Hermes

Hermēs (Greek: 'Έρμης': 'pile of marker stones'), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of the cunning of thieves, and the messenger from the gods to humans. A lucky find was a hermaion. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word "hermeneutics" for the art of interpreting hidden meaning.

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:Main article: Hermes Trismegistus.

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A syncretic conflation of Hermes with the Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth produced the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom a body of arcane lore was attributed in the Greco-Roman culture of Alexandria. The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were edited and published in the Italian Renaissance.

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Among the Hellenes, as the related word Herma ?a boundary stone, crossing point? would suggest, Hermes is the Spirit of Crossing-Over. As such he was seen to be manifest in any kind of interchange, transfer, transgressions, transcendence, transition, transit or traversal, all of which activities involve some form of crossing in some sense. This explains his connection with transitions in one?s fortunes, with the interchanges of goods, words and information involved in trade, interpreting, oratory, writing, with the way in which the wind may transfer objects from one place to another, and with the transition to the afterlife.

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Greek mythology: Greek mythology comprises the collected narratives of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. Our surviving sources of mythology are literary reworkings of this oral tradition, supplemented by interpretations of iconic imagery, some...

Shepherd: A shepherd is one who takes care of sheep, usually in flocks in the fields. Shepherding is one of the oldest professions, beginning some 10,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat, and especially their wool. Over the next millennia sheep and shepherding spread throughou...

Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics may be described as the theory of interpretation and understanding of the text through empirical means. It should not be confused with the concrete practice of interpretation called exegesis. Exegesis extracts the meaning of a passage of text and enlarges upon it and explicates it with ...

Hermes related Images and Photos (experimental)

Hermes Tying His Sandal Roman Copy of a Greek Original Attributed to Lysippos

Statue of Hermes and the Infant Dionysus circa 330 BC (Parian Marble)

The Mysterious Box is Brought to Epimethus by Hermes