Hyperion
Lord of Light
hy-PEER-ee-un
Titan of heavenly light and father of the sun, moon, and dawn, the one who set the lights on their courses.
Domains
LightObservationThe Ordered Heavens
Symbols
Sun DiscWatchtowerBlazing Crown
Family
Consorts:
The Story
His name means the one who goes above, and his portion is light itself rather than any single lamp. By his sister Theia he fathered Helios the sun, Selene the moon, and Eos the dawn, which makes him responsible for the entire visible sky.
The Greeks associated him with watching as much as shining, his children see everything that happens by day, and Helios is the witness other gods go to when they need to know who did what. Homer sometimes uses Hyperion as another name for the sun outright, collapsing father into son.
Did You Know?
- Saturn's moon Hyperion is the largest known irregularly shaped body in the solar system and tumbles chaotically, with a rotation nobody can predict more than a few months out.
- Keats spent two attempts on an epic about him and abandoned both. The unfinished Hyperion is one of the great fragments in English poetry.
- Homer uses Hyperion as a straight epithet for the sun, so in places it is genuinely unclear whether the text means the father or the son.