The Beginning of Hero and Leander

I write today of my love of the mythical story of Hero and Leander, a tale having roots in Ovid and in a work by Musaeus Grammaticus writing in Greek sometime in the fifth century of our era. The "beginning" marks only this, my own start, to a series on the literature of this love legend.

Hero, a priestess to Venus, is sublimely beautiful, who had maintained her chaste ways until Leander challenged her sacred virginity. Hero and Leander lived in towns on opposite sides of the Hellespont, the strait that separates the seas of the Aegean and the Black. Leander fell deeply in love with Hero and, each day after dusk fell, he swam to Hero's tower to be with his beloved every night of a glorious summer. Hero had lit a lamp that shone light in the night like a lighthouse to guide Leander's arduous swim to her side. Winter brought rough seas and Hero's lamp still shone for Leander, but the wind blew out her light and Leander lost his way and drowned, his body washing ashore at the foot of her tower. When she saw his lifeless form strewn on the rocks, she tore off her clothing and leapt to her death beside her one true love.

The legend of Hero and Leander flowed like sweet nectar from the quill of Christopher Marlowe, the great Elizabethan playwright and poet, who fashioned perhaps the finest epyllion (an epic poem of short length) ever written, which was published after his tragic death at the hands of a murderer. Alas, Marlowe did not complete "Hero and Leander"; so what we have is a fragment, which I will have something to say in a future blog. Marlowes' great poem has been often compared and contrasted with Shakespeare's great work of the same genre, "Venus and Adonis".

For now I would like to post two poems relevant to this love legend. The first is by Musaeus Grammaticus, translated by John Addington Symonds in 1879. The second is by George Gordon, Lord Byron, who swam the Hellespont in 1810, not for love, but for glory.

Hero and Leander

Tell, goddess, of the lamp, which was the confidant of secret loving, and of the youth who swam by night to wed across the sea; and of his dark marriage upon which no dawn ever shone.
Sestus and Abydus are divided by the sea, but Eros united them with an arrow which struck the fair Hero and Leander. Leander lived at Abydus, and Hero at Sestus, where she dwelt in a tower outside the town with one old servant. Hero ministered to Aphrodite and to her son Eros. Yet even so she did not avoid the boy's shafts, for at a festival of Adonis she met Leander, and they fell in love with one another. In the early evening twilight they stood like beautiful shapes carved upon a relief, and Hero listened to Leander's pleas, and was persuaded. She told him of her home, and he vowed to swim to her by night; she must light a lamp to guide his journey.
They prayed for night to fall, and when it was dark and the lamp shone out, he came to her.
His skin she bathed, and anointed his body fragrantly
With oil of roses, to take away the harsh tang of the sea;
Then in her bed, piled deep with rugs, laid him to rest,
Still breathing hard, and drew him with fond words to her breast-
"Ah love so sorely tried as never lover yet,
O dear and sore-tried love, the bitter waves forget !
Forget the booming breakers, the harsh, fish-reeking brine,
And rest thy weary body within these arms of mine !"
He hearkened, then her girdle he loosened, and the will
Of glorious-hearted Cypris they turned them to fulfil.
A bridal it was where no man danced; no voice of minstrel praised
Hera, Queen of Wedlock; no marriage-hymn was raised.
Round that marriage-bed no torches filled the night with flame,
No revellers light-footed whirling about them came,
Their bridal-song no father and well-loved mother led-
Nay, in Love's crowning hour 'twas Silence strewed their bed
And shut their marriage-chamber;'twas Darkness decked the bride,
And night that gave them blessing.
And so they made love through many summer nights.
But when winter came, and the sea grew stormy, Hero ought to have refrained from lighting her lamp. Yet love and destiny compelled her, and the fatal night arrived. Leander struggled with the waves, but his strength failed him- and Hero's lamp was blown out by the wind. When the grey morning dawned, he still had not reached her tower.
Everywhere over the sea's wide plains with straining eyes
She searched for sight of him, lest perchance his way was lost
When the light of her lamp was gone. And when she saw him dead,
Torm by the rocks and lying at her tower's foundation,
About her breast she tore the wondrous woven mantle
And from the sheer crag plunged in hurtling headlong fall
To find with her dead love a death among the waves
And the joy of love together in life's last separation.

Now here is Byron's poem on his triumphal swim across the storied strait.

If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat today.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo -and -Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
'Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I've the ague.

Here are links to the above two works:
http://www.nzscribble.net/ancmusaeus.html
http://www.thewordtravels.com/byrononswimmingthehellespont.html