Hylonome was a female centaur

Centaur

In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...

 in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

. She was present at the battle against the Lapiths, where she lost her husband, the centaur Cyllarus

Cyllarus

Cyllarus was a centaur in Greek mythology. He was handsome and valiant, and dearly loved his centaur wife Hylonome. He participated in the battle against the Lapiths and was fatally wounded by a spear. He died in the arms of his beloved wife, who then took her own life shortly afterwards to join him....

, whom she loved very much. Heartbroken, she then took her own life to join him.

The Centaur lovers' episodic digression and their "ideally mutual relationship", within Nestor's narration of the Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs in Met. 12. Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, alludes to two didactic poems, Lucretius

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...

' De Rerum Natura and Ovid's own Ars Amatoria III. In the Cyllarus-Hylonome interlude he explores hybridity

Hybridity

Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture...

 itself illustrating the relationships and "possible combinations of a number of conceptual opposites: natura and cultus, human and animal, male and female, love and war, and the contrasting values of lyric-elegiac and epic poetry

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

".