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Updated: June 15, 2025
She gazed intently down among the pines, where Hylas had disappeared, and painfully and slowly began to descend. The wild-eyed hares glanced at her and shrank into concealment again. The birds uttered cries of alarm, and the motionless lizards lay close to her feet.
And he charmed back again her innocent smiles, with noble traditions of kings, of gods, and of heroes, till the round moon stood above Gargarus, cold, in a rose-tinted heaven. But again at sunrise the child sought the spot to bring a basket, heavy with gifts, for Hylas.
Leaving him to his lament, the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda.
Happy is he that judges those kisses of the children; surely he prays most earnestly to bright-faced Ganymedes, that his lips may be as the Lydian touchstone wherewith the money-changers try gold lest, perchance base metal pass for true. As in the eleventh Idyl, Nicias is again addressed, by way of introduction to the story of Hylas.
This is a truly demonic picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part of its unanalysable charm may be due to the bold thought of combining the beauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of martyrdom. Only the Renaissance could have produced a hybrid so successful, because so deeply felt.
No sooner did Hercules put it on, than his veins were filled with agony, which nothing could assuage. He tried to tear off the robe, but the skin and flesh came with it, and his blood was poisoned beyond relief. He sailed home, and when Deianira saw the state he was in she hung herself for grief, while he charged Hylas, his eldest son, to take care of Iole, and marry her as soon as he grew up.
The hands of the nymphs clasped Hylas tighter, tighter; the water bubbled around him as they drew him down. Down, down they drew him, and into the cold and glimmering cave where they live. There Hylas stayed. But although the nymphs kissed him and sang to him, and showed him lovely things, Hylas was not content to be there.
"I struck it," he said, while he pointed to its broken wing and bleeding breast, "when it alighted on the edge of a stone fallen from the temple." Evadne concealed her ready tears and uttered no reproach against her hero; but she pressed the dead bird to her bosom. "Tell me, Hylas," she asked, "do you worship this god before us, or that of the Christians?" The boy laughed gayly.
Now first, now they learned Their bolder steerage over ocean wave, Led by the golden stars, as Chiron's art Had marked the sphere celestial." Hercules left the expedition at Mysia, for Hylas, a youth beloved by him, having gone for water, was laid hold of and kept by the nymphs of the spring, who were fascinated by his beauty.
Help, Apollo!" But the remonstrances and struggles of Hylas unavailing: The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water Pleading for help; but heaven's immortal archer; Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead; And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated, So warm and silky that the stream upbore them, Closing reluctant as he sank forever.
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