Hermes
From Free net encyclopedia
- For other meanings see Hermes (disambiguation)
Image:Hermes by Praxiteles.jpg Hermes (Greek Template:Polytonic IPA Template:IPA), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of liars, and of the cunning of thieves. As a translator, he is the messenger from the gods to humans. A lucky find was a hermaion. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word "hermeneutics" for the art of interpreting hidden meaning.
In the Roman adaptation of the Greek religion (see interpretatio romana), Hermes was identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.
- Main article: Hermes Trismegistus.
In the Hellenistic and then Greco-Roman culture of Alexandria, syncretic conflation of Hermes who with the Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth produced the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom a body of arcane lore was attributed. The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were edited and published in the Italian Renaissance. This figure should not be confused with Greek Hermes.
Among the Hellenes, as the related word herma "a boundary stone, crossing point" would suggest, Hermes embodies the spirit of crossing-over: he was seen to be manifest in any kind of interchange, transfer, transgressions, transcendence, transition, transit or traversal, all of which activities involve some form of crossing in some sense. This explains his connection with transitions in one’s fortunes, with the interchanges of goods, words and information involved in trade, interpreting, oratory, writing, with the way in which the wind may transfer objects from one place to another, and with the transition to the afterlife, in which Hermes acted as psychopomp or conductor of the soul. Template:TOCleft In the fully-developed Olympian pantheon, Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia. The name Hermes has been thought to be derived from the Greek word herma (ἕρμα), which denotes a square or rectangular pillar with the head of Hermes (usually with a beard) adorning the top of the pillar, and male genitals below; however, due to the god's attestation in the Mycenaean pantheon, as Hermes Araoia ("Ram Hermes") in Linear B inscriptions at Pylos and Mycenaean Knossos (Ventris and Chadwick), the connection is more likely to have moved the opposite way, from deity to pillar representations. From the subsequent association of these cairns — which were used in Athens to ward off evil and also as road and boundary markers all over Greece — Hermes acquired patronage over land travel. He was also the god of shepherds, merchants, weights and measurements, oratory, literature, athletics, and thieves. His symbols were the cock and the tortoise, and he can be recognized by his purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and the herald's staff, the caduceus. Hermes was the god of thieves because he was very cunning and shrewd and was a thief himself from the night he was born, when he slipped away from his mother, the nymph Maia, and ran away to steal his elder brother Apollo's cattle. He drove the cattle back to Greece and hid them and covered their tracks. When Apollo accused Hermes, Maia said that it could not be him because he was with her the whole night, however Zeus entered into the argument and said that Hermes did steal the cattle and they should be returned. While arguing with Apollo, Hermes began to play his lyre. The instrument enchanted Apollo and he agreed to let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. Hermes was the herald to the gods (messenger of the gods) so he had to guide the souls of the dead to the underworld, the person who does this is called a psychopomp. Hermes was very loyal to his father Zeus, when Zeus fell in love with the nymph Io, Hermes saved her from the many-eyed Argus by lulling him to sleep with stories and songs, decapitating him with a crescent-shaped sword.
Contents |
Cult
| Greek deities series |
|---|
| Primordial deities |
| Titans |
| Aquatic deities |
| Chthonic deities |
| Personified concepts |
| Other deities |
| Olympians |
| Zeus and Hera, |
| Poseidon, Hades, |
| Hestia, Demeter, |
| Aphrodite, Athena, |
| Apollo, Artemis, |
| Ares, Hephaestus, |
| Hermes, Dionysus |
General article: Cult (religion).
Though temples to Hermes existed throughout Greece, a major center of his cult was at Pheneos in Arcadia, where festivals in his honor were called Hermoea. Image:Mercurybyhendrickgoltzius.jpeg
As a crosser of boundaries, Hermes Psychopompos' ("conductor of the soul") was a psychopomp, meaning he brought newly-dead souls to the underworld, Hades. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hermes conducts the Kore safely back to Demeter. He also brought dreams to living mortals.
Hermes as an inventor of fire is a parallel of the Titan, Prometheus. In addition to the syrinx and the lyre, Hermes invented many types of racing and the sport of boxing. In the 6th century the traditional bearded phallic Hermes was reimagined as an athletic youth (illustration, top right); statues of the new type of Hermes stood at stadiums and gymnasiums throughout Greece.
Hermai
In very ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name in the form herma was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones; each traveller added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century, Hipparchos, the son of Pisistratus replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of Hermes usually with a beard; an erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini"Cyllenian" herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a phallus. In Athens, they were placed outside houses for good luck. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked (Burkert 1985).
In 415 BCE, when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates' pupil Alcibiades was suspected to have been involved, and Socrates indirectly paid for the impiety with his life.
Hermes' iconography
Hermes was usually portrayed wearing a broad-brimmed traveller's hat or a winged cap (petasus), wearing winged sandals (talaria) and carrying his Near Eastern herald's staff, entwined by copulating serpents, called the kerykeion, more familiar in its Latinized form, the caduceus. He wore the garments of a traveler, worker or shepherd. He was represented by purses, roosters (illustration, left above) and tortoises.
Birth
Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia to Maia. As the story is told in the Homeric Hymn, the Hymn to Hermes, Maia was a nymph, but Greeks generally applied the name to a midwife or a wise and gentle old woman, so the nymph appears to have been an ancient one, one of the Pleiades taking refuge in a cave of Arcadia.
The god was precocious: on the day of his birth, by midday he had invented the lyre, using the shell of a tortoise, and by nightfall he had rustled the immortal cattle of Apollo. For the first Olympian sacrifice, the taboos surrounding the sacred kine of Apollo had to be transgressed, and the trickster god of boundaries was the one to do it.
His epithet Argeiphontes, or Argus-slayer, recalls his slaying of the many-eyed giant Argus who was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Lady Hera herself in Argos. Putting Argus to sleep, Hermes used a spell to permanently close all of Argus's eyes. Argus's eyes were then put on the peacock.
Epithets of Hermes
- Argeiphontes, Argus-slayer
- Psychopompos, conveyor of souls
- Enodios, on the road
- Eriounios, luck bringer
- Dolios, the schemer
- Diaktoros the messenger
- Epimelius, keeper of flocks
- Polygius
- Charidotes, giver of charm
- Criophorus, ram-bearer
- Enagonios, of the (Olympic) games
- Cyllenius, born on Mount Cyllene
- Acacesius, of Acacus
Hermes' offspring
Abderus
Abderus was a son of Hermes who was devoured by the Mares of Diomedes. He had gone to the Mares with his friend, Heracles.
Autolycus
Autolycus, the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and grandfather of Odysseus.
Hermaphroditus
Hermaphroditus was the third son of Hermes, with Aphrodite. He was changed into a hermaphrodite when the gods literally granted Salmacis's wish that they'd never separate.
Priapus
In Priapus, Hermes' phallic origins survived.
Other stories
Herse/Aglaulus/Pandrosus
When Hermes loved Herse, a jealous Aglaulus stood between them and refused to move. Hermes changed her to stone. Cephalus was the son of Hermes and Herse. Hermes also had a son, Ceryx, with Herse's other sister, Pandrosus. With Aglaulus, Hermes was the father of Eumolpus.
Argus/Io
Zeus loved the Argive princess Io and changed her into a cow to protect her from Hera. Hera suspected his deception and asked for the cow as a present. Zeus was unable to refuse and she placed the watchman Argus to guard the cow. Hermes, at the request of Zeus, lulled Argus to sleep and rescued Io but Hera sent a gadfly to sting her as she wandered the earth in cow form. Zeus eventually changed her back to human form, and she became—through Epaphus, her son with Zeus—the ancestress of Heracles.
Other roles
Hermes saved Odysseus from both Calypso and Circe, by convincing the first to let Odysseus go and then protecting him from the latter by bestowing upon him an herb that would protect him from Circe's spell. In addition, Hermes brought Eurydice back to Hades after Orpheus looked back towards his wife for a second time. He also changed the Minyades into bats. He taught the Thriae the arts of fortune-telling and divination.
Hermes aided Perseus in killing the gorgon Medusa by giving him Zeus' sickle and winged boots. He gave him Hades' helmet of invisibility that he borrowed, and told him to use it so that her immortal sisters cannot see him when he gets away. Athena helped him as well by lending him her polished shield.
King Atreus of Mycenae retook the throne from his brother, Thyestes using advice he received from the wise trickster Hermes. Thyestes agreed to give the kingdom back when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that Zeus accomplished. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes.
Consorts/Children
"Hermes" in Islamic tradition
Antoine Faivre, in The Eternal Hermes has pointed out that Hermes has a place in the Islamic tradition, though his name does not appear in the Qur'an. Hagiographers and chroniclers of the first centuries of the Islamic Hegira quickly identified Hermes with Idris, the nabi of surahs 19.57; 21.85, whom the Arabs also identify with Enoch (cf. Genesis 5.18-24). Indris/Hermes is called "Thrice Wise,"( Hermes Trismegistus) because he was threefold: the first of the name, comparable to Thoth, was a "civilizing hero," an initiator into the mysteries of the divine science and wisdom that animate the world; he carved the principles of this sacred science in hieroglyphs. The second Hermes, in Babylon, was the initiator of Pythagoras. The third Hermes was the first teacher of Alchemy. "A faceless prophet," writes the Islamicist Pierre Lory "Hermes possesses no concrete or salient characteristics, differing in this regard from most of the major figures of the Bible and the Quran." (Faivre 1995 pp.19-20)
External links
- Cult of Hermes
- Ventris and Chadwick: Gods found in Mycenaean Greece: a table drawn up from Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek second edition (Cambridge 1973)
References
- Walter Burkert, 1985. Greek Religion,
- Antoine Faivre, 1995.The Eternal Hermes : From Greek God to Alchemical Magus translated by Josceleyn Godwin (Phanes) ISBN 0-933999-52-6.
- Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998)
Template:Commonsbg:Хермес ca:Hermes da:Hermes de:Hermes (Mythologie) et:Hermes el:Ερμής (μυθολογία) es:Hermes eo:Hermeso fr:Hermès ko:헤르메스 hi:हरमीस hr:Hermes (mitologija) it:Ermes he:הרמס lt:Hermis hu:Hermész mk:Хермес nl:Hermes (mythologie) ja:ヘルメス no:Hermes pl:Hermes pt:Hermes ro:Hermes ru:Гермес sr:Хермес fi:Hermes sv:Hermes tr:Hermes uk:Гермес zh:赫尔墨斯