classical mythology Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and poli ...

, Hylas () was a youth who served as

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...

's (Roman

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

) companion and servant. His abduction by

water nymph In Greek mythology, the naiads (; grc-gre, ναϊάδες, naïádes) are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who ...

s was a theme of ancient art, and has been an enduring subject for

Western art The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleo ...

in the

classical tradition The Western classical tradition is the reception of classical Greco-Roman antiquity by later cultures, especially the post-classical West, involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, ritua ...

Genealogy

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 694 - Princeton University Library, AM 4424 - Theocritus, Idyll XIII (Hylas and the Nymphs)

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, Hylas was the son of King

Theiodamas In Greek mythology, the name Theiodamas or Thiodamas () may refer to: *Theiodamas, king of the Dryopes, father of Hylas by the nymph Menodice, daughter of Orion. The '' Bibliotheca'' and Apollonius Rhodius relate of him that one day when he was wo ...

of the

Dryopia Dryopes (; grc, Δρύοπες) or Dryopians () were one of the aboriginal tribes of ancient Greece. According to Herodotus, their earliest abode is said to have been on Mount Oeta and its adjacent valleys, in the district called after them, Dryopi ...

ns and the

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label= Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

Menodice In Greek mythology, Menodice or Menodike was the nymph daughter of Orion, thus (half)sister to Menippe and Metioche. She was the mother of Hylas by King Theiodamas of the Dryopians. In some accounts, his Hylas parent was Euphemus or King Ceyx o ...

, daughter of Orion. In some accounts, his father was

Euphemus In Greek mythology, Euphemus ( grc, Εὔφημος, ''Eὔphēmos'', "reputable") was counted among the Calydonian hunters and the Argonauts, and was connected with the legend of the foundation of Cyrene. Family Euphemus was a son of Pos ...

or King Ceyx of

Trachis Trachis ( grc-gre, , ''Trakhís'') was a region in ancient Greece. Situated south of the river Spercheios, it was populated by the Malians. It was also a polis (city-state). Its main town was also called ''Trachis'' until 426 BC, when it was re ...

Mythology

Heracles

After

killed

in battle, he took on Hylas as his arms-bearer and taught him to be a warrior. The poet

Theocritus Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...

(about 300 BC) wrote about the love between Heracles and Hylas: "We are not the first mortals to see beauty in what is beautiful. No, even

Amphitryon Amphitryon (; Ancient Greek: Ἀμφιτρύων, ''gen''.: Ἀμφιτρύωνος; usually interpreted as "harassing either side", Latin: Amphitruo), in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis. His mother was named e ...

's bronze-hearted son, who defeated the savage Nemean lion, loved a boy—charming Hylas, whose hair hung down in curls. And like a father with a dear son he taught him all the things which had made him a mighty man, and famous."

Argonauts

Heracles took Hylas with him on the Argo, thus making him one of the Argonauts. Hylas was kidnapped by

Naiads In Greek mythology, the naiads (; grc-gre, ναϊάδες, naïádes) are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who ...

of the spring of

Pegae Karabiga (Karabuga) is a town in Biga District, Çanakkale Province, in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is located at the mouth of the Biga River, on a small east-facing bay, known as Karabiga Bay. Its ancient name was Priapus or Priapos ( ...

Mysia Mysia (UK , US or ; el, Μυσία; lat, Mysia; tr, Misya) was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor (Anatolia, Asian part of modern Turkey). It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on th ...

when they fell in love with him, and he vanished into the water with a cry. His disappearance greatly upset Heracles, who, along with

Polyphemus Polyphemus (; grc-gre, Πολύφημος, Polyphēmos, ; la, Polyphēmus ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's ''Odyssey''. His name means "abounding in songs and leg ...

, searched for him for a great length of time. The ship soon set sail without them. According to the Latin ''

Argonautica The ''Argonautica'' ( el, Ἀργοναυτικά , translit=Argonautika) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the ''Argonautica'' tells the myth of the voyage of Jason ...

'' of Valerius Flaccus, they never found Hylas because the latter had fallen in love with the

nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

and remained "to share their power and their love". In the version told by

Apollonios Rhodios Apollonius of Rhodes ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; la, Apollonius Rhodius; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and t ...

, the sea-god

Glaucus In Greek mythology, Glaucus (; grc, Γλαῦκος, Glaûkos, glimmering) was a Greek prophetic sea-god, born mortal and turned immortal upon eating a magical herb. It was believed that he came to the rescue of sailors and fishermen in storms ...

informs the Argonauts that "a nymph has lost her heart to him and made him her husband". Theocritus, on the other hand, has the nymphs shutting his mouth underwater to stifle his screams for Heracles. Antoninus Liberalis says that the nymphs changed him into

echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

Literature

The story of Hylas and the

is alluded to in Book 3 of Edmund Spenser's ''

The Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

'', Canto XII, Stanza 7:

Or that same daintie lad, which was so deare To great Alcides, that when as he dyde He wailed womanlike with many a teare, And every wood, and every valley wyde He fild with Hylas name; the Nymphes eke "Hylas" cryde.

Hylas is also mentioned in Christopher Marlowe's play '' Edward II'': "Not Hylas was more mourned for of Hercules / Than thou hast been of me since thy exile" (Act I, Scene I, line 142-3), and in Oscar Wilde's ''

The Picture of Dorian Gray ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical '' Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''The Picture of Dorian G ...

'', Chapter 11: "...and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas." Hylas is referred to in Chapter 18 of Charles Kingsley's novel ''

Hypatia Hypatia, Koine pronunciation (born 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where ...

'', when the Prefect Orontes, rescued by the Goths, is taken for safety into a house largely populated by women, and fancies himself as "A second Hylas". "Hylas" is the name of one of the two characters in George Berkeley's '' Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous''. He represents the materialist position against which Berkeley (through Philonous) argues. In this context, the name is derived from ὕλη, the classical Greek word for "matter."

Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical ...

adopted these characters in his 1957 non-fiction, philosophical book, ''Dialogi'' ( ''Dialogues''). :pl:Dialogi#Struktura dzieła Hylas is also mentioned in Thomas Hardy's '' Far from the Madding Crowd'': "He called again: the valleys and farthest hills resounded as when the sailors invoked the lost Hylas on the Mysian shore; but no sheep."

References

External links

* Berkeley's ''Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous'' *

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

o

''Hylas in the Classical Style'' by Stefanie E. Dittert, Professor Buttigieg

o

* Poem by

Florence Earle Coates Florence Van Leer Earle Nicholson Coates (July 1, 1850 – April 6, 1927) was an American poet, whose prolific output was published in many literary magazines, some of it set to music. She was mentored by the English poet Matthew Arnold, with wh ...

{{Authority control Argonauts Male lovers of Heracles Characters in the Argonautica Thessalian characters in Greek mythology Demigods in classical mythology Metamorphoses in Greek mythology