User:Paul August/Oneiros

Oneiros

To Do

• Look at Griffin [in Morpheus folder] ["dreams" from p. 234 and following]
• Kessels, A. H. M., Studies on the dream in Greek lierature, 1978 (Utrecht)
• Lucian Verae Historiae 2.32-5
• Nicander (see Griffin, p. 228)
• Google books search

Sources

Teoi: http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Oneiroi.html

Ancient

Cicero

De Natura Deorum

3.17

And if so, the parents of Caelus, the Aether and the Day, must be held to be gods, and their brothers and sisters, whom the ancient genealogists name Love, Guile, Fear, Toil, Envy, Fate, Old Age, Death, Darkness, Misery, Lamentation, Favour, Fraud, Obstinacy, the Parcae, the Daughters of Hesperus, the Dreams: all of these are fabled to be the children of Erebus and Night.’

Euripides

Hecuba

70–72

O lady Earth, mother of black-winged dreams,

Homer

Iliad

2.4–22

And this plan seemed to his mind the best, [5] to send to Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a baneful dream [ὄνειρον]. So he spake, and addressed him with winged words: “Up, go, thou baneful Dream [ὄνειρε], unto the swift ships of the Achaeans, and when thou art come to the hut of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, [10] tell him all my word truly, even as I charge thee. Bid him arm the long-haired Achaeans with all speed, since now he may take the broad-wayed city of the Trojans. For the immortals, that have homes upon Olympus, are no longer divided in counsel, [15] since Hera hath Vent the minds of all by her supplication, and over the Trojans hang woes.” So spake he, and the Dream [ὄνειρος] went his way, when he had heard this saying. Forthwith he came to the swift ships of the Achaeans, and went his way to Agamemnon, son of Atreus, and found him sleeping in his hut, and over him was shed ambrosial slumber. [20] So he took his stand above his head, in the likeness of the son of Neleus, even Nestor, whom above all the elders Agamemnon held in honour; likening himself to him, the Dream from heaven [θεῖος ὄνειρος] spake,

Odyssey

19.559–567

Then wise Penelope answered him again: [560] “Stranger, dreams verily are baffling and unclear of meaning, and in no wise do they find fulfillment in all things for men. For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory [565] deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfillment.1 But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them.

24.11–14

Past the streams of Oceanus they went, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land [δῆμον: land or people] of dreams [ὀνείρων] and quickly came to the mead of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils.

Hesiod

Theogony

211–213

And Night bore hateful Doom and black Fate and Death, and she bore Sleep [Ὕπνον] and the tribe of Dreams [φῦλον Ὀνείρων].

Hyginus

Fabulae

Theogony 1

From Night and Darkness came Fate, Old Age, Death, Destruction, Strife, Sleep (Somnus) (i.e., the body relaxer), Dreams (Somnia) ...

Pausanias

2.10.2

From here is a way to a sanctuary of Asclepius. On passing into the enclosure you see on the left a building with two rooms. In the outer room lies a figure of Sleep [Ὕπνος], of which nothing remains now except the head. The inner room is given over to the Carnean Apollo; into it none may enter except the priests. In the portico lies a huge bone of a sea-monster, and after it an image of the Dream-god [Ὀνείρου] and Sleep [Ὕπνος], surnamed Epidotes （Bountiful）, lulling to sleep a lion. Within the sanctuary on either side of the entrance is an image, on the one hand Pan seated, on the other Artemis standing.

Virgil

Aeneid

5.844–845

6.278

Modern

Caldwell

p. 40

212-232 The remaining children of Night are personifications of Sleep [Hyphos], Dreams [Oneiroi], ...

Griffin

pp. 178–179 [comparison of Lucian's island of dreams with Ovid's dream land]

pp. 234–237 [Sleep's dwelling] p. 234

592-649 SLEEP'S DWELLING

Hypnos and Thanatos are personified as twin brothers in the Iliad (14.271; 16. 672). Hypnos lives on the island of Lemnos (Il. 14.230, 281). In the Odyssey the 'land of dreams' has its home on the road leading to Hades and near the stream of Ocean in the same region as the city of the Cimmerians was located (see Stanford 1958-61 on Od. 24. 12 and Od. 11.13-14). The Homeric tradition locates the dwellings of Hypnos and the Dream on earth and Ovid shows his indebtedness to this tradition when he places the cave of Somnus prope Cimmerios (592). There are further Odyssean echoes at 11.614 where Ovid's somnia vana is indebted to Homer's anevrivoi oveipoi (Od. 19.562) and at 11.633 where Ovid's description of the Somnia as populus recalls Homer's δῆμος ὀνειρων (Od. 24.12).

Hesiod also personifies Hypnos, Thanatos and the φῦλον Ὀνείρων. They are the children of the Night (Theog. 211-12; 756 66: see West on Theog. 212). Hesiod's Hypnos and Thanatos live in a part of the underworld described by West as 'those vague, inconceivable regions which may be evoked equally well by "under the earth" and by "beyond the streams of Ocean"' (West 1966 on Theog. 720-819, 358-9). Virgil follows Hesiod in locating the dwellings of Somnus and Somnia in the underworld, near its entrance (A. 6.278). Lethe, the underworld river of forgetfulness, was also associated with Somnus by Virgil (A. 5.854-5, (Somnus) ramum Lethaeo rore madentem . . . quassat). Ovid shows his indebtedness to Virgil's Somnus and to the tradition going back to Hesiod which represented Somnus and Somnia as denizens of the underworld when he refers to the river Lethe flowing from the bottom of Somnus' cave (602-3, saxo tamen exit ab imo / rivus aquae Lethes). Ovid also locates Night in Somnus' cave, though he does not define her relationship with Somnus and the Somnia (11.607): the reference to Nox recalls the Hesiodic genealogy (Theog. 211-12). The invocation of Sleep at 11.623-5 also owes something to Hesiod's description of Sleep as ἢσυχος . . . κKaiαἰ μείλος ἀνθρώποισι (Theog. 763); in both places Sleep benefits humankind and has himself the character of a sleeper. In the context of Somnus' cave Ovid's references to the Cimmerii (recalling Homer) and to the river Lethe (recalling Virgil

Grimal

s.v. Oneiros, p. 328

Oneiros (Ὄνειρος) A demon in the form of a dream sent by Zeus to deceive Agamemnon. Dreams are not generally personified. They can resemble a multitude of various specific demons, depending on the imagination of different poets (see also MORPHEUS).

LSJ

s.v. ὄνειρος

2. as pr. n. dream personified, Il.2.6 sqq. : also in pl., “δῆμος ὀνείρων” Od.24.12, cf. Hes.Th.212.

s.v. ὕπνος

II. Sleep, as a god, twinbrother of Death, Il.14.231, 16.672,682; acc. to Hes.Th.212, son of Night without father. [υ^ by nature, A. Th.3, Ag.14,912, etc.; υ_ by position in Ep., etc.] (Cf. Skt. svápati 'sleep', Subst. svápnas 'sleep, dream'; Lat. somnus, sopor, etc.)

Smith

s.v. Oneiros

Oneiros

• )/Oneiros), a personification of dream, and in the plural of dreams. According to Homer Dreams dwell on the dark shores of the western Oceanus (Od. 24.12 ), and the deceitful dreams come through an ivory gate, while the true these ones issue from a gate made of horn. (Od. 19.562, &c.) Hesiod (Theog. 212) calls dreams the children for the children of night, and Ovid (Ov. Met. 11.633), who calls them children of Sleep, mentions tree of them by name, viz. Morpheus, Icelus or Phobetor, and Phantasus. Euripides called them sons of Gaea, and conceived them as genii with black wings.