=Her´mês= (_2 syl._), son of Maia; patron of commerce. Akenside makes Hermês say to the Thames, referring to the merchant ships of England:
By you [_ships_] my function and my honored name Do I possess; while o’er the Bætic vale, Or thro’ the towers of Memphis, or the palms By sacred Ganges watered, I conduct The English merchant. Akenside, _Hymn to the Naiads_ (1767).
(The Bætis is the Guadalquiver, and the Bætic vale Granāda and Andalucia).
_Her´mês_ (_2 syl._), the same as Mercury, and applied both to the god and to the metal. Milton calls quicksilver “volatil Hermês.”
So when we see the liquid metal fall, Which chemists by the name of Hermes call. Hoole’s _Ariosto_, viii.
_Hermês (St.)_, same as St. Elmo, Suerpo Santo, Castor and Pollux, etc. A comazant or electric light, seen occasionally on ship’s masts.
“They shall see the fire which saylors call St. Hermes, fly uppon their shippe, and alight upon the toppe of the mast.”—De Loier, _Treatise of Spectres,_ 67 (1605).
=Hermês Trismegis´tus= (_Hermês “thrice-greatest”_), the Egyptian Thoth, to whom is ascribed a host of inventions: as the art of writing in hieroglyphics, the first Egyptian code of laws, the art of harmony, the science of astrology, the invention of the late and lyre, magic, etc. (twentieth century B.C.).
The school of Hermês Trismegistus, Who uttered his oracles sublime Before the Olympiads. Longfellow, _The Golden Legend_ (1851).
=Her´mesind= (_3 syl._), daughter of Pelayo and Gaudio´sê. She was plighted to Alphonso, son of Lord Pedro of Cantabria. Both Alphonso and Hermesind at death were buried in the cave of St. Antony, in Covadonga.
=Her´mia=, daughter of Ege´us (_3 syl._) of Athens, and promised by him in marriage to Demētrius. As Hermia loved Lysander, and refused to marry Demetrius, her father summoned her before the duke, and requested that the “law of the land” might be carried out, which was death or perpetual virginity. The duke gave Hermia four days to consider the subject, at the expiration of which time she was either to obey her father or lose her life. She now fled from Athens with Lysander. Demetrius went in pursuit of her, and Helĕna, who doted on Demetrius, followed. All four came to a wood, and falling asleep from weariness, had a dream about the fairies. When Demetrius woke up, he came to his senses, and seeing that Hermia loved another, consented to marry Helena; and Egēus gladly gave the hand of his daughter to Lysander.—Shakespeare, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (1592).