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In Greek mythology
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopia
Dryopia

The Dryopians were a tribe of ancient Greece. According to Herodotus, they had once lived in a place called Dryopia, later known as Doris . They were driven out by the Malians , some of the refugees making their way to Ermioni....
ns. Other sources such as Ovid
Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
 state that Hylas' father was Heracles
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
 and his mother was the nymph Melite
Melite

Melite was one of the naiads, daughter of the river god Aegaeus, and one of the many loves of Zeus and his son Hercules. Given the choice, she chose Hercules over Zeus who went off in search of other pursuits....
, or that his mother was the wife of Theiodamus, whose adulterous affair with Heracles caused the war between him and her husband.






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John William Waterhouse Hylas and the Nymphs (1896)
In Greek mythology
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopia
Dryopia

The Dryopians were a tribe of ancient Greece. According to Herodotus, they had once lived in a place called Dryopia, later known as Doris . They were driven out by the Malians , some of the refugees making their way to Ermioni....
ns. Other sources such as Ovid
Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
 state that Hylas' father was Heracles
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
 and his mother was the nymph Melite
Melite

Melite was one of the naiads, daughter of the river god Aegaeus, and one of the many loves of Zeus and his son Hercules. Given the choice, she chose Hercules over Zeus who went off in search of other pursuits....
, or that his mother was the wife of Theiodamus, whose adulterous affair with Heracles caused the war between him and her husband. He gained his beauty from his divine mother and his military prowess from his demigod
Demigod

The term "demigod", meaning "half-god", is used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human. Demi-gods include the Celtic hero C?chulainn, Gilgamesh, and Heracles....
 father.

After Heracles killed Theiodamus in battle for his son, Hylas, he took the boy on as arms bearer, and taught him to be a warrior.

Argonauts

Heracles took Hylas with him on the Argo
Argo

In Greek mythology, the Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece....
, making him one of the Argonauts
Argonauts

In Greek mythology, the Argonauts were a band of heroes who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece....
. Hylas was kidnapped by the nymph of the spring of Pegae, (Dryope
Dryope

In Greek mythology, Dryope was the daughter of Dryops or of Eurytus . She was sometimes thought of as one of the Pleiades . There are two stories of her Shapeshifting into a black poplar....
), that fell in love with him in Mysia
Mysia

Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north....
 and vanished without a trace (Apollonius Rhodios). This upset Heracles greatly, so he along with Polyphemus (not the cyclops with the same name) searched for a long time. The ship set sail without them. They never found Hylas because he had fallen in love with the nymphs and remained "to share their power and their love." (Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus

Gaius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman Empire poet who flourished in the "Silver Age of Latin literature" under the emperors Vespasian and Titus and wrote a Latin Argonautica that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic....
, Argonautica)

Other uses


"Hylas" is also the name of one of the two characters in George Berkeley
George Berkeley

George Berkeley , also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Irish people philosopher. His primary philosophical achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" ....
's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is a book written by George Berkeley in 1713.Three important concepts discussed in the Three Dialogues are perception relativity, the conceivability/master argument , and Berkeley's phenomenalism....
. He represents the materialist position against which Berkeley (through Philonous) argues. In this context, the name is derived from ???, the classical Greek term for "matter."

Hylas is mentioned in Christopher Marlowe's 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).

Spoken-word myths - audio files


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