Hero and Leander

For the Christopher Marlowe poem, seeHero and Leander (poem).For the Leigh Hunt poem, seeHero and Leander (1819 poem).

The Last Watch of HerobyFrederic Leighton,depicting Hero anxiously waiting for Leander during the storm

Hero and Leander(/ˈhiːroʊ/,/liːˈændər/) is theGreek mythrelating the story ofHero(Ancient Greek:Ἡρώ,Hērṓ;[hɛː.rɔ̌ː]), apriestessofAphrodite(Venusin Roman mythology) who dwelt in a tower inSestoson the European side of theHellespont,andLeander(Ancient Greek:Λέανδρος,Léandros;[lé.an.dros]or Λείανδρος), a young man fromAbydoson the opposite side of the strait. Leander falls in love with Hero and swims every night across the Hellespont to spend time with her. Hero lights a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way.

Leander's soft words and charms—and his argument that Aphrodite, as the goddess of love and sex, would scorn the worship of a virgin—convince Hero, and they make love. Their secret love affair lasts through a warm summer, but when winter and its rougher weather looms, they agree to part for the season and resume in the spring. One stormy winter night, however, Leander sees the torch at the top of Hero's tower. He attempts to go to her, but halfway through his swim, a strong winter wind blows out Hero's light, and Leander loses his way and drowns. When Hero sees his dead body, she throws herself off the tower to join him in death. Their bodies wash up on shore together, locked in embrace, and are then subsequently buried in a lover's tomb.

Attestations

Scholarship indicates that the myth is attested in Ovid'sHeroides,inVirgil'sGeorgicsand in poet Mousaios' (or Musaeus') epic poem.

TheDouble Heroides(attributed toOvid) treats the narrative in 18 and 19, an exchange of letters between the lovers. Leander has been unable to swim across to Hero in her tower because of bad weather; her summons to him to make the effort will prove fatal to her lover.

Cultural references

The myth of Hero and Leander has been used extensively in literature and the arts:

In classical antiquity

• Ancient Roman coins ofAbydos(Troas):Septimius Severus,Caracalla

In music

• Arrigo Boitocomposed an opera,Ero e Leandro,but destroyed it. His libretto was later set byGiovanni Bottesini(1879) andLuigi Mancinelli(1897).
• Francisco Quevedomentions Leander in "En crespa tempestad del oro undoso"
• Robert Schumannallegedly perceived his "In der Nacht" fromFantasiestückeas depicting the story of Hero and Leandros.
• Franz Grillparzer's 1831 tragedyDes Meeres und der Liebe Wellenis based on the tale.
• Friedrich Schiller(1759–1805) wrote the balladHero und Leanderbased on the tale.
• Franz Liszt'sBallade No. 2 in B Minorwas most likely inspired bySchillerand otherRomanticistsadaptation and interest in the myth.
• Georg Friedrich Handel's 1707 solo cantata in Italian,Ero e Leandro(HWV 150), is based on the tale.
• Victor Herbertcomposed a tone-poem,Hero and Leander(1901).
• Alfredo Catalanicomposed a tone-poem,Ero e Leandro,based on the tale.
• "The Ballad of the Oysterman", byOliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,has a reference to the myth. The titular oysterman comments that "[he] read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, / Leander swam the Hellespont..."
• Jack Dean & Companyplayed at the Whirligig Festival, Weston-super-Mare, September 12, 2021.

In painting

• Peter Paul Rubenspainted a picture named "Hero and Leander" in1604based on the tale.
• William Ettypainted "Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body" in 1829. He later said he considered the painting the "finest of my fine pictures".
• Cy Twomblycompleted a painting in Rome in 1985 inspired by the story as told byChristopher Marlowe.The painting is entitledHero and Leander (To Christopher Marlowe).
• Evelyn De Morganpainted "Hero Holding the Beacon for Leander" in1885.

In literature

• The 6th-centuryByzantinepoetMusaeusalso wrote a poem;Aldus Manutiusmade it one of his first publications (c. 1493) after he set up his famous printing press in Venice (his humanistic aim was to make Ancient Greek Literature available to scholars). Musaeus's poem had early translations into European languages byBernardo Tasso(Italian),Boscán(Spanish) andClément Marot(French). This poem was widely believed in the Renaissance to have been pre-Homeric:George Chapmanreflects at the end of his completion of Marlowe's version that the dead lovers had the honour of being "the first that ever poet sung". Chapman's 1616 translation has the titleThe divine poem of Musaeus. First of all bookes. Translated according to the original, by Geo: Chapman.Staplyton, the mid-17th century translator, had readScaliger's repudiation of this mistaken belief, but still could not resist citingVirgil's 'Musaeum ante omnes' (AeneidVI, 666) on the title page of his translation (Virgil's reference was to an earlierMusaeus).

Hero laments the dead LeanderbyJan van den Hoecke

• Renaissance poetChristopher Marlowe(1564–1593) began an expansive version of the narrative. His story does not get as far as Leander's nocturnal swim, and the guiding lamp that gets extinguished, but ends after the two have become lovers (Hero and Leander (poem));
• George Chapmancompleted Marlowe's poem after Marlowe's death; this version was often reprinted in the first half of the 17th century, with editions in 1598 (Linley); 1600 and 1606 (Flasket); 1609, 1613, 1617, 1622 (Blount); 1629 (Hawkins); and 1637 (Leake).
• SirWalter Raleigh(c. 1552–1618) alludes to the story, in his "The Ocean's Love to Cynthia", in which Hero has fallen asleep, and fails to keep alight the lamp that guides Leander on his swim (more kindly versions, like Chapman's, have her desperately struggling to keep the lamp burning).
• It is also the subject of a novel byMilorad Pavić,Inner Side of the Wind(1991).
• Leander is also the subject of Sonnet XXIX by Spanish poetGarcilaso de la Vegaof the 16th century;
• John Donne(1572–1631) has anepigramsumming up the story in two lines:

Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground,
Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned.

Hero mourns the dead LeanderbyGillis Backereel

• The myth is central toJohn Keats' 1817 sonnet, "On an Engraved Gem of Leander."
• Myths and Hymns(1998), byAdam Guettel,contains a song entitled after the pair.
• Leigh Hunt's 1819 poemHero and Leanderis based on the myth.
• Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poemLeander and Herofirst appeared in 1823. Significantly, she reversed the usual order of names and used it as an example of mutual constancy.
• Lord Byronreferences Leander in"Written After Swimming From Sestos To Abydos";the myth of Hero and Leander inspired his own swim across the Hellespont (i.e., the Dardanelles) in May, 1810.Byron also alludes to his feat, with further reference to Leander, both inThe Bride of Abydos(1813) and inDon Juan(1819–1824), canto II, stanza 105.
• In Chapter XVII of "Two Years Before the Mast"(1840),Richard Henry Dana Jr.relates an anecdote of the ship's cook, who had so bonded with a sow, "Old Bess", who had stayed aboard the vessel all the first months of the voyage, that after the sow had been taken ashore in San Diego, the cook "could hardly have been more attentive, for he actually, on several nights, after dark, when he thought he would not be seen, sculled himself ashore in a boat with a bucket of nice swill, and returned like Leander from crossing the Hellespont".
• Les Misérables(1862), byVictor Hugo,has a reference to the myth in Jean Valjean, Book V. Referring to the reaction of a duchess when she heard of the fate of her lover who died by drowning in the quicksand in Paris' sewers, Hugo comments that "Hero refuses to wash Leander's corpse."

Hero and LeanderbyPeter Paul Rubens,c. 1604

• In the collection of short stories and essays byLafcadio Hearn,In Ghostly Japan(1899), the author is told the popular story of a girl who swims to her lover guided by a lantern, and he comments on the similarities with the western story: '— "So," I said to myself, "in the Far East, it is poor Hero that does the swimming. And what, under such circumstances, would have been the Western estimate of Leander?" '
• Rudyard Kipling(1865–1936) started his poem "A Song of Travel" with the words: "Where's the lamp that Hero lit / Once to call Leander home?"
• Alfred Tennyson's poem "Hero to Leander" has Hero begging her lover not to leave until the morning when the sea has calmed "Thou shalt not wander hence to-night, I'll stay thee with my kisses"
• Poem XV ofA. E. Housman'sMore Poems(1936) is devoted to the myth.It describes how, "[b]y Sestos town, in Hero's tower / On Hero's heart Leander lies..."
• Diana Wynne Jones's meta-fantasy novelFire and Hemlock(1984) makes an early reference to Hero and Leander, both to foreshadow the plot and as a namesake for the heroine's alter-ego.

In theatre

• Shakespearementions the story in the opening scene ofTwo Gentlemen of Verona,in a dialogue between Valentine and Proteus (the two gentlemen in the play):

VALENTINE: And on a love-book pray for my success?

PROTEUS: Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.

VALENTINE: That's on some shallow story of deep love: How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.

PROTEUS: That's a deep story of a deeper love: For he was more than over shoes in love.

VALENTINE: 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love, And yet you never swum the Hellespont.

• Hero and Leander are again mentioned inThe Two Gentlemen of Veronain Act III Scene I when Valentine is tutoring the Duke of Milan on how to woo the lady from Milan. Shakespeare also alludes to the story inMuch Ado About Nothing,both when Benedick states that Leander was "never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love" and in the name of the character Hero, who, despite accusations to the contrary, remains chaste before her marriage; and inA Midsummer Night's Dreamin the form of amalapropismaccidentally using the names Helen and Limander in the place of Hero and Leander, as well as inEdward III(Act II, Scene II),Othello(Act III, Scene III), andRomeo and Juliet(Act II, Scene IV). The most famous Shakespearean allusion is the debunking one by Rosalind, in Act IV scene I ofAs You Like It:

"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 coroners 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."

• Ben Jonson's playBartholomew Fair(1614) features a puppet show of Hero and Leander in Act V, translated to London, with the Thames serving as the Hellespont between the lovers.
• Dion Boucicaultmentions Leander in his playThe Colleen Bawn(1860). Corrigan refers to Hardress Cregan and his nocturnal boat-rides to his secret wife as being "like Leander, barring the wetting".
• Thesong cycleMyths and Hymns,composed byAdam Guettel,references the myth in the seventh song of the cycle, "Hero and Leander".

In folkloristics

Infolkloristics,the myth of lovers Hero and Leander becomes theAarne-Thompson-Uthertale type ATU 666*, "Hero and Leander".

Variants of the tale are also attested in Japan, where they appear as a local legends. In Hiroko Ikeda's index of Japanese folktales, the type is known asTarai-bune no Momoyo Gayoi.Philologist and folkloristJulian Krzyżanowski,establisher of the Polish Folktale Catalogue according to the international index, located variants of the lovers' myth in Poland, which he classified as T 667, "Hero i Leander" ( "Hero and Leander" ).

The myth seems to have inspired a literary version by Italian authorGiovanni Francesco Straparolain his workThe Facetious Nights of Straparola.

Child balladnumber 216 can be read as a variant.

Contemporary references

• There have been six ships of theRoyal NavynamedHMS Leanderwith battle honors at theNile,Algiers,Crimea,and theKula Gulf.
• LMS express steam locomotive 5690 is named "Leander", named after the ship "HMS Leander". It was built in 1936 and has survived into preservation, and still operates on the main line in Britain.
• Numerous private ships have been named forLeander,including that of SirDonald Gosling,whose yachtLeander Gwas chartered by the royal family following the decommissioning of the royal yachtBritannia.
• There have been numerous ships namedHero,although it's unclear if they were named for Leander'sHero,or the classical definition of one who doesheroicdeeds. However the 1970s television drama seriesWarshipspecifically identifies its fictionalHMS Hero,aLeander-class frigate,in honor of Leander'sHero.
• The story is mentioned in the season 1 episode ofBridgertonentitled "Oceans Apart". Colin describes his love for Marina as like that of Hero and Leander, Daphne reminds him of the ending of the tale.

Further reading

• Gómez Garrido, Luis Miguel (2021). «Fuegos En La Noche Y Amores Contrariados: Entre El Mito De Hero Y Leandro Y El Cuento Oral ATU 666*». In:Boletín De Literatura Oral11 (julio): 103-16.Fuegos en la noche y amores contrariados: Entre el mito de Hero y Leandro y el cuento oral ATU 666*.
• Jech, Jaromír."Hero und Leander (AaTh 666*)" [Hero and Leander (ATU 666*)]. In:Enzyklopädie des MärchensBand 6: Gott und Teufel auf Wanderschaft – Hyltén-Cavallius. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Lutz Röhrich; Rudolf Schenda. De Gruyter, 2016 [1990].ISBN978-3-11-011763-9.
• Minchin, Elizabeth. "Mapping the Hellespont with Leander and Hero: ‘The Swimming Lover and the Nightly Bride’". In: Greta Hawes (ed.).Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. pp. 65–82.ISBN9780198744771.doi:10.1093/oso/9780198744771.003.0005
• Montiglio, Silvia.The Myth of Hero and Leander: The History and Reception of an Enduring Greek Legend.Library of Classical Studies, 19. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2018.ISBN9781784539566.
• Montiglio, Silvia.Musaeus' Hero and Leander: Introduction, Greek Text, Translation and Commentary.Routledge, 2020.ISBN9780815353249.
• Oliver Murdoch, Brian.The Reception of the Legend of Hero and Leander.Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 27 May. 2019.ISBN978-90-04-40094-8.doi:10.1163/9789004400948

External links

• Media related toHero and Leanderat Wikimedia Commons
• Hero and Leander,full text
• Annotated text of Marlowe's poem with illustrationsArchived2021-05-01 at theWayback Machine
• "Hero. A priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos.".New International Encyclopedia.1905.
• "Leander and Hero", by L. E. L., 1823.
• The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Hero and Leander)