Hylas

Definition and stakes

Portrait of Padraic Colum Padraic Colum,  The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles

“ Know, first, that Hylas has been taken by the nymphs who love him and who think to win his love, and that he will stay forever with them in their cold and glimmering cave. For Hylas seek no more. And to you, Heracles, I will say this: Go aboard the Argo again; the ship will take you to where a great labor awaits you, and which, in accomplishing, you will work out the will of Zeus. You will know what this labor is when a spirit seizes on you. ”
Source: Gutenberg

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)

“ Ever afterwards, in memory of the threat of Heracles to ravage the land if Hylas were not found, the inhabitants of Kios every year on a stated day roamed the mountains, shouting aloud for Hylas (Apollonius Rhodius i. 1207; Theocritus xiii.; Strabo xii. 564; Propertius i. 20; Virgil, Ecl. vi. 43) . But, although the legend is first told in Alexandrian times, the “cry of Hylas” occurs long before as the “Mysian cry” in Aeschylus (Persae, 1054) , and in Aristophanes (Plutus, 1127) “to cry Hylas” is used proverbially of seeking something in vain. ”
Source: Wikisource

Various,  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2…

“ And yet here lies a withered crown she wove once for Hylas; and here she finds at last the dart she lost for him, when she drew his bow in play. Now she sees on the shore at Athos an assembly of the people, and the men push off their boats. The village is already alive, and awake. The rising of the sun is looked for, and the clouds are like a golden fleece. ”
Source: Gutenberg

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