimeras and daydreams that appear in dreams and remain in memory;
  • Icelo - god of nightmares;
  • Morpheus - god of good or abstract dreams;
  • Moros, god of the share that each man will receive in life;
  • Wants, goddess of man's destiny in his final moments;
  • Nemesis, goddess of vengeance;
  • Oizus, god of misery;
  • Momo, god of irony and sarcasm;
  • Geras, god of old age;
  • Philotes, god of friendship;
  • Hesperides, goddess of the afternoon;
  • Ether, god of the sky;
  • Thanatos, god of death;

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