Heroes of legends and myths of Ancient Greece: the god of sleep Morpheus

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

The mysterious nature of sleep has interested people since ancient times. Interpreters, oracles and seers tried to explain strange events, participants or eyewitnesses of which were sleeping. This is how dream books appeared - books that interpret those visions that a person visited during his rest. The ancients believed that no dream comes to us just like that. They are sent - as a reward or punishment - to people by the gods. And the all-pervading Hypnos and his sons - Morpheus, Phoebetor, Phantaz and Ikelus - are in charge of this whole world of subconscious pictures and plots.

Morpheus Embrace

In the days of the gallant age, when it was customary to express gracefully and pompously, they said about a sleeping person: "Morpheus spread his wings over him"; "He fell into the arms of Morpheus." The god of sleep Morpheus is the hero of Greek legends and myths. The poet-historian Ovid tells in detail about his genealogy and deeds in his Metamorphoses. The very name of God is translated as “form” (compare: amorphous, i.e. “formless”) and means “taking any form”, “omnipresent”, “all-pervading”,"giving shape to dreams." Such an interpretation is not groundless. According to legend, Morpheus, the god of sleep, had the amazing ability to take on the appearance of any person. He perfectly reproduced other people's habits, gestures, facial expressions, movements, appearance. And since by nature Morpheus was rather mischievous and cheerful, he loved jokes and practical jokes, he often used his talents. Taking the form of some famous person, the messenger of dreams got out of the cave where he lived with his parents and brothers in the land of Cimmeria, and went to people. There, the god Morpheus acted weird, cracked all sorts of jokes, fooled everyone. And the man, on whose behalf he was amused, shook his head for a long time in amazement. He knew for sure that he did nothing of the kind! Although more often the winged creature still appeared in dreams, again reproducing someone. And these dreams were so real that they could hardly be distinguished from reality.

Divine environment

Although they say that the god of sleep is Morpheus, it is more accurate to call him the lord of dreams. After all, the mighty Hypnos sends a dream and is responsible for it. If he wants, not only people, but also the gods themselves will plunge into a deep state! No wonder the great Zeus and other celestials always treated Hypnos with some apprehension and did not really trust him. No less strong, mysterious and insidious is the god of sleep Morpheus mother - Nyukta, the goddess of the night, darkness, gloom, the abyss. According to other mythological sources, Nyukta was only his grandmother. And the mother was one of the graces who accompanied the huntress Artemis inwandering through the forests - clear-eyed Pasithea. True, she was not as harmless as it seemed at first glance. At the request of her husband, she sent hallucinations to the sleeping people. To match the parents and other relatives: maternal uncle - the terrible Tantos, the inexorable god of death. The most famous brothers, in tandem with whom Morpheus performed his duties, is the god Phoebetor, the personification of terrible nightmares, soul-shaking visions; A fantasy that plunged the sleepers into dreams full of unrealizable but sweet illusions; Ikelos, who was in charge of prophetic, predictive dreams. Sending them to people, he tried to turn the plot so that the dream became as realistic and understandable as possible. Despite their power, the brothers nevertheless obeyed Morpheus - he alone could control the dreams of not only human, but also the Olympian gods, immortal heroes, demons and other creatures inhabiting the earthly and heavenly worlds.

My light, mirror

The Greeks imagined the appearance of the lord of dreams in different ways. According to some legends, he was a tall and slender dark-haired young man, handsome in appearance, with small wings at the temples (according to some sources) or behind his back (according to others). He has a poppy wreath on his head, and a bed of poppies is prepared in the cave - Morpheus rests on it. By the way, the poppy is a sleepy flower; its seeds have long been used as a soothing drink. And one of the narcotic drugs - morphine - is named so for the same reason. According to other sources, Morpheus is a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man. He walks at night in a cloak with silver stars, and in his hands he holds a goblet withpoppy potion. The symbol of the deity is the mythical gate to the realm of sleep: one half of them (made of ivory) personifies empty dreams, meaningless fantasies, far from reality. The other (from the horn) - dreams are prophetic, truthful. The main thing is to learn to understand them or ask Morpheus to solve the riddles.