View source for Hylas

{{Short description|Young companion to Heracles}}
{{about|the Greek mythological figure}}
{{redirect|Hylas and the Nymphs|the painting by John William Waterhouse|Hylas and the Nymphs (painting)}}
[[File:Hylas Saint-Romain-en Gal 07 2011.jpg|thumb|Hylas and [[nymphs]] from a mosaic in [[Roman Gaul]] (3rd century)]]

In [[classical mythology]], '''Hylas''' ({{Langx|grc|Ὕλας|Húlas}}) was a youth who served [[Heracles]] (Roman [[Hercules]]) as companion and servant. His abduction by [[water nymph]]s was a theme of ancient art, and has been an enduring subject for [[Western art]] in the [[classical tradition]].

== Genealogy ==
[[File:Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 694 - Princeton University Library, AM 4424 - Theocritus, Idyll XIII (Hylas and the Nymphs).jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.75|Theocritus's ''Idyll'' 13, a poem of circa 300 BC devoted to Hylas. [[Oxyrhynchus Papyri|P. Oxy.]] 694, 2nd century AD.]]

In [[Greek mythology]], Hylas was the son of King [[Theiodamas]]<ref>[[Apollonius Rhodius]], 1.1213 with [[scholia]] on 1.1207; [[Propertius]], ''Elegies'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Prop.+1.20&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0067:boo=0:chapter=0&highlight=Theiodamantean 1.20.6]</ref> of the [[Dryopia]]ns and the [[nymph]] [[Menodice]], daughter of [[Orion (mythology)|Orion]].<ref>Hyginus, ''[[Fabulae]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#14.2 14]</ref> In some accounts, his father was [[Heracles]], [[Euphemus]] or King [[Ceyx of Trachis]].<ref>[[Scholia]] ad [[Theocritus]], ''[[Idyll|Idylls]]'' [[iarchive:scholiaintheocr00wendgoog/page/259/mode/1up|13.7]]; [[Antoninus Liberalis]], [https://topostext.org/work/216#26 26]</ref>

== Mythology ==
=== Heracles ===
After [[Heracles]] killed [[Theiodamas]] in battle, he took on Hylas as his arms-bearer and taught him to be a warrior. The poet [[Theocritus]] (about 300 BC) wrote about the love between Heracles and Hylas:

{{Quote| ''"We are not the first mortals to see beauty in what is beautiful. No, even [[Amphitryon]]'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."''}} {{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}

=== Argonauts ===
Heracles took Hylas with him on the [[Argo]], thus making him one of the [[Argonauts]]. Hylas was kidnapped by [[Naiads]] of the spring of [[Pegae]] in [[Mysia]] 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 (Argonaut)|Polyphemus]], searched for him for a great length of time. The ship soon set sail without them. According to the Latin ''[[Argonautica]]'' of [[Gaius Valerius Flaccus| Valerius Flaccus]], they never found Hylas because the latter had fallen in love with the [[naiads |nymphs]] and remained ''"to share their power and their love"''. In the version told by [[Apollonios Rhodios]], the sea-god [[Glaucus]] 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 an [[echo]] which again and again echoed back the cries of Heracles.<ref name="Liberalis">[[Antoninus Liberalis]], [https://topostext.org/work/216#26 26]</ref>

== Literature ==
[[Image:John William Waterhouse - Hylas and the Nymphs (1896).jpg|thumb|330px|''[[Hylas and the Nymphs (painting)|Hylas and the Nymphs]]'' (1896) by [[John William Waterhouse]]]]The story of Hylas and the [[nymphs]] is alluded to in Book 3 of [[Edmund Spenser]]'s ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', Canto XII, Stanza 7:

<blockquote><poem>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.</poem></blockquote>

Hylas is also mentioned in [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s play ''[[Edward II (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).

[[Oscar Wilde]] mentions Hylas at least six times in his published works.
In ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', Chapter 11: "...and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as [[Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede]] or Hylas." 
In his sonnet, ''Santa Decca'', lamenting the death of gods: "Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theotherpages.org/poems/2001/wilde0103.html |title=Santa Decca |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |date=1877 |website=Poets' Corner  |publisher= |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref> 
In ''The Garden of Eros'': "There are the flowers which mourning Herakles / Strewed on the tomb of Hylas".<ref>    {{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1057/1057-h/1057-h.htm#page21 |title=Poems, by Oscar Wilde |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |date=1881 |website=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Methuen & Co. |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref> 
In ''Charmides'': 
<blockquote><poem>Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
   ‘It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
   Forgetting Herakles,’<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1057/1057-h/1057-h.htm#page107 |title=Poems, by Oscar Wilde |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |date=1881 |website=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Methuen & Co. |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref></poem></blockquote>
In ''Canzonet'':
<blockquote><poem>Hylas is dead,
Nor will he e’er divine
   Those little red
Rose-petalled lips of thine.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1057/1057-h/1057-h.htm#page233 |title=Poems, by Oscar Wilde |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |date=1881 |website=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Methuen & Co. |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref></poem></blockquote>
In ''Ravenna'':
<blockquote><poem>Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan ...
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1057/1057-h/1057-h.htm#page305 |title=Poems, by Oscar Wilde |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |date=1881 |website=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Methuen & Co. |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref></poem></blockquote>
And in "''De Profundis''" Wilde wrote (to [[Lord Alfred Douglas]]), "I compare you to Hylas, or Hyacinth, Jonquil or Narcisse, or someone whom the great god of Poetry favoured, and honoured with his love."<ref>Wilde, Oscar, ''De Profundis'' quoted in {{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16895/16895-h/16895-h.htm#APPENDIX |title=Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions |last=Harris |first=Frank |date=1916 |website=Project Gutenberg |publisher=self-published |access-date=November 1, 2023 |quote=}}</ref>

Hylas is referred to in Chapter 18 of [[Charles Kingsley]]'s novel ''[[Hypatia (novel)|Hypatia]]'', 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 a poem by [[Madison Cawein]], including the lines "Hylas, the Argonaut, the lad Beloved of Herakles, was I"<ref>    {{cite web |url=https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/madison-julius-cawein/hylas-11937 |title=Hylas |last=Carwein |first=Madison Julius |date= |website=Public Domain Poetry |publisher= |access-date=November 2, 2023 |quote=}}</ref>

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]] adopted these characters in his 1957 non-fiction, philosophical book ''Dialogi'' ([[Dialogs_(Lem)|''Dialogs'']]).<ref>[[:pl:Dialogi#Struktura dzieła]]</ref>

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."

== Cinema ==
Hylas is a character in [[Jason_and_the_Argonauts_(1963_film)|''Jason and the Argonauts'']] (1963), played by [[John Cairney]].

''Hylas und die Nymphen'' (Switzerland, 2013) is an 11-minute short, based on the myth: "The body of a young man ([[:de:Kai Albrecht|Kai Albrecht]]) floats in a lily pond. Three young female suspects (Annina Euling, Lina Hoppe, Magdalena Neuhaus) are found and interrogated - the nymphs of our generation."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2988516/?ref_=tx_sp_sr_3_li_tt |title=Hylas und die Nymphen |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2013 |website=IMDb |publisher= |access-date=November 2, 2023 |quote=}}</ref>

''Hylas'' (USA, 2021) is a four-minute horror short with Benito Borjas-Fitzpatrick as Hylas and Dan O'Reilly as a [[Naiad]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14954934/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk |title=Hylas|author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2021 |website=IMDb |publisher= |access-date=November 2, 2023 |quote=}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Iolaus]]
* [[Lympha#Divine madness|Lympha]]
* ''[[Jason and the Argonauts (1963 film)|Jason and the Argonauts]]''

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Hylas}}
* [[s:Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous|Berkeley's ''Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous'']]
* [[Encyclopædia Britannica]] on [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1363242/Hylas''Hylas'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040322171341/http://www.nd.edu/~frswrite/snite/2003/dittert.shtml ''Hylas in the Classical Style'' by Stefanie E. Dittert, Professor Buttigieg]
* [http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/index.html Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology] on [http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/hylas.html ''Hylas''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425191152/http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/hylas.html |date=2021-04-25 }}
* {{cite wikisource |title=Hylas |wslink=Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Hylas}} Poem by [[Florence Earle Coates]]
{{Clear}}
{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Argonauts]]
[[Category:Male lovers of Heracles]]
[[Category:Characters in the Argonautica]]
[[Category:Mythological Thessalians]]
[[Category:Demigods in classical mythology]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Mythological kidnapped people]]