Hero and Leander

“ This news she sent Leander in a letter all blotted with tears, which made him for sometime like a man beside himself, but resolving to hazard all for his mistress, he concluded to appear like himself, and so in the most rich attire, which he sent for out of Greece, he appeared one of the most goodly persons that had ever been seen at the court; so that all admired who this stranger should be, till Hero’s father one day casting his eyes upon him as he passed by, ran to him with tears in his eyes, crying out, O my deliverer and good angel, have I found you again! ”

“ HERO AND LEANDER, two lovers celebrated in antiquity. Hero, the beautiful priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen by Leander, a youth of Abydos, at the celebration of the festival of Aphrodite and Adonis. He became deeply enamoured of her; but, as her position as priestess and the opposition of her parents rendered their marriage impossible they agreed to carry on a clandestine intercourse. Every night Hero placed a lamp in the top of the tower where she dwelt by the sea, and Leander, guided by it, swam across the dangerous Hellespont. ”

“ How Leander won a rich diamond in a tournament, which he presents to Hero, with a letter in it manifesting his love; and overthrew a great many men that lay in ambush to take his life. Hero being pretty well come to herself, made a strict enquiry after her deliverer, and when she was told he had secretly withdrawn himself, her eyes could not refrain from tears, that she had not a convenient opportunity to thank him for her deliverance ”

“ Drowns poor Leander. Hero's eyes,
Wet witnesses of his surprise,
Her torch blown out: grief casts her down
Upon her love, and both doth drown.
In whose just ruth the God of Seas
Transforms them to th' Acanthides.
↑ With art do stir, &c. edit. 1637.
HERO AND LEANDER.
THE SIXTH SESTYAD.
No longer could the Day nor Destinies
Delay the Night, who now did frowning rise
Into her throne; and at her humorous breasts,
Visions and Dreams lay sucking: all men's rests
Fell like the mists of death upon their eyes,
Day's too long darts so kill'd their faculties. ”

“ Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies. Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ORLANDO.
I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for I protest her frown might kill me. ”

“ Leander can sometimes vanquish his Hero in fair fight by the weapons of good logic, because she is a woman capable of appreciating reason, and able to feel the force of the considerations he adduces; and when he does vanquish and carry her captive by his bow and spear, he feels that he has gained a victory over no ignoble antagonist, and he becomes a hero in his own eyes. ”

“ League in discordant union, and the Deep
Rouse to fierce conflict; inauspicious hour,
Leander nought regards thee, all his soul
Pants for the well-known joys, once more the Main
Bears its devoted burden; wave on wave
Dashes, his mountains angry Neptune heaves
Ev'n to the foot of Jove, the tempests shake
Creation's wide domain; the surly East
Wars with the Western blast, the ruder North
Blows havock on the South, the mingled roar
Of thunder bellows thro' the mad profound.
⁠Whelm'd in the gulph, and toss'd from surge to surge,
What pangs were thine, Leander! ”

“ Leander being myself, I still retain it:
We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever,
But bound as we are, we live loosely never.
Two constant lovers being join'd in one,
Yielding to one another, yield to none.
We know not how to vow, till love unblind us,
And vows made ignorantly never bind us;—
Too true it is, that when 'tis gone men hate
The joys as vain they took in love's estate:
But that's, since they have lost the heavenly light
Should show them way to judge of all things right.
When life is gone, death must implant his terror,
As death is foe to life, so love to error. ”

“ Love with one arrow scorched a virgin there, And here a youth; the fairest Hero she, The handsome bachelor, Leander, he. Stars of their cities, but resembling each The other. Sestos keeps her memory Where Hero's lamp was wont his way to teach, And for Leander moans Abydos' sullen beach. ”

“ Who-e'er thou art, that hither bend'st thy way,
Oh! for a while the pleasing coast survey!
This, this the tow'r, whence the kind light did guide
The swimming lover to his Sestian bride:
That the fam'd Hellespont, he nightly crost,
Which still in murmurs groans Leander lost.
But haste we love's soft triumphs to relate,
From the first dawnings to its ripen'd state:
And whence the youth so passionate became,
And how the nymph glow'd with as fierce a flame. ”

“ At length Hero resolved, that if she could not gain her father’s consent, she would without farther delay marry Leander, and pass over into Greece with him; but just as these thoughts filled her breast, her father came to charge her to entertain Altemansor’s love, laying before her the advantage of such an alliance, the power and riches of that prince, &c., but she answered him with tears and entreaties, that she might not have a man she could not love; this put the old man in a great rage, protesting not only to disown her, but disinherit her for ever, if she disobeyed him. ”

“ The earnest wooing of Leander was assisted by the boy-god, and Hero, won by his passionate pleading, and by a love as strong as it was sudden, consented to become his bride.
—————————"How more than sweet,
That moment, as he knelt at Hero's feet,
Breathing his passion in each thrilling word,
Only by lovers said, and lovers heard."
L. E. L.
Before they parted, she told him of her place of abode over the broad Hellespont, which he must cross, ere he could enjoy her society, and pointed out the spot to which he should look at night for a torch to guide his way. ”

“ She held, being object to Leander's sight,
That nought but fires perfum'd must give it light.
She lov'd it so, she griev'd to see it burn,
Since it would waste and soon to ashes turn:
Yet if it burn'd not, 'twere not worth her eyes,
What made it nothing, gave it all the prize.
Sweet torch! true glass of our society;
What man does good, but he consumes thereby?
But thou wert lov'd for good, held high, given show:
Poor virtue loath'd for good, obscur'd, held low.
Do good be pined, be deedless good, disgrac'd:
Unless we feed on men, we let them fast. ”

“ Leander hangs
Gazing her charms intranc'd, he cannot quit
The fascinating object; the warm blush
Melts on her cheek, as dew-drops on the rose,
While bursts the silver note from Hero's tongue.
'Say, lovely Youth, what means the magic voice,
'Whose sound would soften adamant? What Pow'r
'Taught the commanding accent? Stranger, speak,
'Whence first thy course to Sestos? but in vain
'Thy eloquence of love; seducing Youth,
'Would'st thou unknown aspire to Hero's arms,
'To wishes, thou can'st never taste? The torch
'Of Hymen, if thy Hero yield her hand,
'Beams with no parent's favor ”

“ Till love is quench’d in Neptune’s waves.
Having thus said, Leander seemed to embrace her and she him, very tenderly and with ardent affection, when a great sea of water seemed to flow into the place on a sudden, and parted them; at which she started, between sleep and wake cried at in a fright, O my Leander! my love, how or where have I lost you? and so awoke with rosy blushes on her cheeks, and tears in her eyes, and being told of this by Amorissa, she could no longer deny her love, whereupon she promised her best assistance, which she faithfully performed, as will hereafter appear. ”

“ At length her father resolved to marry her to Altemansor’s brother within three days, though she opposed it with her tears and prayers, to prevent a war, and to atone for his brother’s death. This fatal decree possessed Hero with mortal fears; so that she seeing no hope but either to destroy herself, or be forced into the arms of a man she hated, for Leander’s proffered aid, in case of war, would not be accepted by her father, she consented that the next night he should come with a small ship to fetch her and Amorissa with all her jewels and treasures into Greece. ”

“ Leander has hitherto been only anxious to possess her for his own. Hero, as soon as she perceives that he has won the fight, bethinks her with a woman's wisdom of ways and means. Who is the strange man to whom she must abandon herself in wedlock ”

“ These men planted themselves in a wood he was to pass, and when he came opposite them, they all rushed out upon him with their drawn swords, and gave him a furious assault; but he who was never used to fear, drew his trusty sword that had never failed him, and laid about him so furiously, that in a very short time he sent eleven of them to keep company with the dead, while he that remained, fell on his knees and begged his life, which he generously gave him, upon his confessing who employed them; on hearing which, Leander could not but wonder how any nobleman could be guilty of such baseness ”

“ Marlow, the Muses' darling for thy verse,
Fit to write passions for the souls below."
Henry Petowe published what he calls a second part of the Hero and Leander, in 1598, and in the following passages exceeds all his eulogists in panegyric, though his verses are homely.
"Marlow admir'd, whose honey-flowing vein
No English writer can as yet attain.
Whose name, in Fame's immortal treasury,
Truth shall record to endless memory.
Marlow, late mortal, now framed all divine,
What soul more happy, than this soul of thine? ”

“ A brow for love to banquet royally;
And such as knew he was a man, would say,
“Leander, thou art made for amorous play.
Why art thou not in love, and loved of all?
Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.” ”

“ For when its flame expires, I breathe my last.
What more?———Leander is the name I bear,
And only to be thy Leander swear.
Thus did the youthful pair resolve to know
From mutual love what mighty pleasures flow;
Secret they fix'd the place, the time to meet;
(For sweetest joys, if stoll'n, are doubly sweet)
When ebbing darkness seem'd to bid adieu,
And both unwilling by constraint withdrew.
She to her tow'r fled swifter than the wind,
The careful lover wisely stay'd behind ”

“ In a criticism, which is thought to bear strong traces of the hand of Milton, Marlow is styled "a kind of second Shakspeare, not only because like him he rose from an actor to be a maker of plays, though inferior both in fame and merit; but also because in his begun poem of Hero and Leander, he seems to have a resemblance that clean and unsophisticated wit, which is natural to that incomparable poet [14] ." ”

“ This woman being of a ready and quick understanding, found by the young lady’s often changing colour, and sometimes hearing a sigh escape when she spoke of Leander, that she had more than ordinary concern for him, resolving to dive more deeply into her thoughts, she urged her many times to know why she so earnestly enquired into the fame and welfare of his person above all others? ”

“ Their married life is not what they expected; at times they are startled by the reflection that they nave somehow grown unlovely to each other; and yet, if Leander goes away to pass a week, and thinks of his Hero in the distance, he can compare no other woman to her; and the days seem long and the house empty to Hero while he is gone ”

“ When the princess read this letter, she was transported with joy and called Amorissa to consult what was best to be done, and it was agreed between them that Amorissa should go in search of him with the following letter.
Sir, though you are a stranger with whom I never had any conversation, yet the fame of Leander’s virtues and renowned deeds, which have taken up the discourse of all the world, cannot. you may well imagine but have reached the ears of Hero, and created in her an esteem worthy of so deserving a person ”

“ Critical doubts have likewise arisen, with respect to the probability of Leander's 'watry excursion'—The latter must be determined by the distance. However practicable the Knight, or rather Night Errantry, I am contented to admire the Fable, as a sacrifice to the prevalence of Love, which is well known to remove (at least to attempt it) obstacles of the most forbiding aspect. Those, who wish to give the same air of ease to the present, which has been more recently experienced to attend Love-expeditions, may reduce at will the limits of the Hellespont to those of the Tweed ”

“ There is in all the Elizabethan writers a wonderful exuberance and display of mental riches: they give full measure, heaped, and running over.—"They mingle every thing," says that choice critic Lamb, "run line into line, embarrass sentences and metaphors. The judgment is perfectly overwhelmed with the confluence of images," &c. These general remarks apply to the particular case before us. Taken as a whole, Marlow's "Hero and Leander contains much to blame, but, considered by sections, more out of all proportion to praise. ”

“ Under whose shade the wood gods love to be.
And in the midst a silver altar stood.
There Hero, sacrificing turtle’s blood,
Vailed to the ground, vailing her eyelids close,
And modestly they opened as she rose.
Thence flew Love’s arrow with the golden head,
And thus Leander was enamoured.
Stone still he stood, and evermore he gazed
Till with the fire that from his countenance blazed
Relenting Hero’s gentle heart was strook.
Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate. ”