Hylas

Young squire and beloved companion of Heracles, who carried the hero's club and bow on the Argonautic voyage. When the Argo put in at Mysia to cut a new oar for Heracles, Hylas went into the woods with a pitcher to draw water from a hidden spring; the nymph of the spring saw him in the torchlight, threw her arms around his neck, and drew him under. Heracles searched the whole Mysian forest through the night calling his name, and so fell behind the Argo and was left on that shore — the cause of his leaving the voyage (Apollonius *Argonautica* 1.1207-1272; Theocritus *Idyll* 13).