Hylas

Hylas, a young figure in classical mythology, was the companion and servant of Heracles (known to the Romans as Hercules). His story centers on his abduction by water nymphs, a scene frequently depicted in ancient art and later a lasting subject in Western classical art.

In Greek myth, Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopians and the nymph Menodice, daughter of Orion. Other accounts name his father as Heracles, Euphemus, or King Ceyx of Trachis.

After Heracles killed Theiodamas in battle, he took Hylas as his arms-bearer and trained him as a warrior. The poet Theocritus, writing around 270–260 BC, described the love between them, noting that Heracles taught Hylas all that had made him strong and famous.

Heracles brought Hylas aboard the Argo, making him one of the Argonauts. In Mysia, Naiads of the spring of Pegae fell in love with Hylas and kidnapped him, pulling him into the water as he cried out. Heracles and Polyphemus searched for him for a long time, but the ship eventually sailed without them. In Valerius Flaccus’s Latin *Argonautica*, Hylas never returned because he fell in love with the nymphs and stayed. Apollonios Rhodius wrote that the sea-god Glaucus told the Argonauts a nymph had made Hylas her husband. Later sources added that the nymphs silenced his cries by shutting his mouth underwater. Antoninus Liberalis claimed the nymphs transformed him into an echo that repeated Hylas's own cry.

After the Argonautica, one Argonaut, Cius or Polyphemus, returned to the place of the abduction and founded the city of Cius, later renamed Prusias by Prusias I. The geographer Strabo noted that the Prusians still celebrated a festival where they marched in procession, calling Hylas’s name as if searching for him in the forests.

The story appears in literature: Edmund Spenser’s *The Faerie Queene*, Christopher Marlowe’s *Edward II*, and multiple works by Oscar Wilde, including *The Picture of Dorian Gray* and his sonnet “Santa Decca.” Charles Kingsley’s novel *Hypatia* references Hylas, as does Madison Cawein’s poem “Hylas.” George Berkeley used the name Hylas for a character in his *Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous*, deriving it from the Greek word for “matter.” Stanisław Lem adopted these characters in his book *Dialogi*. Thomas Hardy’s *Far from the Madding Crowd* also alludes to the myth.