The Landscape of Hero and Leander in Courtly Love: Analytical Essay

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The landscape of Hero and Leander is integral to driving the action of the story; without the vast expanse of sea, there would be no illusion of courtly love, no heroic bravery of the tumultuous sea, and no reason for this narrative to exist. This essay aims to examine the significance of the Hellespontine expanse as a driving force of the poem, and its importance in establishing classic tropes of courtly love, as well as examining the body of water as a separate element in and of itself, and argues that the landscape is essential as a symbol of and vehicle for the concept of longing. However, Marlowe’s use of the image of the sea plays a role in the subversion of the courtly love genre, examining sexuality through the use of the sea as an extension of Neptune’s desire. Given that Marlowe’s epyllion is a retelling of Greek and Byzantine poetry, one must study these ideas in not only a geographical sense, but also a somewhat historical lens, looking at the mythic landscape of the poem as well as the physical.

Before one can understand the significance of the Hellespont in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, its significance in Greek mythology must first be discussed. As told by Aeschylus (Persians 69-71) and Pindar (fragment 189), Hellespont is named after a girl, Helle, who drowned in the sea whilst being rescued by Nephele. Thus, the expanse between Abydos and Sestos is already closely linked to tragedy and unnecessary suffering; although in Marlowe’s version, Leander does not suffer a tragic death, Musaeus’ original (Musaeus was ‘indisputably the principle and direct source’ of the story of Hero and Leander (Braden)) and Ovid’s iteration state and insinuate (respectively) the fact that he drowns crossing the Hellespont. Due to the fact that Marlowe is retelling the story in his epyllion, it would be unwise to attempt to separate his version from his sources. Therefore, upon examining the mythic landscape, the Hellespont is already a tragic emblem that foreshadows Leander’s near-death experience with Neptune and the ultimate tragedy of Hero’s virginal sacrifice.

In Marlowe’s epyllion, the Hellespont acts as a paraclausithyron; although the etymology is not entirely clear, it is generally believed to mean ‘lament beside a door’, from the Greek παρακλαίω, ‘lament beside’, and θύρα, ‘door’, and is a common trope in classical poetry (Canter). In Hero and Leander, the Hellespont, although not a door or wall, is a significant obstruction between the two young lovers. In fact, Marlowe opens the epyllion with a description of the Hellespont, penning that,

On Hellespont, guilty of true love’s blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune’s might.

Here, the expanse is personified as a ‘guilty’ party, immediately presenting the idea that the space between the lovers will be a complication of the plot, framed as ‘guilty’ of causing some form of conflict. Marlowe also introduces and places emphasis on the sea, creating the epithet of ‘Neptune’s might’ and foreshadowing Leander’s later interaction with the ‘sapphire-visaged god’. The ‘cities’ seem to symbolize the lovers themselves, ‘disjoined’ by the turbulent sea. The personification of the two cities as ‘sea-borderers’ invokes the idea that they are drawn to each other, getting as close as they can across the sea without actually traversing it.

One could argue that Renaissance poetry, and perhaps love poetry in general, is constantly trying to conquer language and in order to evoke feeling; the language becomes a barrier for pure emotion, as poets and characters attempt to bypass rhetoric and convey their emotions in the most undiluted way. Thus, language becomes in itself a paraclausithyron, where a poet or character is limited by their linguistics, making even the most eloquent language reductive and obstructive. Leander conveys this sentiment in his first meeting with Hero, stating that ‘[his] words shall be as spotless as [his] youth, / full of simplicity and naked truth.’ Here, he recognizes that he needs to bypass fanciful rhetoric in order to communicate his emotional state to Hero. Leander’s understanding of the limitations of language only serves to further emphasize the damaging effects of physical and emotional separation on him and Hero; this idea is also prevalent in Ovid’s version of the story in his Heroides (which Marlowe would have almost certainly studied during his time at Cambridge), in which Leander writes to Hero:

Of what avail to me that the billows are not broad that sunder us? Is this brief span of water less an obstacle to me?…
I can almost touch her with my hand, so near is she I love; but oft, alas! this “almost” starts my tears. (Goold)

Ovid’s interpretation of the Hellespont is similar to Marlowe’s portrayal of it as interference between Hero and Leander’s love. However, Marlowe’s Leander does not merely see the expanse as an obstacle; rather, he views the sea as a controlling presence, ‘[praying for] the narrow toiling Hellespont / to part in twain, that he might come and go. Here, the juxtaposition of the words ‘narrow’ and ‘toiling’ have the same effect as Ovid’s passage, as the narrator (presumably Marlowe) notes the short distance between Leader and Hero, but also highlights the dangers Leander faces of the ‘toiling Hellespont’ before him. This continues to emphasize the idea of the Hellespont as a paraclausithyron, as Leander is now lamenting to the space between himself and his lover, ‘pray[ing]’ that it ‘part[s] in twain’; he explicitly takes on the role of the exclusions amator, parted from his lover by an obstruction made of empty space. Likewise, the Biblical allegory to Moses parting the Red Sea in Exodus 14:21 demonstrates Leander’s powerlessness against the sea. By praying to it, Leander personifies the Hellespont, and its refusal to part for Leander juxtaposes the Christian image of power over nature with the ‘toiling’, in other words, stormy and aggressive, sea.

There is a definite distinction between the Hellespont, which is the particular distance between Abydos and Sestos, and the sea itself. Although the sea falls under the Hellespontine expanse, it distinguishes itself as a separate geographical and literary element through Leander’s interaction with Neptune; therefore, the sea becomes a vehicle for Marlowe to examine the role of touch and sexuality, as opposed to its absence, as a secondary driving force of the narrative. We as readers are introduced to the sea as Leander ‘ leaped lively in’ to it, having stripped naked and declared to his ‘love’ that he is on his way across the water. This particular moment is absurdly comic, more so given that Hellenistic linguistic influences would have meant that a contemporary audience would have ‘gather[ed] that a leap into the sea is a violent movement that produces a brief instant of flight’ (Beaulieu), which Beaulieu examines in her investigation into what leaping into the sea meant in Greek culture, a culture Marlowe is evidently writing about. This leads us to the conclusion that Leander’s ‘violent … flight’ is almost a spectacle, which is an absurd notion given the fact that Leander already knew how to get across without swimming through the ‘toiling Hellespont’, as he had met Hero in Abydos that same day. Thus, Leander’s desperation, prevalent through his exclamatory calls for Hero, comically culminates in this ‘violent leap’ where he unnecessarily throws himself into the sea. The comedy is brought out further in the landscape here; by personifying the ‘rising billows’, Marlowe manages to create a vivid image of the tumultuous sea, thus juxtaposing the vision of Leander, a slight and feminine young man, throwing himself into a huge body of stormy water in order to reach Hero’s tower, which the reader knows he is able to cross without such theatrics, as he was perfectly capable of making the journey earlier that day. In this way, Marlowe utilizes the sea is as a vehicle for the establishment of Leander’s mock-heroic identity; his dedication to his love, Hero, is presented as comically embellished throughout the poem, but his later interaction with Neptune elevates this burlesque of the courtly love genre.

One of the other significant roles the holds in the poem is the introduction of aggressive sexuality. Earlier in the poem, Hero and Leander exchanged brief interactions where Hero ‘saved her maidenhead’ (thus indicating to the reader that she kept her virginity intact); in the second Sestiad, Leander is accosted by the ‘lusty god’ Neptune. In this exchange between Neptune and Leander, Marlowe creates incredibly sensual imagery, simultaneously weaving it with images of entrapment and lack of bodily autonomy. This is evident in moments such as Marlowe’s description of how ‘the waves around him [Leander] wound’. Here, the placement of the words ‘waves … wound’ around the pronoun ‘him’ serves to cleverly emphasize his entrapment and the ubiquitous presence of the water all around him; here, Marlowe creates the water to be an extension of Neptune’s emotional state. Marlowe thus utilizes the sea as an exploration of themes of sexuality and foreshadows the tone of Hero and Leander’s later sexual encounter. If one believes Leander is a virgin, then the fact that his first interaction with sexuality is as aggressive and forceful as Neptune ‘pull[ing] him to the bottom of the sea is likely to leave an impression on the young man. Taking a psychoanalytical approach, Leander could be seen as modeling his future interactions with Hero off of his experience with Neptune, thus meaning that Leander’s interaction with Neptune has parallels with his subsequent sexual experience with Hero, as ‘the notion of sexual coercion haunts much criticism of Hero and Leander’ (Leonard). Thus, Marlowe’s introduction of power dynamics within sexual relationships while Leander is in the sea is particularly powerful; he characterizes the waves as both violent and gentle, describing how Neptune had to ‘beat down the bold waves in order to protect Leander from drowning, but simultaneously creates incredibly poignant, tender images of said waves, which

‘Mounted up, intending to have kissed him,
And fell in drops like tears, because they missed him.’

With this image, Marlowe, who earlier seemed to be appropriating the courtly love genre present in much Renaissance narrative poetry, turns away from this, instead subverting the genre through aquatic imagery, leaning towards sensual descriptions of Neptune’s advances on Leander.

As Ann points out, ‘the sea god also provides the occasion for a good deal of comic deflation of the traditionally heroic Hellespont swim’ (Ann). By describing Neptune’s overwhelming attraction for Leander in such detail, Marlowe manages to place emphasis not on Hero and Leander’s courtly relationship, but on Neptune’s lecherous and lustful obsession with the young man. This is particularly prevalent during the Leander’s swim across the sea, where Neptune

‘… watched his arms and, as they opened wide
At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide
And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance,
And, as he turned, cast many a lustful glance,
And threw him gaudy toys to please his eye,
And dive into the water, and there pry
Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb,
And up again, and close beside him swim,
And talk of love.’

The anaphora of ‘and’ here serves to demonstrate the extent of Neptune’s fascination with Leander, using the blazon of ‘his breast, his thighs, and every limb’ to create a sense of morbid curiosity one would not expect from an old god. As Neptune and the sea hold the same significance in this poem, as one is essentially an extension of the other, and vice versa, one can observe how Marlowe utilizes the sea as a comic element in the poem used to subvert the classic Homeric epic structure and function.

In Hellenic poetry, ‘contemporary interpretations … held the sea’s allegorical significance to be the temptation to baseness’ (Williams), thus supporting the idea that many texts, including Hero and Leander, used the image of the sea as a vehicle for debauchery. Thus, by utilizing the sea as an extension of Neptune’s desires so prevalently, Marlowe perpetuates the image of the sea as a ‘temptation to baseness’, further maintaining the idea that Neptune’s advances on Leander were lecherous and immoral. Fascinatingly, Marlowe does not seem to maintain this viewpoint throughout the exchange; upon learning that Leander was not Ganymede, he ‘put Helle’s bracelet on [Leander’s] arm, / and swore the sea should never do him harm. With this protective gesture, Marlowe parallels Hero’s earlier actions, whereupon Leander ‘must wear the sacred ring with wherewith she was endowed’. Tokens were commonly exchanged in tales of courtly love, and perhaps by inventing the idea of the bracelet Marlowe again subverts the idea of the sea and Neptune as lecherous characters, contrasting the power of Leander’s purity and innocence against Neptune’s ‘lustful glance.

The role of water in Hero and Leander is significant and prevalent throughout both the myth and Marlowe’s epyllion. Marlowe creates a paraclausithyron from the Hellespontine expanse, leaving Leander ‘[crying] full oft’ upon a rock beside the sea for his beloved. In doing so, he manages to explore the concept of yearning, fulfilling the parameters of the courtly love genre. However, Marlowe also uses the sea to subvert said genre; Leander’s plunge into the water, and subsequent interaction with Neptune, are both comical and sensual. As Summers aptly points out, ‘in transforming the tragic tale of Hero and Leander into a sexual comedy, Marlowe burlesques the literary tradition that he exploits’ (Summers). Touch plays an essential role in romantic poetry and the idea of courtly love, and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander is no different; one could comment that his entire narrative (although barely his originally) is centered around a need for human connection and intimacy. Therefore, the Hellespont and the sea are simultaneously utilized to establish the Renaissance courtly love genre and to undermine and burlesque it. (Braden)

Bibliography

Marlowe, Christopher. “Hero and Leander”. The Norton Anthology of Poetry 6th edition, edited by Margaret Ferguson et al., W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, p. 250-268
Beaulieu, Marie-Claire. ‘Leaps of Faith?: Diving into the Sea, Women, and Metamorphosis.’ The Sea in the Greek Imagination. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. p. 145-166.
Braden, Gordon. ‘The Classics and English Poetry: Three Case Studies.’ New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. p. 125.
Leonard, John. ‘Marlowe’s Doric Music: Lust and Aggression in ‘Hero and Leander’.’ English Literary Renaissance 30.1 (2000): p. 55-76.
Summers, Claude. “Hero and Leander: The Arbitrariness of Desire.” In Constructing Christopher Marlowe, edited by J. A. Downie and J. T. Parnell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. p. 133-147
Collins, S. Ann. “Sundrie Shapes, Committing Headdie Ryots, Incest, Rapes Functions of Myth in Determining Narrative and Tone in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander.” Mosaic IV, No. 1. 1970. p. 107-22.
Canter, H. V. “The Paraclausithyron as a Literary Theme.” The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 41, No. 4. 1920. p. 355–368.
Goold, Showerman, Goold, G. P., and Showerman, Grant. Heroides; Amores Ovid; with an English Translation by Grant Showerman. New Ed. / Revised by G.P. Goold. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2014. Loeb Classical Library; 41. Web.
Williams, Martin T. “The Temptations in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander.” Modern Language Quarterly 16, No. 3. September 1955. p. 226-31.
Summers, Claude. “Hero and Leander: The Arbitrariness of Desire.” In Constructing Christopher Marlowe, edited by J. A. Downie and J. T. Parnell, pp. 133-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000

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