HYPERION

hyperion, in greek mythology, one of the titans, son of uranus and gaea and father of helios, the sun-god (hesiod, _theog._ 134, 371; apollodorus i. 1. 2). in the well-known passage in shakespeare (_hamlet_, i. 2: "hyperion to a satyr," where as in other poets the vowel -_i_- though really long, is shortened for metrical reasons) hyperion is used for apollo as expressive of the idea of beauty. the name is often used as an epithet of helios, who is himself sometimes called simply hyperion. it is explained as (1) he who moves above ([greek: hyper-ion]), but the quantity of the vowel is against this; (2) he who is above ([greek: hyperi-on]). others take it to be a patronymic in form, like [greek: kronion, molion].