Download Mercury(Hermes)

Mercury(Hermes)
by Lasley Zheng
26/1/2015
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introduction
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names
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epithets
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symbol
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mythology
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history
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Homer’s— the Iliad and the Odyssey
Mercury is a major Roman god,
being one of the Dii Consentes (a list
of twelve major deities, six gods and six
goddesses, in the pantheon of Ancient
Rome) within the ancient Roman
pantheon.
His Greek name is Hermes. is an
Olympian god in Greek religion and
mythology, son of Zeus and the Pleiad
Maia. He is second youngest of the
Olympian gods.
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Hermes is a god of transitions and boundaries. He is quick and cunning, and moves
freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of
the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into
the afterlife. He is protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen, thieves, orators
and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade. In some
myths he is a trickster, and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake
of humankind.
Hermes always wearing winged shoes
(talaria) and a winged hat (petasos), his
main symbol is the herald's stuff, the
Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus
which consisted of two snakes wrapped
around a winged stuff. It is Apollo's gift
to Hermes. Now it is a symbol of
commerce
Names—Herms
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In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a
phallic god of boundaries. His name, in
the form herma, was applied to a wayside
marker pile of stones; each traveller
added a stone to the pile. In the 6th
century BCE, Hipparchos, the son of
Pisistratus, replaced the cairns that
marked the midway point between each
village deme at the central agora of
Athens with a square or rectangular
pillar of stone or bronze topped by a
bust of Hermes with a beard. In Athens,
herms were placed outside houses for
good luck.
Names
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The reason Hermes is the god of
Mercury possibly because of this
planet the smallest and the fastest
planet in the solar system. He is also
the guide of souls to the underworld.
Mercury is also known to the
Romans as Mercurius.
mythology
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Homer portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts, and also as a
benefactor of mortals. In the Iliad he was called "the bringer of good luck”. He was
a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans. However, he did protect Priam
when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son Hector, and he
accompanies them back to Troy.
mythology
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In the Odyssey Hermes helped the protagonist, Odysseus, informing him about
the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of Circe, and
instructed him to protect himself by chewing a magic herb; he also told Calypso that
Zeus order for her to free the same hero from her island to continue his journey
back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to
Hades. In The Works and Days, when Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create
Pandora to disgrace humanity by punishing the act of Prometheus giving fire to man,
every god gave her a gift, and Hermes's gift was lies and seductive words, and a
dubious character. Then he was instructed to take her as wife to Epimetheus.
mythology
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The Homeric hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one "of many shifts, blandly
cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at
the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless
gods." Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the Titan Prometheus(a Greek
mythology about fire). In addition to the lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented
many types of racing and the sports of wrestling and boxing, and therefore was a
patron of athletes.
Hermes with his mother, Maia
Hermes with lamb
History
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In early Roman religion, he subsumed the earlier Dei Lucrii as Roman religion was
syncretized with Greek religion during the time of the Roman Republic, starting
around the 4th century BC. From the beginning, Mercury had essentially the
same aspects as Hermes, he was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the
new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, and a tortoise, referring to Mercury's
legendary invention of the lyre from a tortoise shell.
Archeological evidence suggests that Mercury was among the most popular of
Roman gods. The god of commerce was depicted on two early bronze coins of the
Roman Republic, the Sextans and the Semuncia.
Home
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The gods and goddesses were also
referenced in Homer’s famous books,
the Iliad and the Odyssey, such as
Hermes, the god of Mercury. Homer is
best known as the author of the Iliad and
the Odyssey. He was believed by the
ancient Greeks to have been the first and
greatest of the epic poets. Author of the
first known literature of Europe, he had a
lasting effect on the Western canon.
the Iliad
The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year
siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and
events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior
Achilles.
Hermes is a neutral deity in the Iliad.
the Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. In
part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is
fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second oldest extant work of
Western literature, the Iliad being the oldest. The poem mainly centers on the Greek
hero Odysseus and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten
years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he
has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly
suitors. Finally, Odysseus went back home.
video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnbIwNM1Pac