Hera Bribes Hypnos to Lull Zeus (*Iliad* 14)

Hera Bribes Hypnos to Lull Zeus (Iliad 14)

Catalogue ID: 04-trojan-cycle/245-hera-bribes-hypnos-iliad-14

Cycle: Trojan — Homeric *Iliad* / Dios apate prelude

Version line: Homeric — Sleep’s fear of Zeus; promise of Pasithea; lull on Ida

Sources: Homer, *Iliad* 14.231–291, 14.352–362

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/04-trojan-cycle/245-hera-bribes-hypnos-iliad-14.md

Characters

Ajax — victim of the earlier Cos storm (Sleep’s cautionary memory)
Hypnos — fears Zeus; accepts Pasithea; lulls Zeus on Ida
Lyssa — bribes Sleep with Pasithea; plans Zeus’s slumber
Nyx — once saved Sleep from Zeus’s wrath
Pasithea — Grace promised as Sleep’s wife
Philotes — put to sleep after lovemaking

Places

Cos — remembered scene of Heracles’ storm
Lycia — where Hera finds Sleep
The deep — Sleep nearly cast down in the old tale
Troy — pine hide; Zeus’s slumber

Themes

Marriage

Narrative

Before seducing Zeus on Ida, Hera visits Hypnos on Lemnos. She asks him to lull Zeus after she lies with him. Sleep refuses at first: once before, at Hera’s bidding, he had put Zeus to sleep so she could drive Heracles to Cos in a storm; Zeus woke in rage and would have hurled Sleep from heaven into the sea but Night saved her son. Hera swears by the Styx to give him Pasithea, one of the Graces he has always desired, as wife. Sleep agrees, goes with her to Ida, hides in a pine, and after the lovemaking pours slumber over Zeus while Hera signals Poseidon to help the Greeks. Catalogue this as the Hypnos-bribe atom, distinct from the seduction scene proper and from Sleep’s genealogical place among Nyx’s children.