CLCV 2500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Telling Stories, Petasos, Omen
Document Summary
Hermes is the half-brother of apollo, with zeus as their father. His mother is maia: one of the pleiades, lived in a remote cave away from the gods. Zeus decided this gave him a good opportunity to sleep with her in secret: zeus impregnates maia in secret birth of hermes, who is the archetypal trickster. Hermes is born: he"s crawling around and sees a tortoise that he wants to keep. After playing the lyre and singing, hermes decides he wants beef (even though he is still only hours old: he decides to go cattle-wrestling, but knows not to do this during the day because. The nature of hermes: takes people to the river styx so that they can go to the underworld, attributes. Winged sandals also helps him fly. Caduceus snakes on it represent that he"s a fertility god, as well as the one who takes the dead to the river styx: archetypical trickster.