Hypnos

Hypnos was the Greek god of sleep, a son of Night (Nyx) and the twin brother of Thanatos (Death). In Homer he is the god whom Hera asks to close the eyes of Zeus, and he appears again as one of the two brothers who carry the dead Sarpedon home to Lycia. The Romans called him Somnus.

Hypnos’ Family

Hesiod says that Night bore Death and then Sleep, and also the tribe of Dreams (Oneiroi), and that she bore them without lying with any god (Hesiod, Theogony 211–213). In Hesiod he is therefore the son of Nyx alone, with no father. Homer calls him the brother of Death (Iliad 14.231) and speaks of “Sleep and Death, the twins” (Iliad 16.672, 16.682). Pausanias describes the chest of Cypselus at Olympia, where Night holds a white child asleep on one arm and a black one on the other, and the inscriptions name them Death and Sleep (Pausanias 5.18.1).

His wife is Pasithea, one of the younger Graces. In the Iliad Hera promises her to Hypnos as a wife (Iliad 14.267–276); Homer does not narrate the marriage. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses Somnus has a thousand sons, among them Morpheus, who imitates the shape, voice and walk of human beings, Icelos (called Phobetor by mortals), who takes the shape of beasts, birds and serpents, and Phantasos, who takes the shape of earth, stones, water and other lifeless things (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.633–645). Hesiod’s Dreams, by contrast, are named only as the tribe born of Night (Theogony 212).

Where Hypnos Lives

In Hesiod, Sleep and Death have their homes in the house of dark Night, in the gloomy region Hesiod describes beside Tartarus, where the Sun never looks on them with his rays. Sleep is the quiet, gentle brother who roams the earth and the sea’s broad back, kind to men; Death has a heart of iron and takes the man he first seizes (Theogony 744–766). In the Iliad, Hera meets Hypnos on Lemnos, a city of king Thoas (Iliad 14.230–231).

Ovid places the house of Somnus in a cave near the land of the Cimmerians, where the sun never reaches and no cock, dog or goose breaks the silence. Poppies and countless herbs grow before the door, from whose juice Night gathers sleep. A stream of Lethe flows out from the bottom of the rock, and its murmuring invites sleep. In the middle of the cave stands a black bed, where the god lies with his limbs relaxed and the empty dreams lie about him (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.592–615).

Zeus First Sleep

Hypnos put Zeus to sleep twice at Hera’s request, both times in the Iliad. The first time is only recalled in Hypnos’ own words (Iliad 14.249–261). When Heracles sailed home from the sack of Troy, Hypnos poured sleep over Zeus’ mind at Hera’s bidding, and Hera sent grievous winds against Heracles’ ships on the sea and carried him to the well-peopled island of Cos. When Zeus awoke he was furious, threw the gods about his house, and hunted for Hypnos, and would have hurled him from the sky into the sea if Night, who subdues gods and men, had not saved him; Hypnos had fled to her, and Zeus held back his anger because he would not do anything to displease swift Night (Iliad 14.249–261; see also Apollodorus, Library 2.7.1).

Zeus Second Sleep

The second time, in the middle of the fighting at the ships, Hera again asked Hypnos to close the eyes of Zeus (Iliad 14.231–237). Hypnos was reluctant: he could easily put any other god to sleep, even the river Oceanus, source of all things, but not Zeus, unless Zeus himself commanded it (Iliad 14.242–248). Hera then promised him one of the younger Graces, Pasithea, for his wife, the one he had long desired. Hypnos made her swear by the water of the Styx, touching the earth with one hand and the sea with the other, so that the gods below, around Cronus, would be witnesses; Hera swore as he asked, naming the Titans beneath Tartarus (Iliad 14.263–280).

Hera went to Mount Ida, where she told Zeus that she was going to visit Oceanus and Tethys, who had brought her up, in order to settle their long quarrel (Iliad 14.301–311). Hypnos went with her, in the form of a clear-voiced bird that gods call chalkis and men call kymindis, and sat hidden in a tall fir tree on Ida (Iliad 14.286–291). After Zeus had been overcome by love for Hera and lay asleep on the peak of Gargarus, Hypnos went to the ships of the Achaeans and told Poseidon to help the Greeks, since he had now closed the eyes of Zeus in sleep (Iliad 14.352–360).

Zeus did not remain deceived. When he woke on Ida, he saw the Trojans routed and Poseidon among the Achaeans, and he turned in anger on Hera, calling her a schemer, and reminded her how he had once hung her from the sky with anvils tied to her feet (Iliad 15.4–33). Homer does not say that Zeus punished Hypnos on this second occasion.

Sleep and Death

When Sarpedon, son of Zeus, was about to die at Troy, Hera advised Zeus to let him fall and then send Death and Sleep to carry him to Lycia (Iliad 16.453–457). After Sarpedon was killed, Zeus told Apollo to cleanse the body and give it to the twins Sleep and Death, who bore it to Lycia, where his kinsmen buried him with a mound and a pillar (Iliad 16.666–683). In Virgil’s Aeneid, Somnus glides down from the stars at night in the guise of Phorbas, and with a branch dripping with Lethe’s water and steeped in the power of the Styx he overcomes the helmsman Palinurus, who falls into the sea (Virgil, Aeneid 5.838–860).

Cult

At Sicyon, in the sanctuary of Asclepius, Pausanias saw a statue of Sleep lying in the outer room of a building, of which only the head remained (Pausanias 2.10.2). At Troezen the people sacrificed on an altar to the Muses and to Sleep, saying that Sleep is the god dearest to the Muses (Pausanias 2.31.3). At Sparta he saw images of Sleep and Death beside Aphrodite Ambologera, which the Spartans took to be brothers, following the Iliad (Pausanias 3.18.1).

Hypnos Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 211–213, 744–766; Homer, Iliad 14.200–360, 15.4–33, 16.453–457, 16.666–683; Apollodorus, Library 2.7.1; Pausanias 2.10.2, 2.31.3, 3.18.1, 5.18.1; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.592–649; Virgil, Aeneid 5.838–860.

See Also: Nyx, Thanatos, Pasithea, Graces, Oneiroi, Morpheus, Hera, Zeus, Heracles