In composing Hero and Leander, Marlowe primarily used Musaeus Grammaticus’s version of the myth, as well as “epistles XVIII and XIX of [Ovid’s] Heroides” as his source material (Keach 86). Like Shakespeare, Marlowe reimagines this classical narrative about love and desire by infusing it with more aggression and sexual conflict. However, the most notable difference is that Marlowe’s poem does not end with the death or “blood” of the titular lovers foreshadowed in the opening (I. 1), as Marlowe himself was killed before the poem’s completion. Nevertheless, it is possible to treat the poem as a completed work because though Marlowe “narrates only a “fragment”…of the entire story…he treats this “fragment” with a remarkable unity of conception and
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Almost immediately, he establishes a parallel between them by writing that Leander was so beautiful, “Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand” (I. 62). Later, on his way to Hero’s tower, Leander’s swim across the Hellespont is interrupted by the “lusty god” Neptune (II. 167) who, “Imagining that Ganymede, displeas 'd, / Had left the heavens” (II. 57-8), pulls him under the water. Neptune, as water personified, begins to embrace Leander in ways that recall Venus caressing Adonis (II. 181-191), and Leander similarly refuses to return the god’s affections. Ultimately, like Adonis who is pierced by the boar’s phallic tusk, Leander is wounded by Neptune’s “triple mace” (II. 172) for refusing to be the subordinate party in a same-gender relationship with an older lover (II. 207-213). However, the fact that he is merely wounded may be construed as the result of the way in which he, in contrast to Adonis, does not renounce sexual behaviour outright. Imploring Neptune to release him, he exclaims, “You are deceiv 'd; I am no woman, I” (II. 192). This phrase signifies that Leander refuses to be subjugated by the male god because since having his gaze awakened by Hero (I. 161-166), he identifies women as the appropriate objects of masculine desire. By the end of the poem, he has fully positioned …show more content…
In discussing the significance of the myth in larger Elizabethan culture, Sinfield explains that “Ganymede translates, approximately, into the early-modern page boy” (113); “He is not much of an individual, but he is quite a prominent social function” (115). Carter
Almost immediately, he establishes a parallel between them by writing that Leander was so beautiful, “Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand” (I. 62). Later, on his way to Hero’s tower, Leander’s swim across the Hellespont is interrupted by the “lusty god” Neptune (II. 167) who, “Imagining that Ganymede, displeas 'd, / Had left the heavens” (II. 57-8), pulls him under the water. Neptune, as water personified, begins to embrace Leander in ways that recall Venus caressing Adonis (II. 181-191), and Leander similarly refuses to return the god’s affections. Ultimately, like Adonis who is pierced by the boar’s phallic tusk, Leander is wounded by Neptune’s “triple mace” (II. 172) for refusing to be the subordinate party in a same-gender relationship with an older lover (II. 207-213). However, the fact that he is merely wounded may be construed as the result of the way in which he, in contrast to Adonis, does not renounce sexual behaviour outright. Imploring Neptune to release him, he exclaims, “You are deceiv 'd; I am no woman, I” (II. 192). This phrase signifies that Leander refuses to be subjugated by the male god because since having his gaze awakened by Hero (I. 161-166), he identifies women as the appropriate objects of masculine desire. By the end of the poem, he has fully positioned …show more content…
In discussing the significance of the myth in larger Elizabethan culture, Sinfield explains that “Ganymede translates, approximately, into the early-modern page boy” (113); “He is not much of an individual, but he is quite a prominent social function” (115). Carter