Hyperion was, along with his son Helios, a personification of the sun, with the two sometimes identified.[3]John Keats's abandoned epic poemHyperion is among the literary works that feature the figure.
"Hyperion" derives from the Ancient Greek prepositonὑπέρ (hypér) "above"; the name thus roughly translates to "the one above". In Homer it is often joined with "Helios"[4] in the fashion of anepithet. There is a possible attestation of his name inLinear B (Mycenaean Greek) in the lacunose form]pe-rjo-[ (Linear B: ]𐀟𐁊-[), found on theKN E 842 tablet (reconstructed[u]-pe-rjo-[ne])[5][6] though it has been suggested that the name actually reads "Apollo" ([a]-pe-rjo-[ne]).[7][8]
Hyperion is one of the twelveTitans, the children ofGaia andUranus. In theTheogony, Uranus imprisoned all the children that Gaia bore him, before he was overthrown.[9] According toApollodorus, Uranus only imprisoned the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes but not the Titans, until Gaia persuaded her six Titan sons to overthrow their father Uranus and "they, all but Ocean, attacked him" as Cronus castrated him.[10] Afterwards, in the words ofHesiod, Hyperion subjected his sisterTheia to his love, and fathered three children with her, who became the lights of heaven:Helios (Sun),Selene (Moon), andEos (Dawn). As is the case for most of the Titans, there are no myths or functions for Hyperion.[11] He seems to exist only to provide a father for the three celestial deities.[12] As a Titan, one of the oldest generation of gods, Hyperion was a fitting father for these three sky-gods who, as elements of the natural world, must have been conceived of as having come into being near the beginning of the cosmos.[13]
Hyperion and Helios were bothsun-gods. Early sources sometimes present the two as distinct personages, with Hyperion being the father of Helios, but sometimes they were apparently identified, with "Hyperion" being simply a title of, or another name for, Helios himself.[14] Hyperion is Helios' father inHomer'sOdyssey,Hesiod'sTheogony, and theHomeric Hymn toDemeter.[15] But in theIliad and elsewhere in theOdyssey, Helios is also called "Helios Hyperion" with "Hyperion" here being used either as apatronymic or as an otherepithet. In the Homeric epics, and in theHomeric Hymn toApollo, besides being called "Helios", Hyperion is sometimes also called simply "Hyperion".[16] In later sources the two sun-gods are distinctly father and son.[17] In literature, the sun is often referred to as "Hyperion's bright son."[18]
According to the rationalizing historianDiodorus Siculus, Hyperion was the name of the first person to understand the movement of the sun and moon, and their effect on the seasons, and explains that, because of this, he was said to be their "father":
Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well, in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others; and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies, since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature.[19]
Diodorus also recorded an unorthodox version of the myth, in which Hyperion married his sisterBasileia and had two children by her, Helios and Selene; their brothers, envious of their happy issue and fearful that Hyperion would divert the royal power to himself, conspired and killed Hyperion along with his two children (which then went on to transform into the Sun and the Moon), leaving Basileia in great distress.[20]
^Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as inHesiod,Theogony371–374, in theHomeric Hymn to Hermes (4),99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
Grimal, Pierre,The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996.ISBN978-0-631-20102-1.
Hard, Robin,The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004,ISBN9780415186360.Google Books.
