Hyperides

“ Why, he would be lynched on the spot!" 10Compare also the way in which Hyperides excused himself, when he was proceeded against for bringing in a bill to liberate the slaves after Chaeronea. "This measure," he said, "was not drawn up by any orator, but by the battle of Chaeronea." This striking image, being thrown in by the speaker in the midst of his proofs, enables him by one bold stroke to carry all mere logical objection before him. ”

“ It is said that Hyperides once defended the courtesan Phryne who was accused of impiety, and that when he saw his eloquence ineffectual, he unveiled the bosom of his client, upon which the judges, influenced by the sight of her beauty, acquitted her. Plutarch, Demosthenes.—Cicero, Orator, ch. 1, &c.—Quintilian, bk. 10, &c.
Hypĕrīon, a son of Cœlus and Terra, who married Thea, by whom he had Aurora, the sun, and moon. Hyperion is often taken by the poets for the sun itself. Hesiod, Theogony.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, chs. 1 & 2.—Homer, Hymn 3 to Apollo.――A son of Priam. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 2. ”

“ A man commits sacrilege—prosecution for sacrilege before the king-archon. He neglects his parents—the archon sits on his case. A man proposes an illegal measure—there is the council of the Thesmothetae. He makes himself liable to arrest—the “eleven” are permanent officials.’ [450]
Hyperides possessed an active wit which enabled him on many occasions to evade an argument by making his opponent appear ridiculous. Euthias, in prosecuting Phryne for impiety, made his audience shudder by describing the torments of the wicked in Hades. ”

“ He is very nearly first-class in everything, like a pentathlete, so that, while other competitors in every event beat him for the first prize, he is the best of all who are not specialists.’ ... ‘Where Demosthenes tries to be amusing and witty, he raises a laugh, but it is against himself. When he attempts to be graceful, he fails still more signally. At any rate, if he had attempted to compose the little speech about Phryne or the one against Athenogenes, he would have established still more firmly the reputation of Hyperides.’ ‘But ... ”

“ Such are Codd. ANRZ, Rossanensis (sometimes) , and the Cotton Genesis. In the Herculanean rolls the letter comes near the common cursive β; in some others (as Cod. Rossanensis at times) its shape is quite like the modern Β. When oblong letters became common, the top (e.g. in Cod. Bezae) and bottom extremities of the curve ran into straight lines, by way of return into the primitive shape (see No. 36, dated a.d. 980) . In the very early papyrus fragment of Hyperides it looks like the English R standing on a base (No. 9, l. 4) . ”

“ Yet, with all this complex action and episode, there is still one steady movement upward of this bold earth-born Hyperion higher toward the masterful heights, with stronger step and larger leap as he learns the power of sustained impulse, and mounts nearer and nearer the region of final mysterious battle in clouds and darkness, on the verge of final triumph beyond the veil. Peace and light dwell upon the Dome. ”

“ When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he roared out to him anew.
"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold up the sky upon my head!"
"So I see," answered Hercules. "But can you show me the way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
"What do you want there?" asked the giant.
"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin, the king."
"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the garden of the Hesperides and gather the golden apples. ”

“ Hypericum, hī-per′i-kum, n. a large genus of plants, of which St John's wort is a typical species. [Gr. hypo, under, ereikē, heath.]
Hyperinosis, hī-per-i-nō′sis, n. excess of fibrin in the blood:—opp. to Hypinosis.—adj. Hyperinot′ic.
Hyperion, hī-pēr′i-on, n. a Titan, son of Uranus and Ge, and father of Helios, Selene, and Eos: Helios himself, the incarnation of light and beauty. ”

“ And now Hercules began to consider what he should do, in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. If any such misfortune were to happen, how could he ever get rid of the sky? And, by and by, its weight began already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.
‘I really pity the poor giant,’ thought Hercules. ”

“ 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 (ὑπερ-ιων) , but the quantity of the vowel is against this ”

“ Hyperion from the peak loud answered, “Saturn!
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods,
In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods
Gave from their hollow throats the name of “Saturn!”
====Book III====
Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace,
Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;
For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. ”

“ You at least shall live no more to be a fell bane to men who eat the fruit of the all-nourishing earth, and who will bring hither perfect hecatombs. Against cruel death neither Typhoeus shall avail you nor ill-famed Chimera, but here shall the Earth and shining Hyperion make you rot.’
(ll. 370-374) Thus said Phoebus, exulting over her: and darkness covered her eyes. And the holy strength of Helios made her rot away there; wherefore the place is now called Pytho, and men call the lord Apollo by another name, Pythian; because on that spot the power of piercing Helios made the monster rot away. ”

“ But the poet does not apply this fatalism only to himself, to the individual; he widens its influence to humanity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern Planen, als wären sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch eine fremde Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, wie es ihr gefällt, und von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie kommt, noch wohin sie geht:" [38] Perhaps nowhere better than in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied" does he give poetic expression to this thought. ”

“ The 'Shield of Hercules' survives as a sample, if indeed it is to be received as Hesiod's work. Its theme is a single adventure of Hercules, his combat with Cycnus and his father, the war-god, near Apollo's Temple at Pagasæ. Shorn of a preface of fifty-six verses borrowed from the 'Catalogue of Women,' and having for their burden the artifice of Zeus with Alcmena, which resulted in the birth of Hercules, a preface manifestly in the wrong place, the 'Shield' is a fairly compact poem, constructed as a frame for the description of the hero's buckler, to which the rest of the poem is ancillary. ”

“ It is, I repeat, just the same with all good things, on which we now pride ourselves; even judged by the standard of the ancient Greeks, our whole modern life, in so far as it is not weakness, but power and the consciousness of power, appears pure "Hybris" and godlessness: for the things which are the very reverse of those which we honour to-day, have had for a long time conscience on their side, and God as their guardian. "Hybris" is our whole attitude to nature nowadays, our violation of nature with the help of machinery, and all the unscrupulous ingenuity of our scientists and engineers. ”

“ And the man also is terrible as his shield, and seemeth to be inspired of Ares. Whom wilt thou set against this man, O King?"
"First shall Pallas stand against him and drive him from this city, even as a bird driveth a snake from her young ones. And next I have set Hyperbius, son of Œneus, to encounter him, being inferior neither in form nor courage, nor yet in skill of arms, and also dear to Hermes. Enemies shall they be, bearing also on their shields gods that are enemies, for Hippomedon hath Typhon, but Hyperbius hath Zeus ”

“ I have often wondered that the poem of Hyperion, by Keats—that magnificent torso of an incompleted work—has not been placed in the very forefront of past speculations on evolution. Keats is so thorough that he makes the very divinities to be its product. The earliest gods such as Cœlus, born out of Chaos, are vague entities, they engender Saturn, Oceanus, Hyperion, and the Titan brood, who superseded them. ”

“ And just as his ideals are vague and abstract, so too are the expressions of his Weltschmerz. It needs no concrete idea to arouse his enthusiasm to its highest pitch. Thus Hyperion exclaims: "Der Gott in uns, dem die Unendlichkeit zur Bahn sich öffnet, soll stehen und harren, bis der Wurm ihm aus dem Wege geht? Nein! nein! man frägt nicht, ob ihr wollt! ihr wollt ja nie—ihr Knechte und Barbaren! Euch will man auch nicht bessern, denn es ist umsonst! Man will nur dafür sorgen, dass ihr dem Siegeslauf der Menschheit aus dem Wege geht!" ”

“ I see a man, and I am sore afraid lest he slay us. Shall we flee on the chariot, or shall we go near and entreat him, that he may have pity upon us?"
Then the old man was sore troubled, and his hair stood up with fear. But Hermes came near and took him by the hand and said:—
"Whither goest thou, old man, with thy horses and mules through the darkness? Hast thou no fear of these fierce Greeks, who are close at hand? If any one should see thee with all this wealth, what then? And thou art not young, nor is thy attendant young, that ye should defend yourselves against an enemy. ”

“ Hyperion's words expressed their taste more accurately: 'O, man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he thinks!' and they laid stress upon restless movement, fantastic, highly-coloured effects, a crass subjectivity, a reckless licence of the imagination. ”

“ Our readers are, we take for granted, well acquainted [pg 440] with the fable of Hercules in the island of Cos, as related by Homer.1842 The events which contributed to its formation are, in the first place, the existence of several noble families of Heraclide descent, whose origin, according to ancient traditions, was connected with the conquest of Ephyra, though they were afterwards said to have sprung from the supposed residence of Hercules in the island itself, where the ancestor of these families sprang from his connexion with a daughter of the king of the Meropians. ”

“ Hyperion gives way to Apollo, Oceanus to Poseidon. Around the feet of that tranquil Olympian family still crowd the weary shadows of an earlier, more formless, divine world. The placid minds even of Olympian gods are troubled with thoughts of a limit to duration, of inevitable decay, of dispossession. Again, the supreme and colourless abstraction of those divine forms, which is the secret of their repose, is also a premonition of the fleshless, consumptive refinements of the pale, medieval artists. ”

“ If Hercules had relaxed his grasp, the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming up, in order to answer any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken-122- to their heels at once. For, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones. ”

“ Hyperion expresses himself on one occasion in the words: "O ein Gott ist der Mensch, wenn er träumt, ein Bettler, wenn er nachdenkt, und wenn die Begeisterung hin ist, steht er da, wie ein missrathener Sohn, den der Vater aus dem Hause stiess, und betrachtet die ärmlichen Pfennige, die ihm das Mitleid auf den Weg gab," [25] which further illustrates the extravagant idealism by which he allowed himself to be carried away, and the etherial and thoroughly unpractical trend of his mind. The flights of fancy of which Hölderlin is capable are well illustrated by another passage in "Hyperion." ”

“ Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features; eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to those who let themselves be weighed down by them. ”

“ For when the division has been accomplished, to each part of the world they assign both Gods, and Logoi, and men, and the rest. But from above, from uncreatedness and the first segment of the world, when afterwards the world had attained to its consummation, the Peratic affirms that there came down, in the times of Herod, a certain man with a threefold nature, and a threefold body, and a threefold power, named Christ, and that He possesses from the three parts of the world in Himself all the concretions and capacities of the world. ”