Sleep outgenerals Zeus; a membrane-winged head keeps watch

A means of staying awake. The poets put Zeus to sleep, outgeneraled by Hera and Sleep, so that either the Greeks might catch their breath, or Heracles be harmed; they also often make rivers stand still.

We ourselves have observed how the current is quiet at night, so that one might say the water is found sleeping. The breaths of the winds too are gentler than the night; perhaps these also are calmed by sleep. It is superfluous to say that heroes have been caught by Sleep's swoop.

He rules all: men, birds, plants, waves, winds, gods; all-subduer and limb-loosener, occupying souls away from bodies. Death is his brother, and Toil a fellow-worker; they toast one another the evil misfortunes of those about to sleep.

The commander of Ilium expected to take the Achaean “worn with toil and with sleep,” but the care on that side stood equal against him. How much would the Thracians have valued the wakefulness of Rhesus, a noble king betrayed by toil and sleep? No one was struck with awe at his fine panoply; no one feared his swift horses. How many hopes of success has the sleep of a single hour overturned?

From this the stratagem has come down to later times: they leave much wine in the camp for enemies following under the appearance of flight, so that even if a man has not toiled he may sleep at least from drinking; and others, coming on here and there at night, kill them as they rise, still sleeping. Panics too often arise in camps for one frightened in sleep.

We pity human fortune; let us remedy the outrages of untimely sleeps by a daimonic passion. The Phrygian king found Silenus sleeping and bound him; another fortunate commander bound a satyr. I do not think myself unworthy of equal honor with them. They took earth-dwelling daimons, humble ones, asleep; I seek to take the one who bound them. I want Sleep to become inferior to my experience, so that this king and all-subduer may dwell with me alone.

Let a king in council stay awake with me, and a soldier on guard, and a champion who has toiled. I array myself against you, Sleep: as you campaign against all, so I will campaign against you.

There is a winged animal, membrane-winged, living in dark places, of which alone among the egg-laying winged creatures the young are fed with milk. Its skeletonized head, sewn into a little piece of leather, makes the one who hangs it about himself sleepless as long as he wears it.