He depicts the clothes and the usual accents. No one else is as clever at expressing the movement, the features, and the sound of speech. “From a throng of a thousand sons, his father roused Morpheus, a master craftsman and simulator of human forms. In this translation of Metamorphoses, Morpheus is referenced as a god of Dreams. Pinpointing exactly who might have been the mother of the children of Sleep is difficult, but there’s some speculation she might have been Pasithea, one of the Greek Charities and the goddess of Relaxation. Metamorphoses is a long verse narrative poem published in 8 AD that recounts more than 250 Greek and Roman myths and historical legends chronologically. “The only text to name Morpheus is the Roman poet, Ovid, in Metamorphoses, where he is described as one of the 1,000 children of Hypnos, with no mother identified,” Scully says. With this lineage, one would think there would be quite a lengthy origin tale of Morpheus. Hypnos is typically considered to be Morpheus’s father. According to Brittanica, Hypnos is the son of the goddess of Night ( Nyx ) and the twin brother of Death ( Thanatos ). Scully says an early Greek author, Hesiod, mentions the god of Sleep, Hypnos, (also referred to as Hypnus /Somnus in Roman) and the tribe of dreams as children of night. The myth of Morpheus is as ethereal as a dream itself. “He only appears in one text in all of antiquity and is never rendered visually - that is, on vase paintings or in mosaics,” he says, adding that “but as best as I can tell, his profile has grown exponentially in modern times.” The Origin of Morpheus In English, it relates to morph, as in metamorphosis.Īccording to Scully, Morpheus has a surprisingly limited presence in ancient myth. He says Morpheus is a Roman spelling of a Greek word, morphe (μορφή), meaning shape or form. Stephen Scully is a professor of classical studies and the director of graduate studies at Boston University. However, unlike famous Greek gods such as Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, Morpheus’s story isn’t quite so well known or widely told.

His myth was the inspiration for the opium-derived drug morphine, and the phrase “in the arms of Morpheus” means to sleep soundly. From our language to aspects of democracy, influences from these ancient cultures are present in numerous aspects of our daily lives.Īs sleep aficionados, we can’t help but be fascinated by Morpheus, known as the Greek god of Dreams. The impact of Greek and Roman mythology is just as vibrant today as it was more than 2,000 years ago.

Hypnos god of sleep