Hyperion

Hyperion is a Titan, the son of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus Helios Hyperion, 'Sun High-one'. But in the Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter the Sun is once in each work called Hyperonides 'son of Hyperion' and Hesiod certainly imagines Hyperion as a separate being in other places. In later Greek literature, Hyperion is always distinguished from Helios.

Hyperion plays virtually no role in Greek culture and little role in mythology, save in lists of the twelve Titans. Later Greeks intellectualized their myths:

"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." —Diodorus Siculus (5.67.1)

Hyperion is often considered the 'God of Observation' while his sister Theia the 'Goddess of Sight.'^{[citation needed]}

Fiction inspired by or connected to Hyperion

• In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet compares his father (the late Old Hamlet) to Hyperion and his usurping uncle Claudius to a satyr: "Hyperion to a satyr," (Act I Scene II). Hyperion is mentioned again in Act 3, Scene 4.
• John Keats wrote the poems "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion" in his honour.
• A version of Hyperion appears in Megumu Okada's Saint Seiya Episode G.
• Hyperion is the only novel of the German romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843).
• The Hyperion is featured in Final Fantasy VIII as Seifer Almasy's "Gunblade".

External links

• Hyperion: excerpts from original Greek sources

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