The following variations on 52 and 53 are found in the MS.:
| Till fierce Hyperion from afar Pours on their scatter'd rear, | Hurls at " flying " | his glittering shafts of war. " o'er " scatter'd " | " " " shadowy " | Till " " " " from far Hyperion hurls around his, etc. |
The accent of Hyperion is properly on the penult, which is long in quantity, but the English poets, with rare exceptions, have thrown it back upon the antepenult. It is thus in the six instances in which Shakes. uses the word: e.g. Hamlet, iii. 4: "Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself." The word does not occur in Milton. It is correctly accented by Drummond (of Hawthornden), Wand. Muses:
| "That Hyperion far beyond his bed Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread;" |
by West, Pindar's Ol. viii. 22:
| "Then Hyperion's son, pure fount of day, Did to his children the strange tale reveal;" |
also by Akenside, and by the author of the old play Fuimus Troes (A.D. 1633):
| "Blow, gentle Africus, Play on our poops when Hyperion's son Shall couch in west." |
Hyperion was a Titan, the father of Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon), and Eos (the Dawn). He was represented with the attributes of beauty and splendor afterwards ascribed to Apollo. His "glittering shafts" are of course the sunbeams, the "lucida tela diei" of Lucretius. Cf. a very beautiful description of the dawn in Lowell's Above and Below:
| "'Tis from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity." |