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"... whenever in his
imagination a man sees delights, straightaway the
vision, slipping through his arms, is gone, winging
its flight along the paths of Sleep."
[Argive Elders. Aeschylus,
Agamemnon
420]
"... almighty Sleep
releases the fettered sleeper, and does not hold
him in a perpetual grasp."
[Ajax 1. Sophocles,
Ajax
675]
"What presumption of man,
can match your power, Zeus, who are no subject to Sleep or
Time or Age, living forever in bright
Olympus?" [Theban Elders. Sophocles,
Antigone
605]
"Divine Sleep, god who
knows no pain, Sleep, stranger to anguish, come in
favor to us, come happy, and giving happiness,
great King! ... come with power to heal!"
[Sailors of
Neoptolemus' crew.
Sophocles,
Philoctetes
830]
"O Sleep, rest of all
things, mildest of the gods, balm of the soul
..." [Iris 1 to
Hypnos. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
1.623]
"Sleep is a death, O make
me try
By sleeping, what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed." [Sir Thomas
Browne 1605-82, Religio Medici II.12]
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Sancho: "...sólo entiendo
que en tanto que duermo, ni tengo temor,
ni esperanza, ni trabajo, ni gloria; y
bien haya el que inventó el
sueño, capa que cubre todos los
humanos pensamientos, manjar que quita la
hambre, agua que ahuyenta la sed, fuego
que calienta el frío, frío
que templa el ardor, y, finalmente, moneda
general con que todas las cosas se
compran, balanza y peso que iguala al
pastor con el rey y al simple con el
discreto. Sola una cosa tiene mala el
sueño según he oído
decir, y es que se parece a la muerte,
pues de un dormido a un muerto hay muy
poca diferencia."
[Miguel de Cervantes,
Don
Quijote de la Mancha, Segunda
Parte, Capítulo LXVIII]
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Sancho: "... but
this I very well know, that while I am
asleep, I feel neither hope nor despair; I
am free from pain and insensible of glory.
Now blessings light on him that first
invented this same sleep: it covers a man
all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak;
it is meat for the hungry, drink for the
thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for
the hot. It is the current coin that
purchases all the pleasures of the world
cheap; and the balance that sets the king
and the shepherd, the fool and the wise
man even. There is only one thing, which
somebody once put into my head, that I
dislike in sleep; it is that it resembles
death; there is very little difference
between a man in his first sleep, and a
man in his last sleep."
[Miguel de Cervantes,
Don
Quixote, Part II, Chapter LXVIII]
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Hypnos, who some say is the god that is dearest
to the MUSES, is Sleep and
Dream. He is the younger brother of
Thanatos (Death), and
Nyx (Night) is the nurse of
both.
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Sleep resembles Death
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It has been ordained that Hypnos and
Thanatos should have
all things in common. Hypnos, the younger, imitates
the other in everything. He had been surnamed 'the
Bountiful', for this is the god who puts cares to
flight, and soothes the bodies of both mortals and
immortals. He can fashion shapes that seem to be
true forms, and in his art he receives help from
his sons.
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The abode of Hypnos
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Hypnos, they say, has his abode within a hollow
mountain in Cimmeria, which is to the north of the
Black Sea. In this place, silence and twilight
shadows reign, and from the bottom of the cave
there flows the stream of Lethe (Oblivion), whose
murmuring waves invite to slumber. Before the
entrance, where poppies bloom, there are also
countless herbs which cause somnolence. Hypnos
himself lies with heavy eyelids on a high couch of
ebony in the cavern's central space, surrounded by
empty dream-shapes, which mimick many forms.
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Sons of Hypnos
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Morpheus is a cunning imitator of the human
form, skilled in representing the features and the
speech of men in dreams, as well as the clothing
and the accustomed words of each he represents.
Phobetor is the one who represents the forms of
beasts, or birds, or serpents, in men's dreams; and
Phantasus is in charge of putting deceptive shapes
of earth, rocks, water, trees, or other lifeless
things in the dreams of men.
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Hypnos' wife
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Hera promised Hypnos to
give him Pasithea 2 (one of the
CHARITES) as a bride if
he would help her to let
Zeus fall asleep. This he
did in spite of his fears; for once before he
performed a similar task, also at
Hera's request. But
Zeus woke up in anger and
sought Hypnos everywhere, and the god would have
hurled him from heaven into the deep, had
Nyx not saved him. For also
Nyx is a powefurl goddess,
who prevails over both gods and men.
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Iris 1 asks for service
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Also Iris 1 came to
Hypnos, sent by Hera, to
ask him fashion a shape resembling
Ceyx, which appearing
before Ceyx's wife Alcyone
2, whould inform her of her husband's death.
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Oniros
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Oniros
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But Oniros (Dream), child of
Nyx, comes also to men in
their sleep through any of the two Gates of Sleep.
Through the Gate of Horn come forth those dreams
which bring true issues to pass, but through the
Gate of Ivory come those dreams which deceive men,
bringing words that find no fulfilment.
So when for example,
Zeus wished to vindicate
Achilles for what King
Agamemnon had done to
him, he decided to send
Agamemnon a false
dream in the shape of
Nestor, the king's
trusted councillor, so that
Agamemnon would
believe that the hour of victory was at hand, and
that he would soon take the city of
Troy, which was utterly
false.
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