Talk:Hermes

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Contents 1 Spurious cairns 2 Hermes is NOT female 3 Number of Offspring 4 letter missing 5 A god or a demi-god? 6 Spelling correction 7 Myth telling: stick to the script folks 8 Consistency 9 Recent edits 10 Hearsay 11 What's with this entry? 12 Featured? 13 The sense of the etymology 14 "of many shifts" 15 etymology 16 What, no staff?

[edit] Spurious cairns

From the Oxford Classical Dictionary: "Hermes ('Έρμης'). Already attested among the Mycenaean pantheon (tables from Cnossus in Crete, Pylos, and Thebes), the god has no original connection with ἕρμα or cairn of stones, as was once thought." Therefore, that sentence has been removed. (anon.)

The following cute tale is spurious and modern, based on the same misconception, so I've moved it here: "When Hera found out Hermes had killed her servant, Argus, she called an Olympian trial. Each god or goddess was given a stone with their name on it. If the god/goddess found Hermes guilty, they cast their stone at Hera's feet. If they found Hermes innocent, they cast their stone at Hermes's feet. At the end of the trial, Hermes had stones up to his head. From then on, travelers put large piles of rocks at crossroads as a small shrine to Hermes." --Wetman 03:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hermes is NOT female

I go to get information on Hermes and find that someone went into the first and made Hermes out to be female. "Hermes, in Greek mythology, is the goddess of commerce, creativity, communication and cleverness. As a translator, she is the messenger from the gods to humans." Not true. Kinda funny since I'm pretty sure the statue in the picture has a penis. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and edit it so that it's correct. It's disapointing that there are idiots out there who do stuff like that.

[edit] Number of Offspring

ŔHermes had 2 many offsprings!kinda scary huh.

I don't think so... Check out Zeus and Poseidon, they have even more. Wiki3857 21:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] letter missing

This is quite obviously just a typo but is seens that editors have missed a letter "ρ" (rho) in god's name in greek. Therefore it must be 'Έρμης'. Thank you. --maqs 23:23, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A god or a demi-god?

Is Hermes truly a god, or just a demi-god? As his mother was not a goddess, I sould suppose he was actually a demi-god - but then, maybe this was not as distinct line between gods and demi-gods as I think. Habj 08:16, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

An Olympian god. --Wetman 10:00, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed a very detailed answer. However, if the definition of demigod is that one parent is god and the other human, I guess the offspring of a god and a nymph can be a true god as the human part is lacking. I believed I heard him being mentioned as a demigod, but I suppose I was wrong. Habj 12:19, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's article Demigod is the problem. Working on it... --Wetman 22:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling correction

I corrected the spelling of the word Steal from Steel in part one.

[edit] Myth telling: stick to the script folks

The retelling of Greek myths in general needs to follow and credit Greek sources, so that the Wikipedia reader can pursue the details. Then we won't get interpretations that are inconceivable, such as this concerning the slaying of Argus, that I've just excised: "Some say that is representative of killing the disapproving eyes of the community, always policing good conduct in a shame-based society through their disapproving gaze.". Another case of "some say..." --Wetman 07:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consistency

Am I crazy, or should all the articles on Greek Gods/Goddesses follow a similar design? Maybe?

Is consistency of greatest concern? Doesn't every highh-school graduate know that each of the Olympian gods has a different pre-history? --Wetman 03:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

No, virtually no high school graduate and very few four-year college graduates know much of anything about mythology (or much else). At least in the USA. Also, I corrected the spelling on the above header. BIEB!! 15:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

Material that I have now carefully restored to the article may be assessed in this page history comparison. People have been working on this article for nearly four years. This restored material is perfectly mainstream and entirely on-topic, as anyone may check to see. Editors of this article should have good control of tenses: the historical past and the literary eternal present. --Wetman 03:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• "Hermes is" or "Hermes was"? Myth and literature conventionally takes the present: "Jane Austen's Emma is..." "Julius Caesar was..." "Shiva is one of the Trimurti.." "Jesus was crucified" "Mary is the Star of the Sea".
• "translator and diplomat" Adding the modern conception "diplomat" blurs the interprtations being built up of boundaries, crossing boundaries, interpreter.
• " 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." Shifting these away from the development of what Hermes signified, and listing them under "etymology" (not what etymology means), breaks any development of why the aspects of Hermes are connected. They are just an arbitary list of random attributes for one editor, apparently, but needn't be so for the rest of us.
• "Hermes as an inventor of fire is a parallel of the Titan, Prometheus." Why would an editor delete this? I've added the source in the Homeric hymn.
• "Main article: Herma". This is a guidepost to the Wikipedia reader. Why would a responsible editor delete it?
• "The god Priapus was believed by some to be a son of Hermes and Aphrodite." Why would "believed by some" be interpolated in this sentence?
• Link Krokus (mythology). Why revise this to Krokus?

I make these points because this is the second time I've had to pick apart these unnecessary tangles. --Wetman 04:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hearsay

I've just noticed the following, which I've moved here: "Hermes helped the runner in the Battle of Marathon by giving him a pair of his famous winged sandals. This enabled the runner to complete his journey without feeling tired. Even though it is said that he died from exhaution in the end." The contributors of this twaddle are unaware of Pheidippides I suppose; the Wikipedia article in question is very sensible and informed, and should be looked at. Where is there such a tale told? I always suspect television, probably unfairly.--Wetman 11:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's with this entry?

Why does this article start with the phrase "blah blah blah"??! Is it just graffiti? This is the kind of thing that really turns me off of Wikipedia. (anonymous)

I have just reverted this entry the last 50 edits to clean up vandalism. In 50 edits there was no contribution, only struggles to keep this article from the vandalism pointed out by the anonymity above. Semi-protection would spare adults a lot of fruitless labor here. --Wetman 00:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured?

This article seems very good, but it doesn't seem to have the star to indicate it has been featured- any particular reason? Biscuitman 00:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The sense of the etymology

See my inquiry under Herma. —Largo Plazo 15:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "of many shifts"

Someone with some Greek might like to check whether this epithet that's applied to Hermes in the Homeric Hymn is the very same epithet applied to crafty Odysseus, right at the start of the Odyssey. If it is, that would make a really good ref/ref note at the quoted phrase here. --Wetman 03:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] etymology

The name Hermes has been thought to be derived from the Greek word herma (ἕρμα), which denotes a square or rectangular pillar with the head of Hermes (usually with a beard) adorning the top of the pillar, and male genitals below; however, due to the god's attestation in the Mycenaean pantheon, as Hermes Araoia ("Ram Hermes") in Linear B inscriptions at Pylos and Mycenaean Knossos (Ventris and Chadwick), the connection is more likely to have moved the opposite way, from deity to pillar representations.

Is that a universally held view? For one thing, as I understand it, no stories about Hermes explain the erect phallus on the pillars (which is not mentioned in the article). At any rate the passage is a bit misleading in that it suggests first there was a god of boundaries, then a tradition of marking boundaries, which on the face of it seems counter-intuitive.

(edit) see this from britannica: According to some scholars, Hermes' name may be derived from the word herma (Greek: “stone,” or “rock,” such as a boundary or landmark). With the development of artistic taste and the conception of the gods as having human form, these objects tended to be replaced either by statues or by pillars that were generally square and tapering toward the bottom so as to suggest the human figure. These were usually surmounted by the head of Hermes (hence the name) and had a phallus. They were used not only as cult objects but also for a variety of other purposes, for example, as milestones or boundary marks. britannica Hakluyt bean 03:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I added "ithyphallic" so that "genitals" would stand out better. Added Müller 1848 for the classic etymology. --Wetman 05:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What, no staff?

Something should be mentioned about the staff. I was looking for the (medical) symbol, and all I knew about it was that it had something to do with Hermes. Searching the page yields nothing. Eventually I was reduced to searching for "staff, serpents, wings". I found out it was called a Caduceus, and that page links back to Hermes in the first paragraph. A little reciprocal linking would've made the search easier. That's my two cents, anyway. --Buddy13 21:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)