NYX: The goddess that started it all
“Silent Nyx (Night) shrouded the west in her own colour, and scored the sky across with her own starry cloak.”
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18. 160 ff :
Where does one begin to describe, Nyx, primordial goddess of the night?
Not just of the night. She is the night.
Let’s start at the dawn of creation.
From Chaos
Hesiod’s Theogony says that in the beginning, there was chaos. A void. Nothingness. A fathomless chasm.
And then, there was Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). Their coupling gave us Aither (Upper air) and his sister Hemera (Day). And then it gets really interesting.
Nyx goes off and basically births an array of gods and goddesses completely independently, because apparently she doesn’t need anymore help from Erebus for that. And here we get some really quite significant additions:
Dreams (Oneiroi)
Fates (Morai)
Death (Thanatos)
Violent death (Keres)
Doom (Moros)
Nemesis (Dispenser of dues, or envy)
Mockery (Momos)
Sleep (Hypnos)
Friendship (Philotes)
Strife (Eris)
…and more. And if you’re familiar with Greek mythology, you’ll know that some of these offspring went on to play significant roles in the Trojan war, the Odyssey, and Heracles’ myths.
An enigma
So, Nyx is quite the mother. And if we’re to infer her character from her children’s personifications, she’s also rather multifaceted. Peaceful death next to violence, sleep and strife, friendship and mockery. It’s little wonder that the Gods and writers alike had a healthy respect for her. After all, only a handful of gods were born from Chaos.
You would think she might be feared by the mere mortals writing about her, but instead, she’s often seen as a welcome relief, a boon. A reprieve from the day and a chance to marvel at the stars:
“Nyx (night) with her gentle ban on man's activities descended on the company. She put the world to sleep.”
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1057 ff
“Welcome Nox (Night) brings on the star-heralding shadows.”
Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 6. 752
“On a clear night, when Nyx (Night) in the heavens shows to men all her stars in their brightness and no star is borne faintly gleaming at the mid-month moon.”
Aratus, Phaenomena 468 ff
There aren’t actually a lot of myths about Nyx. She’s often just described as diligently doing her job, bringing nightfall. But there is one reasonably well-known snippet that a few of us classics-loving folk find quite satisfying - and it’s to do with a certain King of the Gods.
Zeus and Nyx
Nyx’s son Hypnos puts Zeus to sleep, allowing Zeus’s wife Hera to give his son Heracles trouble on the sea on his way back from Troy (well before the more famous Trojan war).
That’s a lot of context in one sentence, I realise. The important bit is this:
When Zeus awakes, he is furious. He wants his revenge on Hypnos, to cast him down to the ‘deep’ (possibly Tartarus, a deep abyss used for imprisonment). Hypnos, understandably, doesn’t really go for that, and flees to Nyx for protection. And here we get this delicious line:
“Nyx (Night) who has power over gods and men rescued me [Hypnos]. I reached her in my flight, and Zeus let be, though he was angry, in awe of doing anything to swift Nyx' displeasure.”
Homer, Iliad 14. 231 ff (trans. Lattimore)
The King of the Olympians, left to seethe, because Nyx was too intimidating a prospect. If you know of Zeus and his ‘exploits’, there’s something quite satisfying about that.
Nyx, personified
The first time I saw blue sandstone, I thought ‘Wow. If Nyx was a stone…’.
And genuinely, I think this is the actual moment folio & stone became a real idea. What if goddesses were enshrined as minerals and stones? Their essence, made wearable?
It might’ve been easier to pick onyx for Nyx, which is readily available. Dark, glossy, black. But no. Knowing that Nyx brought mortals respite with her darkness, allowed them to marvel at the stars, and was enigmatic and expansive… it had to be blue sandstone.
It’s a less popular choice amongst jewellers, and harder to source. It slowed down the launch of folio & stone because I simply could not findher in the way I had imagined.
This is where ‘literary, not literal’ came about. I didn’t want moons, or actual stars. I didn’t want black gold (though it does look marvellous, it’s still plating). I wanted Nyx to be readily accessible, perhaps tarnished with age, but not worn down. Never worn down.
Blue sandstone and silver. It had to be. Set in circles, to represent that magnificent night sky over earth.
Nyx the goddess emerged from chaos. It seems appropriate that folio & stone kind of did too.
Sources
Nyx, Theoi.com
Homer. The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:14.242-14.269)
