HERO AND LEANDER
Tell, goddess, of the lamp, which was the
confidant of secret loving, and of the youth who swam by night to wed across
the sea; and of his dark marriage upon which no dawn ever shone.
Sestus and Abydus are divided by the sea,
but Eros united them with an arrow which struck the fair Hero and Leander.
Leander lived at Abydus, and Hero at Sestus, where she dwelt in a tower
outside the town with one old servant. Hero ministered to Aphrodite and
to her son Eros. Yet even so she did not avoid the boy's shafts, for at
a festival of Adonis she met Leander, and they fell in love with one another.
In the early evening twilight they stood like beautiful shapes carved upon
a relief, and Hero listened to Leander's pleas, and was persuaded. She
told him of her home, and he vowed to swim to her by night; she must light
a lamp to guide his journey.
They prayed for night to fall, and when
it was dark and the lamp shone out, he came to her.
His skin she bathed, and anointed his body
fragrantly
With oil of roses, to take away the harsh
tang of the sea;
Then in her bed, piled deep with rugs,
laid him to rest,
Still breathing hard, and drew him with
fond words to her breast-
"Ah love so sorely tried as never lover
yet,
O dear and sore-tried love, the bitter
waves forget !
Forget the booming breakers, the
harsh, fish-reeking brine,
And rest thy weary body within these arms
of mine !"
He hearkened, then her girdle he loosened,
and the will
Of glorious-hearted Cypris they turned
them to fulfil.
A bridal it was where no man danced; no
voice of minstrel praised
Hera, Queen of Wedlock; no marriage-hymn
was raised.
Round that marriage-bed no torches
filled the night with flame,
No revellers light-footed whirling about
them came,
Their bridal-song no father and well-loved
mother led-
Nay, in Love's crowning hour 'twas Silence
strewed their bed
And shut their marriage-chamber;'twas
Darkness decked the bride,
And night that gave them blessing.
And so they made love through many summer
nights.
But when winter came, and the sea grew
stormy, Hero outght to have refrained from lighting her lamp. Yet love
and destiny compelled her, and the fatal night arrived. Leander struggled
with the waves, but his strength failed him- and Hero's lamp was blown
out by the wind. When the grey morning dawned, he still had not reached
her tower.
Everywhere over the sea's wide plains with
straining eyes
She searched for sight of him, lest perchance
his way was lost
When the light of her lamp was gone. And
when she saw him dead,
Torm by the rocks and lying at her tower's
foundation,
About her breast she tore the wondrous
woven mantle
And from the sheer crag plunged in hurtling
headlong fall
To find with her dead love a death among
the waves
And the joy of love together in life's
last separation.
