Notte o Nyx (in greco antico: Nύξ, Nýx, "notte") è una delle divinità primordiali della mitologia greca.
Secondo la Teogonia di Esiodo, Notte era figlia di Caos, mentre nella cosmogonia orfica era figlia di Phanes; nelle Fabulae, Igino la dice figlia di Caos e di Caligine. Sempre secondo Esiodo, Notte era la personificazione della notte terrestre, in contrapposizione al fratello Erebo, che rappresentava la notte del mondo infernale. Era inoltre contrapposta ai suoi figli Etere (la luce) ed Emera (il giorno).
Notte era una delle divinità più antiche, e dimorava nel cielo; secondo Omero, anche Zeus ne aveva paura.
Questa divinità fu ripresa nella mitologia romana con il nome di Nox.
Figli di Notte
Notte fu madre di alcune delle altre divinità primordiali: secondo Esiodo (Teogonia) e Cicerone (De natura deorum), da suo fratello Erebo Notte ebbe Etere ed Emera; secondo Cicerone e Igino fu madre anche di Eros, sempre da Erebo; Bacchilide afferma invece che Emera la concepì con Crono.Oltre a questi figli, le è attribuita la maternità anche di numerose altre figure della mitologia greca, perlopiù daimones (a volte detti "personificazioni"). Nella Teogonia, Esiodo dice che, senza controparte maschile, Notte da sola generò:
- Apate
- Arai
- Eris
- Le esperidi
- Geras
- Ipno
- Ker e le keres
- Le moire
- Momo
- Moros
- Nemesi
- Acli
- Gli oneiroi
- Philotes
- Tanato
Anche Igino le attribuisce più o meno gli stessi figli, ma stavolta generati con Erebo:
- Amicitia (Philotes)
- Amor (Eros)
- Continentia (Sofrosine)
- Discordia (Eris)
- Epafo
- Epifrone
- Le esperidi
- Eufrosine
- Fatum (Moros)
- Letum (Ker)
- Miseria (Oizys)
- Misericoria (Eleos)
- Mors (Tanato)
- Nemesi
- Le parche (moire)
- Petulantia (Hybris)
- Porfirione
- Senectus (Geras)
- Somnia (gli oneiroi)
- Somnus (Ipno)
- Styx
- Amor (Eros)
- Dolus (Dolos)
- Le esperidi
- Fatum (Moros)
- Fraus (Apate)
- Gratia (Philotes)
- Invidentia (Nemesi)
- Labor (Ponos)
- Metus (Fobos)
- Miseria (Oizys)
- Morbus (Nosos)
- Mors (Tanato)
- Le parche (Moire)
- Querella (Momos)
- Senectus (Geras)
- Somnia (gli oneiroi)
- Tenebrae (Keres)
Dai romani era considerata anche madre di Erumna (Aerumna in latino), la dea dell'incertezza e dell'inquietudine, in costante compagnia del Dolore e del Timore.
Influenza culturale
A Notte è intitolato il Nyx Mons su Venere.Nel videogioco MOBA Smite, Notte è giocabile nella sua controparte romana, Nox, come dea del Pantheon romano.
Viene citata nel libro Eroi dell'Olimpo: la casa di Ade, dove cerca di uccidere Percy Jackson e Annabeth Chase mentre si trovano nel Tartaro.
Nel videogioco Warframe Nyx è uno dei warframe giocabili.
Nel film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV il nome del protagonista è Nyx Ulric.
Nel videogioco Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Nyx è il nome del boss finale
Nel videogioco Fire Emblem: Fates una dei personaggi giocabili nel percorso del Nohr è una incantatrice che si chiama Nyx.
La Notte, di William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1883)
Nyx (/nɪks/; Greek: Νύξ, Nyks, "Night"; Latin: Nox) is the Greek goddess (or personification) of the night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation and mothered other personified deities such as Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death), with Erebus (Darkness). Her appearances are sparse in surviving mythology, but reveal her as a figure of such exceptional power and beauty that she is feared by Zeus himself.
Mythology and literature
Hesiod
In Hesiod's Theogony, Nyx is born of Chaos. With Erebus (Darkness), Nyx gives birth to Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). Later, on her own, Nyx gives birth to Moros (Doom, Destiny), the Keres (Destruction, Death), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), the Oneiroi (Dreams), Momus (Blame), Oizys (Pain, Distress), the Hesperides, the Moirai (Fates), Nemesis (Indignation, Retribution), Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Friendship), Geras (Old Age), and Eris (Strife).In his description of Tartarus, Hesiod locates there the home of Nyx, and the homes of her children Hypnos and Thanatos. Hesiod says further that Nyx's daughter Hemera (Day) left Tartarus just as Nyx (Night) entered it; continuing cyclicly, when Hemera returned, Nyx left. This mirrors the portrayal of Ratri (night) in the Rigveda, where she works in close cooperation but also tension with her sister Ushas (dawn).
Homer
At Iliad 14.249–61, Hypnos, the minor deity of sleep, reminds Hera of an old favor after she asks him to put Zeus to sleep. He had once before put Zeus to sleep at the bidding of Hera, allowing her to cause Heracles (who was returning by sea from Laomedon's Troy) great misfortune. Zeus was furious and would have smitten Hypnos into the sea if he had not fled to Nyx, his mother, in fear. Homer goes on to say that Zeus, fearing to anger Nyx, held his fury at bay and in this way Hypnos escaped the wrath of Zeus by appealing to his powerful mother. He disturbed Zeus only a few times after that always fearing Zeus and running back to his mother, Nyx, who would have confronted Zeus with a maternal fury.Others
Nyx took on an even more important role in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.[citation needed] In them, Nyx, rather than Chaos, is the first principle from which all creation emerges.[citation needed] Nyx occupies a cave or adyton, in which she gives oracles. Cronus – who is chained within, asleep and drunk on honey – dreams and prophesies. Outside the cave, Adrasteia clashes cymbals and beats upon her tympanon, moving the entire universe in an ecstatic dance to the rhythm of Nyx's chanting. Phanes – the strange, monstrous, hermaphrodite Orphic demiurge – was the child[citation needed] or father of Nyx. Nyx is also the first principle in the opening chorus of Aristophanes' The Birds, which may be Orphic in inspiration. Here she is also the mother of Eros.The theme of Nyx's cave or mansion, beyond the ocean (as in Hesiod) or somewhere at the edge of the cosmos (as in later Orphism) may be echoed in the philosophical poem of Parmenides. The classical scholar Walter Burkert has speculated that the house of the goddess to which the philosopher is transported is the palace of Nyx; this hypothesis, however, must remain tentative.
Cult
There was no known temples dedicated to Nyx, but statues are known to have been made of her and a few cult practices of her is mentioned. According to Pausanias, she had an oracle on the acropolis at Megara. Pausanias wrote :When you have ascended the citadel [of Megara], which even at the present day is called Karia (Caria) from Kar (Car), son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysos Nyktelios (Nyctelius, Nocturnal), a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia (She who turns men to love), an oracle called that of Nyx (Night) and a temple of Zeus Konios (Cronius, Dusty) without a roof.More often, Nyx was worshipped in the background of other cults. Thus there was a statue called "Night" in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Spartans had a cult of Sleep and Death, conceived of as twins. Cult titles composed of compounds of nyx- are attested for several deities, most notably Dionysus Nyktelios "nocturnal" and Aphrodite Philopannyx "who loves the whole night".
Roman authors mentioned cult practices and wrote hymns in her honor. Ovid wrote: "May 9 Lemuria Nefastus. You ancient rite will be performed, Nox Lemuria; here will be offerings to the mute dead", and she is also mentioned by Statius:
O Nox . . . Ever shall this house throughout the circling periods of the year hold thee high in honour and in worship; black bulls of chosen beauty shall pay thee sacrifice [black animals were sacrificed to the chthonic gods], O goddess! And Vulcanus' [Hephaistos'] fire shall eat the lustral entrails, where-o'er the new milk streams.
Astronomy
In 1997, the International Astronomical Union approved the name Nyx for a mons (mountain/peak) feature on the planet Venus. Nyx Mons is located at latitude 30° North and longitude 48.5° East on the Venusian surface. Its diameter is 875 km.On June 21, 2006, the International Astronomical Union renamed one of Pluto's recently discovered moons (S/2005 P 2) Nix, in honor of Nyx. The name was spelled with an "i" instead of a "y", to avoid conflict with the asteroid 3908 Nyx.
Roman-era bronze statuette of Nyx velificans or Selene (Getty Villa)
Arte romana, statuetta di nyx o selene, I secolo ac
Nyx goddess of night, Athenian black-figure lekythos C5th B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nyx, as represented in the 10th-century Paris Psalter at the side of the Prophet Isaiah
Nyx (Night) and Eos (Dawn), Apulian red-figure krater C4th B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nyx (Night) and Eos (Dawn), Apulian red-figure krater C4th B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Kupferstich (1795) von Tommaso Piroli (1752 – 1824) nach einer Zeichnung (1793) von John Flaxman (1755 – 1826).
Alexandre-Auguste Hirsch - Night, 1875
Nyx, Hemera-Heos and Helius, Athenian black-figure lekythos C5th B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
La nit,
pintura del sostre del dormitori del marqués, palau de Dosaigües,
València. La pintura, llenç aplicat al sostre segons la tècnica del marouflage, representa la Nit
i fou executada per Plàcid Francés el 1862. Juntament amb Nix apareixen
els seus fills Hipno i les Hespèrides. A la cornisa, nereides amb
estreles i ornaments de plantes de cascall, junt a la sanefa que
representa El riu de l'oblit.
Luca Giordano
Night and Her Children Aither and Hemera (Hesiod, Theogony)
circa 1810
Night by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1850-1855)
circa 1810
Night - Edward Burne-Jones (1870)
Night by Edward Burne-Jones (1870)
Night
Alexandre-Auguste Hirsch, French, 1875
Night by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1878)
Alexandre-Auguste Hirsch, French, 1875
Night & Sleep 1878
Edward Okuń, Polish, 1903
From the Polish publication, Chimera.
"Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep." -- The Gardener's Daughter, Tennyson
Illustration from "Tennyson's Dream Of Fair Women and Other Poems"
illustrated by Florence Harrison (1923).
Nyx,
Greek goddess of the night. Statue mounted by Ludwig Schwanthaler from
pieces of an antique statue and his additions. The statue stands in the
hall of Prinz-Carl-Palais, Munich, Germany
Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour, French, date unknown
Helen Stratton, British Illustrator, (1867–1961)
"...sing me all the songs you used to sing your child.
I am fond of those songs. I have heard them before.
I am Night; and I saw your tears flowing while you sang them."
From The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
Nyx goddess of night by
amirul hhf
Nyx Goddess Of Night
Nyx-Goddess of the Night - 8x10 Metallic Print
freelance Illustrator
Nyx Goddess Of Night
NYX dea greca di notte
The Night with the Genii of Study and Love - Pedro Américo de Figueiredo e Melo (1843–1905)
Nyx-Goddess of the Night - 8x10 Metallic Print
"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep."
-Rumi
Soul Portraiture, Soul Mandalas, Artwork and Ephemera by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep."
-Rumi
Soul Portraiture, Soul Mandalas, Artwork and Ephemera by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman
| “ | Oh! thou divine Nyx! how slowly thy chariot threads its way through the starry vault, across the sacred realms of the Aither and mighty Olympos. | „ |
| ~ Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae |
Deliisium
>
Nyx, Greek goddess of the night
Nyx, Goddess of the Night
Nyx, Goddess of Night by Tiffycat13
Nyx. C. Parada (1982).
Nyx, giver of sleep. 4920: Stephan Sinding 1846-1922: Night, 1914. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
NYX, Νύξ, Nox Household Shrine Bronze Figure.
"Silent Nyx shrouded the west in her own colour, and scored the sky across with her own starry cloak." -- Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18. 160 ff
Allegiria de la Nit, Palau de Cervelló
"O Nox. . . Ever shall this house throughout the circling periods of the year hold thee high in honour and in worship..." -- Statius, Thebaid 1. 497 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.)
A Noite
Oscar Pereira da Silva, Brazilian, 1927
Museum Mariano Procopio, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
Oscar Pereira da Silva, Brazilian, 1927
Museum Mariano Procopio, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
To Nyx (Night), Fumigation with Torches. Nyx, parent goddess, source of sweet repose from whom at first both Gods and men arose. Hear, blessed Kypris, decked with starry light, in sleep’s deep silence dwelling ebon night! Dreams (Oneiroi) and soft ease attend thy dusky train, pleased with the lengthened gloom and feastful strain, dissolving anxious care, the friend of mirth, with darkling coursers riding round the earth. Goddess of phantoms and of shadowy play, whose drowsy power divides the natural day; by fate’s decree you constant send the light to deepest hell, remote from mortal sight; for dire necessity, which nought withstands, invests the world with adamantine bands. Be present, Goddess, to thy suppliant’s prayer, desired by all, whom all alike revere, blessed, benevolent, with friendly aid dispel the fears of twilight’s dreadful shade.
-- Orphic Hymn 3 to Nyx (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.)
Nyx
By Jeff Wack.
New Media: digital and acyrlic on Canvas.
By Jeff Wack.
New Media: digital and acyrlic on Canvas.
I shall sing of Night, Mother of gods and men.
Night- and let us call her Kypris- gave birth to all.
Hearken, O blessed goddess, jet-black and star-lit,
Whose delight is in quiet and slumber-filled serenity.
Cheerful and delightsome, O mother of dreams, you love the nightlong revel,
And your gentleness rids of cares, and offers respite from toil.
Giver of sleep, beloved of all you are, as you drive your steeds and gleam in darkness.
Ever incomplete, now terrestrial and now again celestial,
You circle around in pursuit of sprightly phantoms,
You force light into the nether world, and again you flee into Hades.
Dreadful Necessity governs all things.
But now, O blessed one, yea beatific and desired by all,
I call on you to grant a kind ear to my voice of supplication,
And benevolent, come to disperse fears that glisten in the dark.
-- Orphic Hymn #3 To Nyx, Translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis, 1977
Nyx, Goddess of Night, Birth and Femininity by JohnDrawer
Nyx - Goddess of night (original)by TsukiCosplay
nyx_by_crimsonvermillion
nyx__greek_goddess_of_night_by_alayna
hellenic_mythology__nyx__awakening_by_emanuellakozas
nyx_goddes_of_the_night_by_omega_chaos
nyx__the_night_by_blazingelysium
nyx_by_helenkei
nyx_selene
NYX
Nyx with Veil of Night
By Cyndy Salisbury
The goddess Nyx
By Cyndy Salisbury
Nyx Mask
By Cyndy Salisbury
Nyx, Goddess of Night
Yoann Lossel, France.
By Cyndy Salisbury
By Cyndy Salisbury
By Cyndy Salisbury
Yoann Lossel, France.
Natalia Drepina, Russia.
Walter Crane, British, 1878
"Earthenware tile with a female figure of 'night' with a mask, reclining on a classical-style bed decorated with an owl and sphinxes. A vase of poppies is on the left and 'NOX' is inscribed at the top right, with swags, scrolls and suns forming the border." -- British Museum
The British Museum, UK.
Attic period (circa 430-410 BC) pottery pyxis.
The British Museum, UK.
Carstens, Asmus Jakob, Danish-German, 1794
Kunstsammlungen, Weimar
Johannes Schilling, German sculptor, 1828-1910
Brühl's Terrace, Dresden. Image courtesy WikiCommons.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento