_HERO AND LEANDER._
Virgil's Mention of this Tale.--Ovid and Statius.--Autumnal
Poetry.--Confusion between the Mythical Musæus and the
Grammarian.--The Introduction of the Poem.--Analysis of
the Story.--Hallam's Judgment on Marlowe's _Hero and
Leander_.--Comparison of Marlowe and Musæus.--Classic and
Romantic Art.
Quid juvenis, magnum cui versat in ossibus ignem
Durus amor? Nempe abruptis turbata procellis
Nocte natat cæca serus freta; quem super ingens
Porta tonat cæli, et scopulis inlisa reclamant
Æquora; nec miseri possunt revocare parentes,
Nec moritura super crudeli funere virgo.[253]
This is the first allusion to a story, rather Roman than Greek, which
was destined to play an important part in literature. The introduction
of the fable without names into a poem like the third Georgic shows,
however, that the pathetic tale of Hero and Leander's love had already
found familiar representation in song or sculpture or wall-painting
before Virgil touched it with the genius that turned all it touched
to gold. Ovid went further, and placed the maiden of Sestos among
the heroines for whom he wrote rhetorical epistles in elegiac verse.
In Statius, again, we get a glimpse of the story translated from
the sphere of romance into the region of antique mythology. To the
hero Admetus, Adrastus gives a mantle dyed with Tyrian purple, and
embroidered with Leander's death. There flows the Hellespont; the youth
is vainly struggling with the swollen waves; and there stands Hero on
her tower; and the lamp already flickers in the blast that will destroy
both light and lives at once. It still remained for a grammarian of the
fifth century, Musæus, of whom nothing but the name is known, to give
the final form to this poem of love and death. The spring-tide of the
epic and the idyl was over. When Musæus entered the Heliconian meadows
to pluck this last pure rose of Greek summer, autumn had already set
its silent finger on "bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds
sang." His little poem of three hundred and forty hexameters is both an
epic and an idyl. While maintaining the old heroic style of narrative
by means of repeated lines, it recalls the sweetness of Theocritus in
studied descriptions, dactylic cadences, and brief reflective sayings
that reveal the poet's mind. Like some engraved gems, the latest
products of the glyphic art, this poem adjusts the breadth of the grand
manner to the small scale required by jewelry, treating a full subject
in a narrow space, and in return endowing slight motives with dignity
by nobleness of handling.
Calm mornings of sunshine visit us at times in early November,
appearing like glimpses of departed spring amid the wilderness of
wet and windy days that lead to winter. It is pleasant, when these
interludes of silvery light occur to ride into the woods and see
how wonderful are all the colors of decay. Overhead, the elms and
chestnuts hang their wealth of golden leaves, while the beeches darken
into russet tones, and the wild-cherry glows like blood-red wine.
In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet hips are wreathed with hoary
clematis or necklaces of coral briony berries; the brambles burn with
many-colored flames; the dog-wood is bronzed to purple; and here and
there the spindle-wood puts forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds,
on delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the brown
brake rises to our knees as we thread the forest paths. Everything is
beautiful with beauty born of over-ripeness and decline. Green summer
comes no more this year, at any rate. In front are death and bareness
and the winter's frost.
Such a day of sunlight in the November of Greek poetry is
granted to us by _Hero and Leander_. The grace of the poem is
soul-compelling--indescribable for sweetness. Yet every epithet, each
exquisite conceit, and all the studied phrases that yield charm, remind
us that the end has come. There is peculiar pathos in this autumnal
loveliness of literature upon the wane. In order to appreciate it fully
we must compare the mellow tints of Musæus with the morning glory of
Homer or of Pindar. We then find that, in spite of so much loss, in
spite of warmth and full light taken from us, and promise of the future
exchanged for musings on the past, a type of beauty unattainable by
happier poets of the spring has been revealed. Not to accept this grace
with thanksgiving, because, forsooth, December, that takes all away, is
close at hand, would be ungrateful.[254]
Yet, though clearly perceptible by the æsthetic sense, it is far less
easy to define its quality than to miss it altogether. We do not
gain much, for example, by pointing to the reminiscences of bygone
phraseology curiously blended with new forms of language, to the
artificial subtleties of rhythm wrung from well-worn metres, to the
richness of effect produced by conscious use of telling images, to
the iridescent shimmer of mixed metaphors, compound epithets, and
daring tropes, contrasted with the undertone of sadness which betrays
the "idle singer of an empty day," although these elements are all
combined in the autumnal style. Nor will it profit us to distinguish
this kind of beauty from the _beauté maladive_ of morbid art. So
difficult, indeed, is it to seize its character with any certainty,
that in the case of _Hero and Leander_ the uncritical scholars of the
Greek Renaissance mistook the evening for the morning star of Greek
poetry, confounding Musæus the grammarian with the semi-mythic bard
of the Orphean age. When Aldus Manutius conceived his great idea of
issuing Greek literature entire from the Venetian press, he put forth
_Hero and Leander_ first of all in 1498, with a preface that ran as
follows: "I was desirous that Musæus, the most ancient poet, should
form a prelude to Aristotle and the other sages who will shortly be
imprinted at my hands." Marlowe spoke of "divine Musæus," and even the
elder Scaliger saw no reason to suspect that the grammarian's studied
verse was not the first clear woodnote of the Eleusinian singer. What
renders this mistake pardonable is the fact that, however autumnal
may be the poem's charm, no point of the genuine Greek youthfulness
of fancy has been lost. Through conceits, confusions of diction, and
oversweetness of style emerges the clear outline which characterized
Greek art in all its periods. Both persons and situations are
plastically treated--subjected, that is to say, to the conditions
best fulfilled by sculpture. The emotional element is adequate to the
imaginative presentation; the feeling penetrates the form and gives it
life, without exceeding the just limits which the form imposes. The
importance of this observation will appear when we examine the same
poem romantically handled by our own Marlowe. If nothing but the _Hero
and Leander_ of Musæus had survived the ruin of Greek literature, we
should still be able to distinguish how Greek poets dealt with their
material, and to point the difference between the classic and the
modern styles.
What is truly admirable in this poem, marking it as genuinely Greek,
is the simplicity of structure, clearness of motives, and unaffected
purity of natural feeling. The first fifteen lines set forth, by way of
proem, the whole subject:
#eipe, thea, kryphiôn epimartyra lychnon erôtôn,
kai nychion plôtêra thalassoporôn hymenaiôn,
kai gamon achlyoenta, ton ouk iden aphthitos Êôs,
kai Sêston kai Abydon hopê gamos ennychos Hêrous.#[255]
Here, perhaps, a modern poet might have stayed his hand: not so Musæus;
he has still to say that he will tell of Leander's death, and, in
propounding this part of his theme, to speak once more about the lamp:
#lychnon, erôtos agalma, ton ôphelen aitherios Zeus
ennychion met' aethlon agein es homêgyrin astrôn
kai min epiklêsai nymphostolon astron erôtôn.#[256]
Seven lines were enough for Homer while explaining the subject of the
_Iliad_. Musæus, though his poem is so short, wants more than twice as
many. He cannot resist the temptation to introduce decorative passages
like the three lines just quoted, which are, moreover, appropriate in a
poem that aims at combining the idyllic and epic styles.
After the proem we enter on the story. Sestos and Abydos are divided by
the sea, but Love has joined them with an arrow from his bow:
#êïtheon phlexas kai parthenon; ounoma d' autôn
himeroeis te Leandros eên kai parthenos Hêrô.#[257]
Hero dwelt at Sestos; Leander lived at Abydos; and both were "exceeding
fair stars of the two cities." By the sea, outside the town of Sestos,
Hero had a tower, where she abode in solitude with one old servant,
paying her daily orisons to Dame Kupris, whose maiden votary she was,
and sprinkling the altars of Love with incense to propitiate his
powerful deity. "Still even thus she did not shun his fire-breathing
shafts;" for so it happened that when the festival of Adonis came
round, and the women flocked into the town to worship, and the youths
to gaze upon the maidens, Hero passed forth that day to Venus's temple,
and all the men beheld her beauty, and praised her for a goddess, and
desired her for a bride. Leander, too, was there; and Leander could not
content himself, like the rest, with distant admiration:
#heile de min tote thambos, anaideiê, tromos, aidôs;
etreme men kradiên, aidôs de min eichen halônai;
thambee d' eidos ariston, erôs d' apenosphisen aidô;
tharsaleôs d' hyp' erôtos anaideiên agapazôn
êrema possin ebaine kai antion histato kourês.#[258]
He met the maiden face to face, and his eyes betrayed his passion; and
she too felt the power of love in secret, and repelled him not, but by
her silence and tranquillity encouraged him to hope:
#ho d' endothi thymon ianthê
hotti pothon syneêke kai ouk apeseisato kourê.#[259]
So far one hundred and nine lines of the poem have carried us. The
following one hundred and eleven lines, nearly a third of the whole,
are devoted to the scene in the temple between Hero and her lover. This
forms by far the most beautiful section of the tale; for the attention
is concentrated on the boy and girl between whom love at first sight
has just been born. In the twilight of early evening, in the recesses
of the shrine, they stand together, like fair forms carved upon a
bass-relief. Leander pleads and Hero listens. The man's wooing, the
maiden's shrinking; his passionate insistance, her gradual yielding,
are described in a series of exquisite and artful scenes, wherein the
truth of a natural situation is enhanced by rare and curious touches.
With genuine Greek instinct the poet has throughout been mindful
to present both lovers clearly to the eye, so that a succession of
pictures support and illustrate the dialogue, which rises at the climax
to a love-duet. The descriptive lines are very simple, like these:
#êrema men thlibôn rhodoeidea daktyla kourês
byssothen estonachizen athesphaton. hê de siôpêi,
hoia te chôomenê, rhodeên exespase cheira.#[260]
Or again:
#parthenikês d' euodmon eüchroon auchena kysas.#[261]
Or yet again:
#ophra men oun poti gaian echen neuousan opôpên,
tophra de kai Leiandros erômaneessi prosôpois
ou kamen eisoroôn hapalochroon auchena kourês.#[262]
We do not want more than this: it is enough to animate the plastic
figures presented to our fancy. Meanwhile Hero cannot resist the
pleadings of Leander, and her yielding is described with beautiful
avoidance of superfluous sentiment:
#êdê kai glykypikron edexato kentron erôtôn,
thermeto de kradiên glykerôi pyri parthenos Hêrô
kalleï d' himeroentos aneptoiêto Leandrou.#[263]
A modern poet would have sought to spiritualize the situation: in the
hands of the Greek artist it remains quite natural; it is the beauty of
Leander that persuades and subdues Hero to love, and the agitations of
her soul are expressed in language which suggests a power that comes
upon her from without. At the same time there is no suspicion of levity
or sensuality. Hero cannot be mistaken for a light of love. When the
time comes, she will break her heart upon the dead body of the youth
who wins her by his passion and his beauty. 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; and what does he know about her; and how can they meet?
Therefore she tells him her name and describes her dwelling:
#pyrgos d' amphiboêtos emos domos ouranomêkês
hôi eni naietaousa syn amphipolôi tini mounêi
Sêstiados pro polêos hyper bathykymonas ochthas
geitona ponton echô stygerais boulêisi tokêôn.
oude moi engys easin homêlikes, oude choreiai
êïtheôn pareasin; aei d' ana nykta kai êô
ex halos ênemoentos epibremei ouasin êchê.#[264]
Having said so much, shame overtakes her; she hides her face, and
blames her over-hasty tongue. But Leander, pondering how he shall
win the stakes of love proposed to him--#pôs ken erôtos aethleuseien
agôna#--is helped at last by Love himself, the wounder and the healer
of the heart in one. He bursts into a passionate protestation: "Maiden,
for the love of thee I will cross the stormy waves; yea, though the
waters blaze with fire, and the sea be unsailed by ships. Only do thou
light a lamp upon thy tower to guide me through the gloom:
#ophra noêsas
essomai holkas Erôtos echôn sethen astera lychnon.#[265]
Seeing its spark, I shall not need the north star or Orion. And now,
if thou wouldst have my name, know that I am Leander, husband of the
fair-crowned Hero."
Nothing now remains for the lovers but to arrange the signs and seasons
of their future meeting. Then Hero retires to her tower, and Leander
returns to Abydos by the Hellespont:
#pannychiôn d' oarôn kryphious potheontes aethlous
pollakis êrêsanto molein thalamêpolon orphnên.#[266]
It may be said in passing that this parting scene, though briefly
narrated, is no less well conducted, _wohl motivirt_, as Goethe would
have phrased it, than are all the other incidents of the poem (lines
221-231). The interpretation of the passage turns upon the word
#pannychidas#, in line 225, which must here be taken to mean the vigil
before marriage.
At this point the action turns. Musæus, having to work within a narrow
space, has made the meeting and the dialogue between the lovers
disproportionate to the length of the whole piece. In this way he
secures our sympathy for the youth and maid, whom we learn to know
as living persons. He can now afford to drop superfluous links, and
to compress the tale within strict limits. The cunning of his art is
shown by the boldness of the transition to the next important incident.
The night and the day are supposed to have passed. We hear nothing of
the impatience of Leander or of Hero's flux and reflux of contending
feelings. The narrative is resumed just as though the old thread had
been broken and another had been spun; and yet there is no sense of
interruption:
#êdê kyanopeplos anedrame nyktos omichlê
andrasin hypnon agousa kai ou potheonti Leandrôi.#[267]
The lover's attitude of suspense, waiting at nightfall on the beach
for Hero's lamp to burn, is so strongly emphasized in the following
lines that we are made to feel how anxiously and yearningly the hours
of daylight had been spent by him. No sooner does the spark shine forth
than Leander darts forward to the waves, and, having prayed to Love,
leaps lively in:
#hôs eipôn meleôn eratôn apedysato peplon
amphoterais palamêisin, heôi d' esphinxe karênôi,
êïonos d' exôrto, demas d' errhipse thalassêi,
lampomenou d' espeuden aei katenantia lychnou
autos eôn eretês autostolos automatos nêus.#[268]
Hero meanwhile is on the watch, and when her bridegroom gains the
shore, breathless and panting, he finds himself within her arms:
#ek de thyraôn
nymphion asthmainonta periptyxasa siôpêi
aphrokomous rhathamingas eti stazonta thalassês
êgage nymphokomoio mychous epi partheneônos.#[269]
There she washes the stain and saltness of the sea from his body,
and anoints him with perfumed oil, and leads him with tender words
of welcome to the marriage-bed. The classic poet feels no need of
apologizing for the situation, nor does he care to emphasize it. The
whole is narrated with Homeric directness, contrasting curiously with
the romantic handling of the same incident by Marlowe. Yet the point
and pathos of clandestine marriage had to be expressed; and to a Greek
the characteristic circumstance was the absence of customary ritual.
This defect, while it isolated the lovers from domestic sympathies and
troops of friends, attracted attention to themselves, and gave occasion
to some of the best verses in the poem:
#ên gamos all' achoreutos; eên lechos all' ater hymnôn;
ou Zygiên Hêrên tis epeuphêmêsen aoidos;
ou daïdôn êstrapte selas thalamêpolon eunên;
oude polyskarthmôi tis epeskirtêse choreiêi,
ouch hymenaion aeise patêr kai potnia mêtêr;
alla lechos storesasa telessigamoisin en hôrais
sigê paston epêxen, enymphokomêse d' omichlê,
kai gamos ên apaneuthen aeidomenôn hypemaiôn.
nyx men eên keinoisi gamostolos, oude pot' êôs
nymphion eide Leandron arignôtois eni lektrois;
nêcheto d' antiporoio palin poti dêmon Abydou
ennychiôn akorêtos eti pneiôn hymenaiôn.
Hêrô d' helkesipeplos, heous lêthousa tokêas,
parthenos hêmatiê nychiê gynê. Amphoteroi de
pollakis êrêsanto katelthemen es dysin êô.#[270]
So the night passed, and through many summer nights they tasted the
sweets of love, #chloeroisin iainomenoi meleessin#. But soon came
winter, and with winter the sea grew stormy, and ships were drawn up on
the beach, and the winds battled with each other in the Hellespontine
Straits; and now Hero should have refrained from lighting her lamp,
#minyôrion astera lektrôn#: but love and fate compelled her, and the
night of tempest and of destiny arrived. Manfully Leander wrestled
with the waves; yet the storm grew stronger; his strength ebbed away,
an envious gust blew out the guiding lamp; and so he perished in
the waters. The picture of his death-struggle is painted with brief
incisive touches. The last two lines have a strange unconscious pathos
in them, as though the life and love of a man were no better than a
candle:
#kai dê lychnon apiston apesbese pikros aêtês
kai psychên kai erôta polytlêtoio Leandrou.#[271]
What remains to be told is but little. The cold gray dawn went forth
upon the sea; how gray and comfortless they know who, after lonely
watching through night hours, have seen discolored breakers beat upon a
rainy shore. Hero from her turret gazed through the twilight; and there
at her feet lay dead Leander, bruised by the rocks and buffeted by
slapping waves. She uttered no cry; but tore the embroidered raiment on
her breast, and flung herself, face downward, from the lofty tower. In
their death, says the poet after his own fashion, they were not divided:
#allêlôn d' aponanto kai en pymatôi per olethrôi.#[272]
This line ends the poem.
This is but a simple story. Yet for that very reason it is one of those
stories which can never grow old. As Leigh Hunt, after some unnecessary
girding at scholars and sculptors, has sung:
I never think of poor Leander's fate,
And how he swam, and how his bride sat late,
And watched the dreadful dawning of the light,
But as I would of two that died last night.
So might they now have lived, and so have died;
The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side.
What makes it doubly touching is, that this poem of young love and
untimely fate was born, like a soul "beneath the ribs of death," in the
dotage and decay of Greek art. I do not know whether it has often been
noticed that the qualities of romantic grace and pathos were chiefly
appreciated by the Greeks in their decline. It is this circumstance,
perhaps, which caused the tales of _Hero and Leander_ and _Daphnis and
Chloe_ to attract so much attention at the time of the Renaissance.
Modern students found something akin to their own modes of feeling in
the later classics. Are not the colors of the autumn in harmony with
the tints of spring?
The judicious Hallam, in a famous passage of the _History of
Literature_, records his opinion that "it is impossible not to wish
that Shakespeare had never written" the sonnets dedicated to Mr. W. H.
With the same astounding #apeirokalia#, or insensibility to beauty, he
ventures to dismiss the _Hero and Leander_ of Marlowe as "a paraphrase,
in every sense of the epithet, of the most licentious kind." Yet this
severe high-priest of decorum has devoted three pages and a half to the
analysis of _Romeo and Juliet_, in which play we have, as he remarks
with justice, "more than in any other tragedy, the mere passion of
love; love, in all its vernal promise, full of hope and innocence,
ardent beyond all restraint of reason, but tender as it is warm." What
can be said of the critical perceptions of one who finds so strongly
marked a moral separation between the motives of Marlowe's poem and
Shakespeare's play?
The truth is that the words used by Hallam to characterize the subject
of _Romeo and Juliet_ are almost exactly applicable to _Hero and
Leander_, after due allowance made for the distinction between the
styles of presentation proper to a tragedy in the one case, and in
the other to a narrative poem. Reflecting upon this, it is probable
that the impartial student will side with Swinburne when he writes:
"I must avow that I want, and am well content to want, the sense,
whatever it be, which would enable me to discern more offence in that
lovely picture of the union of two lovers in body as in soul than I can
discern in the parting of Romeo and Juliet."
To discuss the morality of Marlowe's muse is, however, alien to
the present purpose. What has to be brought plainly forward is the
artistic difference between the methods of Marlowe and Musæus. Hallam,
in calling the English _Hero and Leander_ a "paraphrase," was hardly
less wrong than Warton, who called it a "translation." It is, in
fact, a free and independent reproduction of the story first told
by Musæus. Without the poem of Musæus the poem of Marlowe would not
have existed; but though the incidents remain unchanged, the whole
manner of presenting them, of selecting characteristic details, and of
guiding the sympathy and imagination of the reader is altered. In other
words, the artistic consciousness had shifted its point of gravity
between the ages of Musæus and Marlowe, and a new poem was produced
to satisfy the new requirements of the æsthetic ideal. Musæus, as we
have already seen, thought it essential to set forth the whole of his
subject at the opening in its minutest details: Sestos and Abydos, the
marriage-bed on which the morning never shone, the swimming feat of
Leander, and the lamp, which was the star of love, till envious fate
blew out both love and light and life itself together, all find their
proper place in the proemium. In conducting the narrative he is careful
to present each motive, as it were, from the outside, to cast the
light of his imagination upon forms rendered as distinct as possible
in their plasticity, just as the sun's light falls upon and renders
visible a statue. There is no attempt to spiritualize the subject, to
flood it with emotion, thought, and passion, to pierce into its inmost
substance, to find the analogue to its implicit feeling in the depth
of his own soul, and, by expressing that, to place his readers at the
point of view from which he contemplates the beauty of the fable. The
poet withdraws his personality, leaving the animated figures he has
put upon the stage of fancy, the carefully prepared situations that
display their activity, and the words invented for them, to tell the
tale. He can therefore afford to be both simple and direct, brief in
descriptive passages, and free from psychological digressions. A few
gnomic sentences, here and there introduced, suffice to maintain the
reflective character of a meditated work of art. All this is in perfect
concord with the Greek conception of art, the sculpturesque ideal.
Marlowe takes another course. The three hundred and forty lines which
were enough for Musæus are expanded into six sestiads or cantos, each
longer than the whole Greek poem.[273] Yet to this lengthy narrative
no prelude is prefixed. Unlike Musæus, Marlowe rushes at once into the
story. He does not wait to propound it, or to talk about the fatal
lamp, or to describe Hero's tower. That Hero lived in a tower at all we
only discover by accident on the occasion of her visit to the shrine
of Venus, and Leander makes his first appearance there, guided by no
lamp, but by his own audacity. On the other hand, all descriptions that
set free the poet's feeling are enormously extended. The one epithet
#himeroeis#, or love-inspiring, for instance, which satisfied Musæus,
is amplified by Marlowe through forty lines throbbing with his own
deep sense of adolescent beauty. The temple of Venus, briefly alluded
to by Musæus, is painted in detail by Marlowe, with a luminous account
of its frescos, bass-reliefs, and pavements. The first impassioned
speech of Leander runs at one breath over ninety-six verses, while
mythological episodes and moral reflections are freely interpolated.
All the situations, however delicate, so long as they have raised the
poet's sense of beauty to enthusiasm, are treated with elaborate and
loving sympathy. In presenting them with their fulness of emotion to
the reader, Marlowe taxes his inexhaustible invention to the utmost,
and permits the luxuriance of his fancy to run riot. The passion which
carries this soul of fire and air up to the empyrean, where it moves at
ease, sometimes betrays him into what we know as faults of taste. It is
as though the love-ache, grown intense, had passed over for a moment
into pain, as though the music, seeking for subtler and still more
subtle harmonies, had touched at times on discord.
Compared with the Greek poem, this _Hero and Leander_ of Marlowe is
like some radiant double-rose placed side by side with the wild-brier
whence it sprang by cultivation. The petals have been multiplied,
the perfume deepened and intensified, the colors varied in their
modulations of a single tint. At the same time something in point of
simple form has been sacrificed. The first thing, then, that strikes
us in turning from Musæus to Marlowe is that what the Greek poet
considered all-important in the presentation of his subject has been
dropped or negligently handled by the English, while the English poet
has been prodigal in places where the Greek displayed his parsimony.
On looking further, we discover that the modern poet, in all these
differences, aims at effects not realized by ancient art. The life and
play and actual pulsations of emotion have to be revealed, both as
they exist in the subject of the poem and as the poet finds them in
his own soul. Everything that will contribute to this main achievement
is welcomed by the poet, and the rest rejected. All the motives which
had an external statuesque significance for the Greek must palpitate
with passion for the English. Those that cannot clothe themselves with
spirit as with a garment are abandoned. He wants to make his readers
feel, not see: if they see at all, they must see through their emotion;
whereas the emotion of the Greek was stirred in him through sight. We
do not get very far into the matter, but we gain something, perhaps, by
adding that as sculpture is to painting and music, so is the poetry of
Musæus to that of Marlowe. In the former, feeling is subordinate, or,
at most, but adequate, to form; in the latter, _Gefühl ist alles_.
What has just been advanced is stated broadly, and is therefore only
accurate in a general sense. For while the Greek _Leander_ contains
exquisite touches of pure sentiment, so the English _Leander_ offers
fully perfected pictures of Titianesque beauty. Still, this does not
impair the strength of the position: what is really instructive in the
comparative study of the two tales of _Hero and Leander_ will always be
that the elder poem, in spite of its autumnal quality, is classical;
the younger, in spite of its most utter paganism, is romantic. To
enter into minute criticism of Marlowe's poem would be out of place
here; and, were it included in my programme, I should shrink from
this task as a kind of profanation. Those who have the true sense of
ideal beauty, and who can rise by sympathy above the commonplaces
of every-day life into the free atmosphere of art, which is nature
permeated with emotion, will never forget the prolonged, recurring,
complex cadences of that divinest dithyramb poured forth from a young
man's soul. Every form and kind of beauty is included in his adoration,
and the whole is spiritualized with imagination, ardent and passionate
beyond all words.
FOOTNOTES:
[253] "What of the youth, whose marrow the fierceness of Love has
turned to flame? Late in the dark night he swims o'er seas boiling with
bursting storms; and over his head the huge gates of the sky thunder;
and the seas, dashing on the rocks, call to him to return: nor can the
thought of his parents' agony entice him back, nor of the maiden doomed
to a cruel death upon his corpse."--Virg. _Georg._ iii. 258. Translated
by an Oxford graduate.
[254] It is not only in Musæus that we trace a fascination comparable
to that of autumn tints in trees. The description by Ausonius of Love
caught and crucified in the garden of Proserpine, which contains the
two following lines,
Inter arundineasque comas gravidumque papaver
Et tacitos sine labe lacus sine murmure rivos,
might be quoted as an instance of the charm. Indeed, it pervades the
best Latin poetry of the silver age, the epistles of Philostratus, many
of the later Greek epigrams, and all the Greek romances, with _Daphnis
and Chloe_ at their head.
[255] Tell, goddess, of the lamp, the confidant of secret love, and of
the youth who swam by night to find his bridal-bed beyond the sea, and
of the darkened marriage on which immortal morning never shone, and of
Sestos and Abydos, where was the midnight wedding of Hero.
[256] Love's ornament, which Zeus in heaven, after the midnight
contest, should have brought into the company of stars and called it
the bride-adorning star of love.
[257] By setting on fire a youth and a maiden, of whom the names were
love-inspiring Leander and virgin Hero.
[258] Then came upon him astonishment, audacity, trembling, shame;
in his heart he trembled, and shame seized him at having been made
captive: yet he marvelled at the faultless form, and love kept shame
away; then manfully by love's guidance he embraced audacity, and gently
stepped and stood before the girl.
[259] And he within himself was glad at heart, because the maiden
understood his love, and cast it not from her.
[260] Gently pressing the rosy fingers of the maiden, from the depths
of his breast he sighed; but she, in silence, as though angered, drew
her rosy hand away.
[261] Kissing the fair perfumed maiden's neck.
[262] The while she bent her glance upon the ground, Leander tired not
with impassioned eyes of gazing at the maiden's neck.
[263] Now she, too, received into her soul the bitter-sweet sting of
love, and the heart of maiden Hero was warmed with delicious fire, and
before the beauty of love-inspiring Leander she quailed.
[264] A tower, beset with noises of the sea, and high as heaven, is
my home: there I dwell, together with one only servant, before the
city walls of Sestos, above the deep-waved shore, with ocean for my
neighbor: such is the stern will of my parents. Nor are there maidens
of my age to keep me company, nor dances of young men close by; but
everlastingly at night and morn a roaring from the windy sea assails my
ears.
[265] Minding it, I shall be a ship of love, having thy lamp for star.
[266] In their desire for the hidden lists of midnight converse they
oftentimes prayed that darkness should descend and lead them to the
bridal-bed.
[267] Now the dark-mantled gloom of night rose over earth, bringing to
mortals sleep, but not to longing Leander.
[268] So having said, he withdrew from his lovely limbs the mantle with
both bands, and bound it on his head, and leaped from the shore, and
cast his body on the sea, and ever fared face-forward to the burning
lamp, himself the oarsman, self-impelled, a self-directed ship.
[269] From the door she passed, and silently embraced her panting
bridegroom, dripping with the foamy sprinklings of the sea, and led him
to the bride-adorning chamber of her maiden hours.
[270] There was wedding, but without the ball; there was bedding but
without the hymn: no singer invoked bridal Here; no blaze of torches
lit the nuptial couch, nor did the youths and maidens move in myriad
mazes of the dance: father and mother sang no marriage chant. But
silence spread the bed and strewed the couch, and darkness decked
the bride; without hymns of Hymen was the wedding. Night was their
bridesmaid, nor did dawning see Leander in the husband's room. He swam
again across the straits to Abydos, still breathing of bridal in his
soul unsatisfied of joy. Hero, meanwhile, by day a maid, at night a
wife, escaped her parents' eyes: both bride and bridegroom oftentimes
desired that day should set.
[271] And so the bitter blast extinguished the faithless lamp and the
life and love of suffering Leander.
[272] They enjoyed each other even thus in the last straits of doom.
[273] Marlowe lived to write only the first two sestiads.