(European mythology)
Literally ‘sleep’. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Hypnos dwelt in the underworld and never set his eyes on the sun, but during the hours of darkness came softly into the world, and brought sweet rest to men. In the Iliad he is at first a man, whom Homer says was only saved from Zeus' wrath by Night. Turning himself into a bird, Hypnos flew away from the daylight and sought refuge with awesome Night, on this rare occasion a cosmic force Zeus for some unknown reason chose to respect. The three sons of Hypnos, Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos, sent dreams to human beings, animals, and inanimate forms respectively.
The mythological figure of death, Thanatos, was also regarded by the Greeks as a bringer of comfort to those weary of life, rather like the ‘port of peace’ represented by the grave in the Middle Ages. Yet death was of course feared too. A legend recounts how Sisyphus once bound Thanatos, so no one died until the war god Ares rescued him and handed over his captor for punishment. Yet Sisyphus still succeeded in escaping from the underworld until Hades set him the eternal task of rolling a rock up a hill, from the top of which it always ran down again.
