Hypnos

Hera comes to Lemnos

Hypnos is the god of sleep. He can close the eyes of any god or mortal. His best-known story comes from the Iliad, Homer’s epic poem about the war at Troy.

During the war, Hera wants to help the Greeks. Poseidon, the god of the sea, is ready to aid them, but Zeus is watching the battle. Hera needs Zeus asleep. She goes to the island of Lemnos, finds Hypnos there and takes him by the hand.

Hypnos says no. He remembers the last time Hera asked him for this favour, and he tells her what happened.

Why Sleep is afraid of Zeus

The hero Heracles was sailing home from Troy. At Hera’s request, Sleep closed Zeus’s eyes. That gave Hera time to drive Heracles across the sea towards the island of Cos.

Zeus woke in a rage. He threw gods about his house and searched for Sleep above all. Hypnos escaped to the goddess Night before Zeus could catch him. Zeus held back, because he would not offend the older goddess.

So the power of Hypnos has a limit. He can overcome the senses of Zeus, but he cannot survive Zeus’s anger without another god to protect him. He refuses Hera on Lemnos because he remembers what happened when Zeus opened his eyes.

What Hera promises

Hera first promises him a golden throne. It does not persuade him. Hypnos asks instead for Pasithea, one of the younger Graces, a group of goddesses. He has long wanted her as his wife.

Hera swears an oath by the river Styx. She calls on Earth and on the Titans below Tartarus, the lowest place beneath the earth, to witness that the marriage will happen.

Only then does Hypnos agree. The favour has become a binding deal between gods. Hypnos will risk Zeus’s anger once more, and Hera now owes him a debt that even she, one of the Olympian gods, cannot set aside.

Sleep on Mount Ida

The two leave Lemnos and the nearby island of Imbros behind. They travel to Mount Ida, where Zeus sits watching. Before Zeus can see him, Hypnos climbs the tallest fir tree and hides among its branches in the shape of a mountain bird. Hera goes on alone to distract her husband.

Once Zeus sleeps, Hypnos does not stay beside him. He runs to the Greek ships and tells Poseidon that the moment has come to step in openly. The sea god rallies the Greeks. Hector, the Trojan leader, falls wounded, and the Trojans are driven back.

Hypnos has not fought, and he has given no order to either army. He controls the pause in which everyone else can act. Sleep becomes a force in the war, but its god never becomes a warrior. Zeus only closes his eyes, and that pause gives Poseidon a freedom that Zeus’s watch had denied him.

The trick ends when Zeus wakes and sees Hector on the ground. Hera denies responsibility, but the damage is plain to see. Hypnos is not there when Zeus confronts her. He has learned to leave before the god he overcame can look for him again.

Sleep and his brother Death

Later in the Iliad, Zeus watches his mortal son Sarpedon die under the spear of the Greek warrior Patroclus. The god Apollo cleans the body, anoints it with ambrosia and wraps it in clothing fit for the gods. He then gives it to two swift carriers, the twin brothers Sleep and Death.

Together they carry Sarpedon from Troy to his homeland of Lycia, where his family can raise a burial mound and a pillar. Death has ended the warrior’s life. Sleep gives the body the stillness of someone who might still wake. Homer keeps the brothers separate, yet what they do to a body looks almost the same.

This last service is different from Hera’s plot. Nobody bargains, and no god is tricked. Hypnos has no reason to run. Sleep carries a dead man home so that he can be buried, working beside Death instead of briefly imitating him.