Hylas (John Cairney) and Hercules (Nigel Green) inside the Talos treasure in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS
Ruh roh! They just woke up Talos.
In Greek mythology, Hylas and Hercules were, hmm, you know...more than friends...of course, this family film didn't show this angle. Aha!
As my main subject in high school was Latin, we also studied the cultures of ancient Rome and Greece. It seemed that among young guys, the prospect of being the lover of a famous hero wasn't at all an odd consideration. Quite the contrary; relationships such as the one between Hercules and Hylas, or Achilles and Patroclus were looked upon as sublime and beautiful. But in films, I think Barry Purves stop-motion animation "Achilles" is the only exploration of the gay love life of a classic hero.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've had absolutely no use for my training in classic Latin! We used to repeat this verse, to sum up our feelings for the subject:
The Latin language is dead,
As dead as it can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it's killing me!
We had a shorter version (which I do *not* agree with!):
ReplyDeleteLatin's as dead as an old oak tree.
It killed the Romans and it's killing me.
--gpm