Sleep personified, a kindly fatherless son of Nyx who dwells beside his iron-hearted brother Thanatos.1
Nyx bore Hypnos without a father, and he dwells beside Thanatos in the deep places where the Sun never looks. Unlike Death, whose heart is iron, Sleep is described by Hesiod as quiet and kindly to mortals.2
Hera found Hypnos on Lemnos and asked him to close the eyes of Zeus. He feared the king's anger, remembering how Zeus had once hunted him through heaven, but Night sheltered him and Zeus held back out of awe for her. Won over by Hera's promise of Pasithea as his wife, Hypnos hid in a fir tree and poured sleep over Zeus.3
Hyginus makes Somnus a child of Night and Erebus together, replacing Hesiod's fatherless birth with a union of the two darknesses.4⚖
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
