Editing Hermes (section)

===Early Greek sources===

====Homer and Hesiod====
[[Image:Byzantine - Circular Pyxis - Walters 7164 - View C.jpg|left|thumb|300px|This circular Pyxis or box depicts two scenes. The one shown presents Hermes awarding the golden apple of the Hesperides to Aphrodite, whom Paris has selected as the most beautiful of the goddesses.<ref>{{cite web |publisher= [[The Walters Art Museum]]
 |url= http://art.thewalters.org/detail/28991
 |title= Circular Pyxis}}</ref> The Walters Art Museum.]]
According to the [[Homeric hymn|''Homeric Hymn to Hermes'']], [[Zeus]], in the dead of night, secretly made love to [[Maia]],<ref>Gantz, pp. 105–6; ''[[Homeric Hymns]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D4 4.5]</ref> who avoided the company of the gods, in a cave of Cyllene. She became pregnant with Hermes. After giving birth to the baby, Maia wrapped him in blankets and went to sleep.  The rapidly maturing infant Hermes crawled away to [[Thessaly]], where, by nightfall of his first day, he stole some of his half-brother [[Apollo (god)|Apollo]]'s cattle and invented the [[lyre]] from a tortoise shell. Maia refused to believe Apollo when he claimed that Hermes was the thief, and Zeus then sided with Apollo. Finally, Apollo exchanged the cattle for the lyre, which became one of his identifying attributes.<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.10.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022:book=:chapter=&highlight=Maia 3.10.2]</ref> 

The ''Homeric Hymn to Hermes'' invokes the god invokes him as the one "of many shifts (''polytropos''), 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."<ref name="Hymn to Hermes 13" /> The word ''polutropos'' ("of many shifts, turning many ways, of many devices, ingenious, or much wandering") is also used to describe his mortal descendant [[Odysseus]] in the first line of the ''[[Odyssey]]''. In addition to the chelys [[lyre]],<ref name="Homeric hymn to Hermes" /> Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of [[wrestling]], and therefore was a patron of athletes.<ref name="ReferenceD" />

[[Homer]] and [[Hesiod]] portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts and also as a benefactor of gods and mortals alike. In ''[[Works and Days]]'', when Zeus ordered [[Hephaestus]] to create [[Pandora]] to disgrace humanity by punishing Prometheus's act of giving fire to man, every god gave her a gift, and Hermes's gifts were crafty words and a dubious character. Hermes was then instructed to take her as wife to the [[Titans|Titan]] [[Epimetheus (mythology)|Epimetheus]].<ref name="Works And Days" /> With the help of [[Artemis]], Hermes rescued [[Ares]] from a brazen vessel where he had been imprisoned by [[Aloadae|Otus and Ephialtes]]. In the ''[[Iliad]]'', Hermes is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". He was a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans, but he also protected [[Priam]] when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son [[Hector]] and accompanied them back to Troy.<ref name="ReferenceC" /> In the ''Odyssey'', Hermes helps the protagonist Odysseus by informing him about the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of [[Circe]]. Hermes instructed Odysseus to protect himself by chewing [[Moly (herb)|a magic herb]]; he also told [[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]] of Zeus's order to free Odysseus from her island to allow him to continue his journey back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to Hades.<ref>Homer. ''The Odyssey''. Plain Label Books, 1990. Trans. [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]]. pp. 40, 81–82, 192–195.</ref> 

[[File:Hermes Maia Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2304.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Hermes with his mother Maia. Detail of the side B of an Attic red-figure belly-amphora, c. 500 BC.]]

====Athenian tragic playwrights====
[[Aeschylus]] wrote in ''[[The Eumenides]]'' that Hermes helped [[Orestes]] kill [[Clytemnestra]] under a false identity and other stratagems,<ref name="Brown" /> and also said that he was the god of searches, and those who seek things lost or stolen.<ref>Aeschylus, ''Suppliant Women'' 919. Quoted in ''[http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html#Travel God of Searchers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628223133/http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html#Travel |date=28 June 2011 }}''. The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology.</ref> In ''[[Philoctetes (Sophocles)|Philoctetes]]'', [[Sophocles]] invokes Hermes when Odysseus needs to convince [[Philoctetes]] to join the [[Trojan War]] on the side of the Greeks, and in [[Euripides]]'s ''[[Rhesus (play)|Rhesus]]'' Hermes helps [[Dolon (mythology)|Dolon]] spy on the Greek navy.<ref name="Brown">{{cite book|author=Norman Oliver Brown | title=Hermes the Thief: The Evolution of a Myth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BzNfeQSXKfcC|year=1990|publisher=Steiner Books|isbn=978-0-940262-26-3|pages=3–10}}</ref>

====Aesop====
[[Aesop]] featured him in several of his fables, as ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams, as the god of athletes, of edible roots, and of hospitality. He also said that Hermes had assigned each person his share of intelligence.<ref>Aesop. Fables 474, 479, 520, 522, 563, 564. Quoted in ''[http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html#Sleep God of Dreams of Omen] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628223133/http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html#Sleep |date=28 June 2011 }}; [http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html#Contests God of Contests, Athletics, Gymnasiums, The Games] '', Theoi Project: Greek Mythology.</ref> One of the most notable fables in which Hermes appears is ''[[the Honest Woodcutter]]''.