Idyll 13

13. Hylas Not for us alone, as we used to think,

Nicias, was Love begotten, by whichever of the gods he came as a child.

Not to us first do fair things appear fair,

who are mortal and cannot see the morrow;

but the bronze-hearted son of Amphitryon too,

who withstood the savage lion, loved a boy,

the graceful Hylas, who still wore his hair in a braid;

and he taught him everything, as a father teaches a dear son,

all that he had learned to make himself good and famous;

and never apart from him would he be, neither when midday rose,

nor when white-horsed Dawn ran up to the house of Zeus,

nor when the twittering nestlings looked toward their roost,

their mother fluttering her wings on the smoke-stained rafter,

so that the boy might be trained to his own heart's mind,

and, well drawn on, might turn out a true man at his side.

But when Jason, son of Aeson, sailed after the golden

fleece, and the chiefs followed him,

chosen out of all the cities, men of some worth,

then the man of much-enduring toil came too to rich Iolcus,

the son of Alcmena, the heroine of Midea,

and with him Hylas went down to the well-benched Argo,

the ship that did not touch the dark Clashing Rocks

but darted clear through—and ran into deep Phasis—

like an eagle, into the great gulf; and from that time they stood fast as reefs.

When the Pleiades are rising, and the upland fields

pasture the young lamb, and the spring has already turned,

then the divine flower of heroes took thought of sailing,

and seating themselves in the hollow Argo

they came to the Hellespont with the south wind blowing on the third day,

and set their mooring within the Propontis, where the oxen

of the Cianians widen the furrows and wear the ploughshares smooth.

Going ashore upon the beach, by their thwarts they made their meal

at evening, and many of them spread one common bed of leaves.

For a meadow lay before them, a great help for couches,

whence they cut sharp sedge and deep galingale.

And golden Hylas went to fetch water for the supper

for Heracles himself and steadfast Telamon,

who being comrades always shared one table,

carrying a bronze pitcher. And soon he saw a spring

in a low-lying place; and about it grew many rushes,

dark celandine and green maidenhair,

and flourishing celery and creeping marsh-grass.

In the midst of the water the Nymphs were forming their dance,

the sleepless Nymphs, dread goddesses to country folk,

Eunica and Malis and Nycheia with the spring in her eyes.

Now the boy was holding out his roomy jar to the water,

eager to dip it, when they all clung to his hand;

for love of the Argive boy had stirred the tender hearts

of all of them; and he fell headlong into the dark water,

all at once, as when a fiery star falls from the sky

all at once, into the sea, and some sailor says to his comrades:

Lighten your tackle, boys; the wind is fair for sailing.

And the Nymphs, holding the boy weeping upon their knees,

soothed him with gentle words.

But the son of Amphitryon, troubled for the boy,

went off, taking his well-bent Maeotian bow

and the club that his right hand always grasped.

Three times he called Hylas, as loud as his deep throat could roar;

three times the boy answered, but his voice came thin

from the water, and though close at hand he seemed very far.

And as when a maned lion, hearing from afar,

a flesh-eating lion in the hills, a fawn's cry,

hastens from his lair to a meal most ready;

so Heracles, among the trackless thorns,

longing for the boy, was driven distracted, and ranged over much ground.

Wretched are lovers; how much he suffered wandering

over mountains and thickets, and all Jason's affairs came second to this.

The ship lay with her tackle aloft, manned by those who were present,

and the demigods at midnight were clearing the sails,

waiting for Heracles. But he went where his feet led him

in his frenzy; for a cruel god gnawed his liver within.

So fairest Hylas is numbered among the blessed;

but the heroes taunted Heracles for deserting the ship,

because he abandoned the thirty-benched Argo,

and on foot came to the Colchians and inhospitable Phasis.