Nyx

Nyx, whose name means “Night,” was one of the first beings to exist in Greek mythology. In Hesiod’s Theogony she is born from Chaos, before the Titans and the Olympians, and she becomes the mother of Sleep, Death, Strife and many other powers. Even Zeus, in Homer, hesitates to anger her.

Origins and Cosmic Role

Hesiod says that first of all Chaos came to be, and then broad-breasted Gaea (Earth) and Tartarus, and Eros. From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and black Nyx (Theogony 116–123). Nyx then bore Aether (the bright upper air) and Hemera (Day) after lying in love with her brother Erebus (Theogony 124–125). In this account night is therefore older than the sky and the sea, and day is her daughter.

Other writers gave her a different place. In the cosmogony that the chorus of birds recites in Aristophanes’ Birds (693–702), at the beginning there were only Chaos, Night, Erebus and Tartarus; black-winged Night laid a wind-egg in the bosom of Erebus, and from it, after long ages, golden-winged Eros was hatched. Hesiod’s version is the one this page follows.

Nyx’s Family

Hesiod gives Nyx a second, more troubling line of children, which she bore without a partner (Theogony 211–225). They are mostly the things that people dread or cannot escape:

• Moros (Doom), black Ker (Fate) and Thanatos (Death)
• Hypnos (Sleep) and the tribe of Oneiroi (Dreams)
• Momus (Blame) and Oizys (Pain)
• the Hesperides, who keep the golden apples beyond the western Ocean
• the Moirai (Fates) and the Keres, who punish men and gods who transgress
• Nemesis (Retribution)
• Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Affection), Geras (Old Age) and Eris (Strife)

Hesiod then adds that Eris, in her turn, bore Toil, Forgetfulness, Famine, tearful Sorrows and other troubles (Theogony 226–232). The old page also listed Charon among her children, but he does not appear in Hesiod’s list, and no early source names his parents. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides (lines 321–322 and 416) the Erinyes call on “mother Night” and call themselves “the eternal children of Night”, and Virgil likewise makes the Dirae twin daughters of Night, born at one birth with Megaera (Aeneid 12.845–848). Homer calls Hypnos “the brother of Death” (Iliad 14.231), in agreement with Hesiod.

The Dwelling of Nyx

Hesiod describes her home near the edge of Tartarus, where Atlas stands holding up the wide heaven. There, at a great bronze threshold, Nyx and Hemera pass each other and greet one another. One goes out as the other comes in, and the house never holds both at once: Hemera carries light for those on earth, while Nyx goes out to the world (Theogony 744–757). Hesiod adds that here too are the dwellings of her children, Hypnos and Thanatos (758–766). Pausanias saw the three together on the chest of Cypselus at Olympia: a woman carrying a white child asleep in one arm and a black child in the other, with the inscription naming her Night, nurse of Sleep and Death (5.18.1).

Nyx in Mythology and Literature

Nyx takes little direct part in myths, but one scene in Homer shows how much power she held. In the Iliad (book 14), Hera asks Hypnos to put Zeus to sleep so that she can help the Greeks. Hypnos refuses at first, and tells how he once helped her against Heracles. Zeus awoke in fury and hurled the gods about his palace, and sought Hypnos above all. Hypnos fled to Nyx, who saved him, and Zeus, though angry, held back, “for he had awe lest he do aught displeasing to swift Night” (Iliad 14.231–291). Homer there calls her “Night that bends to her sway both gods and men” (14.259).

She was also honoured in a few places. Pausanias (1.40.6) mentions on the acropolis of Megara an oracle of Night beside the temple of Dionysus Nyctelius, “the Nocturnal”. Nyx has no death or end in the myths: she remains one of the permanent powers of the world. The Roman name for her is Nox.

See Also: Chaos, Erebus, Gaea, Tartarus, Hemera, Hypnos, Thanatos, Nemesis