Hermes e il mondo dei sogni

Carlo Brillante

Abstract:

This essay examines some features of the dream which can be compared to the ways of intervention of Hermes in the human world. Of particular interest are the Homeric poems and Hesiod’s Theogony, but also the testimony of the Greek tragedy and of the ritual practice of incubation. In the Homeric poems the dream is not included in the human world, but it is placed at its margins, both in spatial and in temporal sense. This condition allows the communication of different messages, reliable or not, which can greatly affect human choices. This process is not governed by Oneiros, who is not the god of dreams, but only the occasional personification of the dream itself, as can be seen in the second book of the Iliad (Agamemnon’s dream), and it is not usually object of worship. The communication through dreams, requiring the passage between two different but contiguous worlds, is governed by Hermes, who can be considered the god of dreams.
In the final part of the essay I consider this special attitude of the god by examining the visit of Priam to the Achaean field for the request of Hector’s corpse (Iliad XXIV). In this episode it is possible to examine some elements of the peculiar way of intervention of Hermes which recall some features of Greek dreams.