Like Virgil, Ovid associates Somnus with the underworld's river Lethe, which Ovid has flowing from the bottom of Somnus' cave, and "whose waves, gently murmuring over the gravelly bed, invite to slumber." Near the entrance bloom sleep-inducing poppies and other herbs, which Nox (Night) uses to spread sleep over "the darkened lands." Although Ovid connects Night with Sleep, he makes no mention of Night being Sleep's mother as she is in Hesiod. In keeping with this theme of "silence", Ovid says that Somnus' house has no doors, "lest some turning hinge should creak". There is no sound of wild beast or of cattle, of branches rustling in the breeze, no clamorous tongues of men. There no wakeful, crested cock with his loud crowing summons the dawn no watch-dog breaks the deep silence with his baying, or goose, more watchful than the dog. Clouds of vapour breathe forth from the earth, and dusky twilight shadows.
with his rising, noontide, or setting rays. Ovid has Somnus live in a cave, describing "the home and chamber of sluggish Sleep" as a place where: However, recalling the location of the 'land of dreams' in the Odyssey, Ovid also locates the dwelling of Somnus "near the land of the Cimmerians". Ovid, like Virgil before him, followed Hesiod in making Sleep a denizen of the underworld.
Somnus, and his sons the Somnia appear in Ovid's poem Metamorphoses. Palinurus then falls asleep, and Somnus pushes him overboard. But Palinurus refused the offer, so Somnus uses a branch, "imbued" with the power of underworld's river Styx, to sprinkle Palinurus with water from the river Lethe, the underworld's river of forgetfulness. Somnus, in the guise of Phorbas, a shipmate, appears to Palinurus and offers to take over, so that Palinurus might rest awhile. Virgil has Somnus cause Palinurus, the helmsman of Aeneas's ship, to fall asleep while steering the ship at night. Somnus makes a brief appearance in Virgil's Aeneid. In the first courts and entrances of Hell Sorrows and vengeful Cares on couches lie : There sad Old Age abides, Diseases pale, And Fear, and Hunger, temptress to all crime Want, base and vile, and, two dread shapes to see, Bondage and Death : then Sleep, Death's next of kin Virgil įollowing the Greek tradition, Virgil makes Sleep and Death brothers, and locates their dwellings next to each other, near the entrance of the underworld: According to Hesiod, Sleep, along with Death, live in the underworld, while in the Homeric tradition, although "the land of dreams" was located on the road to the underworld, near the great world-encircling river Oceanus, nearby the city of Cimmerians, Sleep himself lived on the island of Lemnos. In the Greek tradition, Hypnos (Sleep) was the brother of Thanatos (Death), and the son of Nyx (Night). Ovid named three of the sons of Somnus: Morpheus, who appears in human guise, Icelos / Phobetor, who appears as beasts, and Phantasos, who appears as inanimate objects. According to Virgil, Somnus was the brother of Death ( Mors), and according to Ovid, Somnus had a 'thousand' sons, the Somnia ('dream shapes'), who appear in dreams 'mimicking many forms'. In Roman mythology, Somnus ("sleep") is the personification of sleep. The Somnia, which included Morpheus, Icelos, and Phantasos
Somnus and Mors, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death by John William Waterhouse
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