Hero and Leander

Lines 1-90

The speaker sets the scene and describes the two protagonists, Hero and Leander, in some detail. The description of Hero (Lines 4 to 50) is noticeable for its comic extravagance and exaggeration. Hero is presented as an alluring, goddess-like figure. As she sits in Venus’s temple, men gaze on her enraptured. She is attired in fine linen garments lined with silk. On the sleeves are depictions of a naked Venus who is trying to win the love of the scornful youth Adonis—a well-known mythological story (See: Background). This sets up the paradox that Marlowe will exploit in the poem: Hero may think of herself as “Venus’ nun” (Line 45), and nuns are indeed committed to female chastity, but Venus is also the “lusty” goddess of love, with all the sensual enjoyment that such an office implies.

The description of Hero’s clothing continues with the rather fantastical and lurid detail that her blue kirtle (a skirt or gown) is stained with blood because many would-be lovers have died by suicide when she rejected them (Lines 15-16). It is hard to imagine the demure Hero—as she is presented in her interactions with Leander—to countenance and bring attention to this kind of slaughter, but Marlowe’s purpose is not to create characters that are credible in every detail. He likes to provide luxurious, fanciful detail as the background for a sensationalist, if rather slow-moving plot.

Hero also wears a myrtle wreath and a long veil, reaching to the ground. Her necklace of pebbles shines like diamonds, but it is her footwear that reaches fantastic levels of luxury, artistic ingenuity, and refinement:

Buskins of shells, all silver’d, used she,

And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee;

Where sparrows perch’d, of hollow pearl and gold,

Such as the world would wonder to behold:

Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,

Which as she went, would chirrup through the bills (Lines 31-36).

Buskins are boots, and Hero’s boots are like no boots that anyone has ever worn, made entirely out of seashells. Due to their intricate and varied patterns, seashells were much admired during the Renaissance. Marlowe has developed this fascination with shells, decorated them with coral and imagined into mythological existence sculptured sparrows made of pearl and gold which, when Hero’s maid fills them with water, make a chirruping sound. Sparrows are traditionally associated with lechery—references can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and in Shakespeare—and also with Venus, which makes another example of the incongruity in Hero’s clothing when set against the chaste ideals she espouses. She is a walking contradiction. This entire description also shows Marlowe deliberately satirizing by use of hyperbole Renaissance sonnet conventions about the beauty and desirability of the beloved. It is comically over-the-top, and Marlowe knows it.

The long, lush description of Hero’s clothing from head to toe also provides a stark contrast to the final image of her in the poem, in which she stands naked as Leander gazes lustfully at her. That will be her transformation in this erotic epic, from extravagantly clothed woman to naked woman, covered only by the blush of modesty.

If Hero is described in terms of her clothing, with Leander it is quite different. His clothes are not even mentioned in the description that begins at Line 51. Instead, it is his body that is the focus of attention. This may not be surprising if one remembers that during the period of the Renaissance and the ancient Classical era, it was the male body that was considered ideal. The female body was regarded as an imperfect version of the male, and men were also assumed to be superior to women. Thus, the narrator lavishes praise and admiration on Leander’s neck, chest, belly, fingers, and back (Lines 61-69). Moreover, his eyes, cheeks, and lips are more beautiful than those of the mythological Narcissus, who jumped into the water to embrace his own reflection. In contrast, Hero’s facial features are not even mentioned.

Leander also possesses a kind of androgynous beauty. Rough-hewed men find him attractive, and some even mistake him for a woman (Lines 77-86). Feminized male figures were common in Renaissance art, as can be seen in the work of Michelangelo. Such figures were considered graceful examples of the masculine form.

Lines 91-191

Like the depiction of Venus and Adonis on the sleeves of Hero’s gown, the annual festival in honor of Venus and Adonis presents something of a contradiction in connection with Hero. It is a celebration of lusty, amorous Venus, who pursued with great zeal the reluctant young hunter Adonis. This is a festival where people meet as strangers and go home as lovers. The pure and high-minded Hero is attending as one of Venus’s devotees. She is there in the throng and is the loveliest (and least available, it seems), of all the women. All the men fall for her and seek her favor, without success. They sigh and rage, and some—a humorous touch here from Marlowe—even write “sharp satires” (Line 127) to assuage their hurt feelings.

Hero and Leander happen to meet at Venus’s temple, the beauty of which is carefully described. Carvings on walls in precious stones and depictions on the floor show incidents in Greek mythology in which the gods go about their “heady [i.e., passionate or violent] riots, incest, rapes” (Line 144). The examples that follow show love to be a rather dishonest and dangerous, although also ingenious, business. They include Jove disguising himself as a bull so he can seduce Europa, and Vulcan using a net to trap his wife Venus and Mars, the god of war, as they make illicit love.

Hero appears at first to be not exactly a reassuring presence in the temple either, since she sacrifices the blood of turtles as she stands at her silver altar. The symbolism of that act, however, presents a more positive picture: The turtles are turtledoves, which since they mate for life, symbolize constancy and enduring love. Some Greek myths say that it was Aphrodite (known as Venus by the Romans) who actually created turtledoves to represent these qualities. In a sense, then, Hero, in her idealism about love, stands in contrast to much that the temple depicts about that unruly emotion.

As he gazes at Hero at her altar, Leander falls for her immediately, and Hero’s heart is touched, too. Cupid’s arrow has done its work. At this point, the narrator inserts one of his many asides about the nature of love (Lines 167-176). The narrator seems to be an older man who thinks he knows a lot about love between men and women, and he is not shy about offering his opinion. It is as if he has seen it all in his time. His remarks create brief moments of detachment which take the reader out of the main flow of the story into a more reflective mode, sometimes tinged with cynicism about romantic love and the sincerity of women.

In this particular passage, the narrator comments that who a person loves or hates is governed by fate, not that person’s will. He also adds his opinion about the nature of romantic love. If it is going to happen, it happens straightaway, as soon as the two people meet: “Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?” (Line 176).

The die is now cast between Hero and Leander, and as their hands touch, their hearts are immediately tangled up together. It is up to Leander, as the suitor, to press his case.

Lines 192-376

Leander professes his sudden love for Hero in every way he can, but although Hero likes what she hears, she keeps cutting him off. Eventually, he prepares himself for a big speech, and this time she does not interrupt him or turn away. Leander knows what he wants to do and he lacks neither boldness nor eloquence. He has obviously had an education and is trained in how to present a coherent, logical argument “like to a bold sharp sophister” (Line 197).

Leander seizes on the contradiction inherent in the notion of a follower of Venus who declines to experience love for herself. His speech begins at Line 199 and ends at Line 294, which is nearly one-eighth of the entire poem. Even then, he is only taking a pause by asking Hero a question, which she answers with just two words, before he resumes for a total of another 25 lines beginning at Line 315.

Highlights of Leander’s argument include the notion that Hero surpasses Venus, the one she serves, so why does she serve the goddess? Instead, Leander offers himself in service to her. A ship is more majestic when it sails the sea rather than sits in harbor, he says, and likewise, Hero would be more glorious if she were to set sail on “Love’s seas” (Line 228). Switching the metaphor, he compares a woman to a musical instrument: If the instrument is not played it will become out of tune, and so will Hero if she remains untouched. Everything must be used for it to reveal its value and worth, like clothes, for example, or money, or a palace. “Lone women, like to empty houses, perish” (Line 242), Leander says. More examples follow. Leander is in full rhetorical sail and does not care to stop. He sums up, “Well, therefore by the gods decreed it is / We human creatures should enjoy that bliss” (Lines 253-54), and he adds “maids are nothing then / Without the sweet society of men” (Lines 255-56).

Leander then turns his rhetorical guns on virginity. Virginity is not a virtue because it is born with us. A virtue has to be acquired, he says. Nor can virginity be associated with honor, which has to be won by virtuous deeds. Virginity is an absence of something; it is nothing at all in itself, in its essence. Nor is staying chaste any guarantee that others will not speak ill of her; even Diana, goddess of chastity, has had to endure slander. If Hero lives alone, Leander says, people in Greece will think that some man keeps her as his own.

When he asks her to whom she made her vow of chastity, she replies “To Venus” (Line 295), and then breaks down in tears. Obviously, her emotions have been touched, but more than that, she can no longer ignore the intense inner conflict she is experiencing. She is hopelessly drawn to Leander, but is still not entirely convinced that her life as “Venus’ nun” (Line 319) is now a lie and must be discarded.

Leander, perhaps sensing that he now has the advantage, plows on without mercy or tenderness. What love most enjoys, he says, are banquets, music, revelry, plays, and such—in other words, everything that those who pride themselves on their holiness reject as evil; the very goddess whom Hero professes to serve would think her a “holy idiot” (Line 303) for her attitude. Her vow of virginity is a kind of sacrilege. To expiate the sin, they should kiss and shake hands—this he says, is the sacrifice that Venus herself demands. Leander has thus cleverly turned the tables on Hero’s beliefs: By accepting him, he argues, she will be serving Venus, not denying her.

Hero smiles at his words but indicates no (Lines 311-12). However, she rejects him in a way that makes Leander feel encouraged. It is a mixed message from Hero, and not for the first time. The first came in Lines 193-96 when Leander’s words are like music to her ears, but nevertheless she turns away and cuts him off. She does this not to tease him but because two contradictory and irreconcilable sets of beliefs and emotions are beginning to rage inside her.

Since there is something in Hero’s refusal that gives Leander hope, he continues in what he imagines to be a more humble vein, although he repeats key elements of the argument he has already advanced. He begs Hero to “Abandon fruitless, cold Virginity” (Line 317), which is an enemy of Venus. Only then can she call herself a servant of Venus.

The narrator then chips in with an aside in which he utilizes what he imagines to be his deep knowledge of female behavior:

These arguments he used, and many more,

Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.

Hero’s looks yielded, but her words made war:

Women are won when they begin to jar (Lines 329-32).

“Jar” means dispute. The narrator means that Hero could not afford to give in too easily; he claims she has to put up some show of resistance for the sake of appearances.

Hero pretends to be angry but she does engage with Leander a little more, if only to reproach him: “Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?” (Line 338). She is then quick to add—the mixed message again—that although she does not care for his words, she likes them because of who speaks them.

Leander tries to embrace her but she moves away. Then comes the vital turning point. Hero tells him where she lives and invites him to visit her, although the words “Come thither” (Line 357) just slip out; she did not consciously intend them. Hero is now under the control of Cupid, so in a sense, her emotions are not her own. She is pulled in different directions; although she still tries to uphold the vows she made to Venus, the situation is hopeless. Her heart is leading her somewhere else, and Leander will soon come to her tower.

Lines 377-484

Cupid flies to the Destinies (also called the Fates) and tries to get them to bless the love of Hero and Leander, but they will not because they hate Cupid. The narrator then embarks on a long digression in which he explains why this is so.

The story reveals the quarrelsome nature of the Greek gods and the antics they get up to. Mercury, also called Hermes, takes a fancy to a pretty country maid and pursues her. He takes her in his arms and tries to go further with her, but when she is about to call for help from some shepherds, he backs off. The maid runs away, with Hermes in pursuit. He uses all his cunning to persuade her to give him a hearing. At this point, the narrator offers a satirical aside: “Maids are not won by brutish force and might / But speeches full of pleasure and delight” (Lines 418-19). The maid is flattered by Hermes’s attentions, but in spite of his attempts to persuade her, she stays silent and noncommittal: “And neither would deny nor grant his suit” (Line 424). This little story has parallels to that of Hero and Leander, since Hero also, in effect, keeps her options open and Leander favors flowery speeches and clever rhetoric as part of his attempt to seduce her.

The narrator then gives vent to his misogyny, stating that the maid uses delaying tactics “as women use” (i.e. practice), and she even has the idea that she might be able to attain immortality through her interaction with the god—“All women are ambitious naturally” (Line 428) the narrator points out, drawing upon feminine stereotypes common in the ancient world.

The maid then requests that Hermes do something for her. She wants him to bring her some nectar from Jove’s cup. Jove (also called Jupiter), the king of the gods, hears about this and is furious. He casts Hermes out of heaven. Hermes complains to Cupid, and Cupid forces the Destinies to dote on the fallen god. Mercury asks them to arrange for Jove to be dethroned, and the Fates oblige. Saturn, the former ruler of the gods, and his wife Ops, return to Olympus and Jove is cast down to Hades. A golden age begins, but it does not last long because Mercury takes no interest in the love the Destinies have shown him, and they restore Jove (Jupiter). They also punish Mercury, who in addition to being the messenger of the gods is also the god of learning, by ensuring that he will always be poor. This prompts the narrator to conclude, “to this day is every scholar poor” (Line 471). The narrator adds a few satirical lines about how those who do not deserve it are elevated in society, while the men of learning are oppressed, all because the angry Fates decreed:

That Midas’ brood shall sit in Honor's chair,

To which the Muses’ sons are only heir.

And fruitful wits, that in aspiring are,

Shall discontent run into regions far;

And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy,

But be surpris’d with every garish toy,

And still enrich the lofty servile clown

Who, with encroaching guile, keeps learning down (Lines 475-82).

The long digression does have some relevance to the larger tale. It explains why the love of Hero and Leander was not allowed to flourish, while also touching on the previously-developed theme of love and courtship and the role of rhetoric in it.

Lines 485-600

The narrative now returns to Hero and Leander. Lines 485-501 form a short bridge passage that covers the time between Hero’s invitation to Leander to visit her and his arrival.

Hero is now much more overt about how she indicates to Leander that she is interested. After she faints and he revives her with a kiss, she acts as if she is angry and walks off. However, she keeps looking around and finding excuses to linger, although she does not initiate conversation because she does not want to be too lightly won. Then, she has another idea: She deliberately drops her fan, hoping that Leander will retrieve the fan and chase after her. Hero’s no-but-yes strategy has thus become one of the narrator’s running jokes. If before, Leander was manipulating Hero, she is now doing her best to manipulate him. This is not a one-sided courtship.

Hero’s flirtatious behavior enables the narrator to set up an even better joke, this one concerning Leander. That master of rhetoric, who knows how to marshal a whole series of clever logical arguments and is relentless in his verbal attempts to persuade the lady, is clueless when it comes to observing and interpreting the actual signs of a woman’s interest. Leander has no idea that Hero dropped the fan for a reason, and he just stands there, leaving her to (reluctantly) make her escape. In his naivety, he does not know how the game is played; he appears to have had no experience of it. Instead of picking up on Hero’s cues, Leander goes home, and, still the scholar, writes her a letter. After all, words are what he is good at. The letter makes Hero happy, and her reply encourages Leander to believe that he may be close to realizing the bliss that he desires.

When Leander comes to Hero’s tower, they kiss and embrace and everything is wonderful—for a short while. Then Hero thinks she has been too rash and reproaches herself (Lines 517-18). Conflicted, she wishes that Leander would leave, but that is not really her heart speaking, and she realizes it. She is also worried that her ambivalence will make Leander angry and cost her his love. To prevent that, she acts boldly, flinging herself on him bodily and offering herself, seeking to assuage any anger he might have been feeling. Leander certainly enjoys this, knowing that he has won her favor and “Supposing nothing else was to be done” (Line 537). With Leander’s naive thought, the narrator has the set-up to return to his earlier joke about Leander’s lack of experience with women, which he now takes even further:

Albeit Leander, rude [i.e. untutored] in love and raw,

Long dallying with Hero, nothing saw

That might delight him more, yet he suspected

Some amorous rites or other were neglected (Lines 545-48).

In other words, Leander, the virgin man, does not know what to do. He guesses that there is something more to love than this pleasant embracing, but as to what that might be, he is at a loss. He decides to hold Hero closer (“Therefore unto his body, hers he clung” [Line 549]), which alarms Hero. She struggles to escape and there is some vigorous love wrestling between them, which arouses Leander’s desire.

Now he understands what he should be doing, but Hero cooperates only up to a certain point. Then she breaks off, having decided that the time is not right to give up her virginity. Leander accepts this, and the two lovers kiss and part in a conventional romantic farewell. Hero gives him a flower, a ribbon, and the ring that she had worn since she first vowed chastity to Venus. It is clear that they regard themselves as betrothed to each other.

Lines 600-714

This section introduces a new take on love, in a mythological setting. Leander is back home in Abydos but cannot wait to return to Sestos and Hero. It is obvious to everyone that he is in love. His father tries to talk him out of it, to no avail. Upset with impatience, Leander jumps into the Hellespont and tries to swim across it.

Neptune, the sea god, thinking that Leander is the beautiful boy Ganimed (spelled Ganymede in some editions), who is Jove’s cup bearer, pulls Leander down to his palace at the bottom of the sea. Neptune embraces Leander but when he finds that he is not Ganimed he lets him go. As Leander swims away, Neptune follows him and puts a bracelet on his arm to protect him against the water. Neptune then confesses his love for Leander, kisses him, and looks lustfully at him. He swims beside him, observes his body appreciatively, and speaks of love. The direct focus on Leander’s body (“his breast, his thighs, and every limb” [Line 673]) recalls the similar emphasis in the very first description of Leander in the poem (Lines 61-69).

Leander protests that he is not a woman and all he wants is to be reunited with Hero. Neptune is angry that Leander will not listen to him and throws his mace at him, but then regrets his action and calls the mace back. The mace hits his own hand, which bleeds. Seeing this, Leander feels compassion for Neptune, and Neptune, observing this, concludes that he, Neptune, is loved. While Neptune looks around trying to find a gift that he can give to Leander, Leander presses on and reaches the shore.

This curious erotic incident gives a completely different picture of how love may show itself. It forms a striking contrast to the heterosexual love of Hero and Leander. After Neptune lashes out, love prompts him to feel remorse. He is—justly, it is implied—repaid with a cut hand. However, Leander then looks beyond his confusing interactions with the god and simply sees another living being in pain, and he is moved to pity by it. The narrator’s tone in his aside is rather different from many of his comments about love in connection with the two young lovers: “In gentle breasts / Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests” (Line 700). For his part, Neptune is sufficiently perceptive to notice Leander’s reaction. For a moment, a soft current of mutual empathic feeling flows between them. Neptune’s belief that this is love prompts the narrator’s cynical comment in parentheses that love is too credulous and deceives people (and gods, it seems) with false hope. Nevertheless, readers may reflect that the love of Hero and Leander contains no specific single incident in which this gentle flow of kind feeling is seen to take place. They experience the headiness of romantic love and sexual desire—all the passion and urgency of it—but moments of compassion and tenderness, when they empathize with what the other person is going through, if they happen at all, take place when the narrator chooses to look elsewhere.

Some scholars argue that Marlowe himself was likely gay which might give a clue as to why he included this scene in a tale of heterosexual lovers, although no one can say for sure, either about Marlowe’s sexuality or his intentions in this poem.

Lines 715-818

This is the consummation scene, in which Hero and Leander finally make love. It is their third meeting, and the comic element is richly present at the beginning. Leander arrives at Hero’s tower and knocks on the door. He is naked, having just come from the Hellespont. When Hero sees him, she screams, since this is not what she is used to (“She screeched for fear / (Such sights as this to tender maids are rare)” (Lines 720-21). She runs away and takes refuge in her bed, and Leander begs to be allowed to join her, but his reason is not exactly what Hero (or the reader) expects. The poor fellow is simply cold and tired out after his long swim, claiming he just needs to rest a while (Lines 730-36). Hero permits him to do so, and lies somewhere away from him in the bed. Leander warms up in no time and soon he has his hands on Hero.

Hero is scared and tries to hide. She moves down in the bed and makes a tent with her hands, thinking this will keep her safe. What follows is conveyed in a series of metaphors drawn from battle and warfare, as she “defend[s] the fort” (Line 756) that Leander tries to scale. There is a parley and a truce. The truce, of course, is broken (by Leander), Hero resists but she also seeks “to yield herself” (Line 778) in the battle, and the narrator claims, “In such wars, women use but half their strength” (Line 780). In other words, to continue the war metaphor, they want to be conquered. Leander soon gets what he and—it is implied—what Hero has so much longed for.

Some feminist readings of Hero and Leander have seized on the language in this scene and others as evidence that Leander is a sexual predator and rapist, the product of a “rape culture.” Such readings cite the imagery of warfare, with Leander as the aggressor, and lines such as these (the word “silly” here means “innocent”):

Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was

Love is not full of pity, as men say,

But deaf and cruel where he means to prey (Lines 770-72).

In such readings, lines such as the following take on a sinister meaning, as reflections of male sexual fantasies that women really want to be ravished and are just pretending otherwise:

And cunningly to yield herself she sought.

Seeming not won, yet won she was at length:

(In such wars women use but half their strength) (Lines 778-80).

Readers must make up their own minds about such interpretations. Some readers may find them persuasive and join in censuring the poem’s dominant male perspective. Others may feel that such readings do not take account of the comic, “playful” spirit in which the poem is written. According to that view, Hero and Leander would be just a young couple experiencing romantic and sexual love for the first time and fumbling through it as best they can—complete with blunders, misapprehensions, and comic pratfalls—within the social conventions and gender roles of their (or Marlowe’s) day.