Pasithea- Greek GodDeity"Bride of Hypnos"

Among the Charites

Pasithea belongs to the Charites, the goddesses of grace, beauty, and charm who attended Aphrodite and brought delight to both mortals and gods. Hesiod's Theogony names three Charites — Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia — daughters of Zeus and the Oceanid Eurynome. But Homer, in the Iliad, speaks of a wider company. When he names Pasithea among the younger Charites, he draws on a tradition that recognized more than Hesiod's canonical triad.

The Deception of Zeus

Pasithea's story is told in Iliad 14, during the Deception of Zeus. Hera, desperate to turn the tide of the Trojan War in favor of the Greeks, devised a plan to distract her husband while Poseidon rallied the Achaean forces. She needed Hypnos, the god of sleep, to cast Zeus into slumber — but Hypnos remembered all too well the last time he had performed this service. When Hera had moved against Heracles, Zeus awoke in fury and would have hurled Hypnos into the sea had Night herself not sheltered him. To overcome his reluctance, Hera offered the one thing Hypnos could not refuse: Pasithea's hand in marriage. She sealed the promise with an oath upon the waters of the Styx.

Hypnos agreed. He accompanied Hera to Mount Ida near Troy, where he perched in a tall pine tree disguised as a songbird while Hera, adorned with every art of seduction, drew Zeus into her embrace. When the king of the gods succumbed, Hypnos cast his power over him, plunging him into deep slumber. Then Sleep flew to tell Poseidon the field was clear, and the earthshaker charged into battle on behalf of the Greeks, turning the tide until Zeus inevitably awoke.

Wife of Sleep

Nonnus of Panopolis, writing in the fifth century CE, presents Pasithea as the established wife of Hypnos in his Dionysiaca — the bargain honored, the bride delivered.