Somnus and Hypnos

Hi, I'm Hamidreza ahmadi with lingophoenix. If you haven't taken a look at the cover photo of this podcast please do. First of all, the people in the painting are both men, and no they're not homosexuals; they're brothers actually. The guy on the dark side of the painting is Mors, Roman God of Death, and on the bright side, there is Somnus, the Roman god of Sleep. Today i'm gonna talk about the Roman Sleep God and his counter part in Greek Mythology, Hypnos. I've always found similarities between the two and ancient societies seem to have thought the same. Well, Somnus lived in the underworld, the land of the dead. The cave he lived in was sheltered from the Sun and light, and it was with no doors, lest a creak would wake him up. from under his cave flowed river Styx whose gentle waves invited everyone to a long slumber. Near his cave grew poppies and herbs enticing passers-by to go to sleep. It's also interesting to know that his Brother Death lived nearby just a few steps away. Somnus is a mysterious being as is the world of sleep. Traces of Somnus can be found in some words in English. The word insomnia sounds familiar? It's a psychological condition that deprives an individual from sleep albeit feeling tired and sleepy. the word hypersomnia, irregular extended duration of sleep, also comes from this. In greek Myth, we can find the same god, with the same quailities. His name is Hypnos. his brother is thanatos, who is the god of death. Hypnos is son to Nyx, the goddes of night, and fathered by the god of Darkness. Hypnos is the god who put the god of all gods, Zeus, to sleep twice. Infuriated, zeus tried to catch him twice but Hypnos always managed to hide from him in night, in his mother's embrace. Zeus never went to sleep again. As you might have probably guessed by now, the word Hypnosis derives from this god's name. Hypnosis is when someone is put to sleep by the singularity of their focus on only one particular thing limiting peripheral attention to the outside world. we also have the word hypnotic which comes from the same root. In our next podcast on myth and english, I will talk about somnus's brother, Mors, and we will see as Morpheus in the movie matrix puts it how deep the rabbit whole goes. Morpheus by the way is somnus's son and is originally a roman god of sleep and dreams, I hope you enjoyed this podcast; stay tuned lingophoenixians.

You can listen to Somnus and Hypnos online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Somnus and Hypnos is an episode from Lingo Phoenix's Podcasts.

This episode is 00:02:47 long.

This episode was published on Apr 26, 2021.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Lingo Phoenix's Podcasts when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.