Hypnos and Thanatos

Prose and Poetry

• The Classical image of Death and Sleep—twin brothers of a fair and cupidic appearance, rather than some grisly effigy like the Grim Reaper—served as an enduring symbol in the artistic and poetic works of the ancient world. Rarely is one depicted without the other; so closely does Death resemble Sleep that even personified as divinities they are nearly as identical they are inseparable.
  
  
  Sleep and Death in the Epics
  
  "There stands the awful home of murky Night wrapped in dark clouds. In front of it the son of Iapetos stands immovably upholding the wide heaven upon his head and unwearying hands, where Night and Day draw near and greet one another as they pass the great threshold of bronze: and while the one is about to go down into the house, the other comes out at the door. And the house never holds them both within; but always one is without the house passing over the earth, while the other stays at home and waits until the time for her journeying come; and the one holds all-seeing light for them on earth, but the other holds in her arms Sleep the brother of Death, even malevolent Night, wrapped in a vaporous cloud.
  
  "And there the children of shadowy Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, terrifying divinities. The glowing sun Helios never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods."
  

  —Hesiod, Theogony

  
  
  "And then unto Apollon spake Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: "Up now, dear Phoibos, go cleanse from Sarpedon the dark blood, when thou hast taken him forth from out the range of darts, and thereafter bear thou him far away, and bathe him in the streams of the river, and anoint him with ambrosia, and clothe him about with immortal raiment, and give him to swift conveyors to bear with them, even to the twin brethren, Sleep and Death, who shall set him speedily in the rich land of wide Lykia. There shall his brethren and his kinsfolk give him burial with mound and pillar; for this is the due of the dead."
  
  "So spake he, nor was Apollon disobedient to his father's bidding, but went down from the hills of Ida into the dread din of battle. Forthwith then he lifted up goodly Sarpedon forth from out the range of darts, and when he had borne him far away, bathed him in the streams of the river, and anointed him with ambrosia, and clothed him about with immortal raiment, and gave him to swift conveyors to bear with them, even to the twin brethren, Sleep and Death, who set him speedily in the rich land of wide Lykia."
  

  —Homer, Iliad

  
  

  Hymns to Sleep and Death

  
  

  "Hypnos, king of gods, and men of mortal birth, sovereign of all, sustained by mother earth;
  for thy dominion is supreme alone, over all extended, and by all things known.
  ‘Tis thine all bodies with benignant mind in other bands than those of brass to bind.
  Tamer of cares, to weary toil repose, and from whom sacred solace in affliction flows.
  Thy pleasing gentle chains preserve the soul, and even the dreadful cares of death control;
  for Thanatos, and Lethe with oblivious stream, mankind thy genuine brothers justly deem.
  With favoring aspect to my prayer incline, and save thy mystics in their works divine."
  —Orphic Hymn to Hypnos

  
  
  

  “Hear me, O Thanatos, whose empire unconfined extends to mortal tribes of every kind.
  On thee the portion of our time depends, whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends.
  Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid bolds by which the soul attracting the body holds:
  common to all, of every sex and age, for naught escapes thine all-destructive rage.
  Not youth itself thy clemency can gain, vigorous and strong, by thee untimely slain.
  In thee the end of nature’s works is known, in thee all judgment is absolved alone.
  No suppliant arts thy dreadful rage control, no vows revoke the purpose of thy soul.
  O blessed power, regard my ardent prayer, and human life to age abundant spare."
  —Orphic Hymn to Thanatos

  
  
  

  Poems of Sleep and Death

  
  

  "Sleep is a death, O make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die: And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed." —Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici "There’s a mirror likeness between the two. Bright, youthfully-shaped figures, though One’s paler than the other and more austere, I might even say more perfect, more distinguished, Than the one who’d take me confidingly in his arms – How soft then, loving, his smile, how blessed his glance! Then it might well have been, that his wreath Of white poppies touched my forehead, at times, Drove the pain from my mind with its strange scent. But all that’s transient. I can only, now, be well, When the other one, so serious and pale, The older brother, lowers his dark torch. Sleep is good: and Death is better, yet Surely never to have been born is best." —Heinrich Heine, Morphine

  “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.” —William Shakespeare, Macbeth "To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life." —William Shakespeare, Hamlet