Chapter Hylas to Hysteron Proteron of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Hylas to Hysteron Proteron

Hylas A boy beloved by Hercules, carried off by the nymphs while drawing water from a fountain in Mysia.

Hylech (in Astrology). That planet, or point of the sky, which dominates at man's birth, and influences his whole life.

Hymen God of marriage, a sort of overgrown Cupid. His symbols are a bridal-torch and veil in his hand.

Hymer The giant in Celtic mythology who took Thor in his boat when that god went to kill the serpent; for which service he was flung by the ears into the sea. (See Giants.)

Hymettus A mountain in Attica, famous for its honey. (See Hybla.)

Hymn Tunes
   "The Heavens are Telling." (From Haydn's Creation.)
   "Marching to Glory." The tune of Marching to Georgia.
   "Onward, Christian Soldiers." One of Haydn's Symphonies.
   "Lo! He comes with clouds descending." The tune of a hornpipe danced at Saddler's Wells in the eighteenth century. (Helmsley.)
   "There is a Happy Land." An Indian air.
   "The Land of the Leal." Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
   "Brightest and best of the Sons of the Morning." Mendelssohn's Lieder No. 9.
   "Sweet the Moments." The first sixteen bars of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 26.

Hymnus Eucharisticus Sung as the clock strikes 5 a.m. by Magdalen choir on the summit of Wolsey's Tower (Oxford) on May morning to greet the rising sun. Some say the custom dates from the reign of Henry VIII.; if this overshoots the mark, no one knows for certainty a more exact period.

"Te Deum Patrem colimus,
Te laudibus prosequimur;
Qui corpus ciborificis,
Coelesti mentem gratia."
Hymnus Eucharisticus.

Hyperboreans (5 syl.). The most northern people, who dwell beyond Boreas (the seat of the north wind), placed by Virgil under the North Pole. They are said to be the oldest of the human race, the most virtuous, and the most happy; to dwell for some thousand years under a cloudless sky, in fields yielding double harvests, and in the enjoyment of perpetual spring. When sated of life they crown their heads with flowers, and plunge headlong from the mountain Hunneberg or Halleberg into the sea, and enter at once the paradise of Odin. (Scandinavian mythology.)
   The Hyperboreans, it is said, have not an atmosphere like our own, but one consisting wholly of feathers. Both Herodotos and Pliny mention this fiction, which they say was suggested by the quantity of snow observed to fall in those regions. (Herodotos, iv. 31.)

Hyperion Properly, the father of the Sun and Moon, but by poets made a surname of the Sun. Shakespeare makes it a synonym of Apollo. The proper pronunciation is Hyperio'n. Thus Ovid -

"Placat equo Persis radiis Hyperione cinctum."
Fasti, i. 385.
"So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr."
Shakespeare: Hamlet, i. 9.

Hypermnestra' Wife of Lynceus (2 syl.), and the only one of the fifty daughters of Danaos who did not murder her husband on their bridal night.

Hypnotism The art of producing trance-sleep, or hypnosis; or the state of being hypnotised. (Greek, hupnos, sleep.)

"The method, discovered by Mr. Braid, of producing this state ... appropriately designated ... hypnotism, consists in the maintenance of a fixed gaze for several minutes ... on a bright object placed somewhat above [the line of sight], at so short a distance [as to produce pain]." - Carpenter: Principles of Mental Physiology, book ii. chap. i. p. 65.

Hypochondria (Greek, hypo chondros, under the cartilage) - i.e. the spaces on each side of the epigastric region, supposed to be the seat of melancholy as a disease.

Hypocrisy L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu. (Rochefoucauld.)