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Hero and Leander

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Marlowe's unfinished masterpiece, as completed by George Chapman. Includes an introduction and notes by Edward Blunt.

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1598

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About the author

Christopher Marlowe

662 books790 followers
Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own mysterious and untimely death.

The author's Wikipedia page.

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5 stars
316 (22%)
4 stars
491 (34%)
3 stars
455 (32%)
2 stars
121 (8%)
1 star
31 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
Profile Image for Alexis Hall.
Author 53 books13.8k followers
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May 12, 2015
My favourite thing about this poem is the bit when you realise that Hero is wearing a floofy pink dress and Leander is basically naked.



It may just be the gayest thing ever.

The poem as a whole and also that bit specifically.
Profile Image for Jesús De la Jara.
753 reviews95 followers
March 7, 2019
"El azul de su túnica estaba manchado
De la sangre de amantes desgraciados.
Lucía en su cabeza una corona de mirto
donde colgaba su velo hasta la tierra.
Su velo era de flores y de hojas de artificio
cuya labor confunde a hombres y bestias.
El dulce aroma a su paso preciaban
cuando era el olor que su aliento dejaba.
En vano miel buscaban las abejas
y, espantadas, de nuevo allí volvían."

Es en realidad un poema inacabado del famoso dramaturgo Marlowe sobre la historia de la mitología griega entre Hero y Leandro, dos amantes que en realidad son más conocidos por su final que como menciono el poema no llega a narrar.
Me encantó el inicio y las descripciones de ambos personajes pero de ahí el poema decayó un poco. Más que la historia en sí lo que se puede apreciar en este escrito son las descripciones del amor y el deseo, tan típico de Marlowe, así como las alusiones de homosexualidad frecuente en toda su obra. Se nota desde luego el gran conocimiento del autor de la mitología clásica pues de hecho él tradujo varias obras grecoromanas al inglés y la manera cómo usa alusiones mitológicas o historias de esa época es también magistral. Es como una leyenda recontada en estilo clásico y con el estilo único de Marlowe.
Profile Image for Robert.
824 reviews44 followers
June 16, 2017
This poem appears to be a distant ancestor of all those horror films where teen couples die horribly as a consequence of sneaking off to have illicit pre-marital sex. Our cultural obsession with virginity as a symbol of moral purity and an only marginally more subtle form of Patriarchal reduction of the female to property never ceases to amaze me. Yep, it's weaker in the West, now, than it has been historically, but it's still present in some quarters, as evidenced by those same horror movies, and there are many countries where it's still a Really Big Thing that you have to be a virgin on your wedding night. Maybe one day the Middle Ages will come to a close? Don't hold your breathe, though.

Marlowe either abandoned this poem incomplete in favour of other projects or died whilst still actively working on it, I don't know which, but either way, he only wrote the first ~1/3 (or less, haven't actually counted the pages) and George Chapman took up the task of completing the story. Unfortunately, on this evidence, Chapman was not nearly as talented as Marlowe - which is more informative than it might seem at face value. See, Marlowe (and all the other Elizabethan-Jacobean playwrights and poets) exists under the enormous and deep shadow cast by Shakespeare, who went from an early career as Marlovian imitator to towering genius of dramatic-poetic expression. What Chapman shows, however, is that the better known contemporaries of Shakespeare, such as Marlowe, Jonson and Middleton were actually talented in their own right - they just had the misfortune to overlap with the best there's ever been by a remarkable stretch. In fact Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays and numerous of these less celebrated authors wrote works that were as good as or better than Shakespeare's weaker efforts. Chapman's mediocrity serves to illustrate that Marlowe was actually excellent - he just had a rival who permanently skewed the chart of dramatic-poetic genius.

It's a fun poem, especially at the beginning (Marlowe's bit) and the end (sudden turn to the Tragic), particularly if you like tales of gods and heroes and can swallow the ridiculous moral of the tale.
Profile Image for Ana.
2,390 reviews377 followers
February 9, 2021
Boy meets girl, wooing occurs, persuasive arguments are made for breaking vows of chastity. This doesn't succeed at first, but the maiden Hero is secretly infatuated with Leander, he is allowed to try again. He swims to get to her room, Neptun tries to make a pass at our hero, but he evades his advances. Hero sees him coming and jumps in bed to hide.

The ending is the biggest cockblock I've read in quite some time. I wish Marlowe had had time to finish the poem.
Profile Image for Olivia-Savannah.
957 reviews554 followers
May 1, 2018
This was an okay read. It was beautifully written and the story was quite okay. It was a nice romance and all but the fact that we don't know if this is the conclusive ending to their tale or whether there is supposed to be more makes me feel like I am reading something unfinished, and like I can't really place a certain judgment on the story yet. But it was a nice enough read and all. Not much else I have to say >.>

Read for university.
Profile Image for freddie.
144 reviews41 followers
October 25, 2021
kind of a shame marlowe didn’t get to finish this.. getting stabbed in the head kinda does that to a poet.

*note: i only read marlowe’s section, so my review doesn’t reflect a reading of anyone’s attempt to finish the poem
Profile Image for Alena.
102 reviews23 followers
December 3, 2019
Christopher Marlowe really rewrote the myth to include Neptune being gay and horny, Leander being a twink and cut of the tragic ending huh? He spiced up the sexy bits and said that's it, that is all I am interested in. Marlowe said thristy bisexual rights and I have to respect that.
Profile Image for Denise.
235 reviews28 followers
September 7, 2013
Absolutely beautiful.

The while upon a hillock down he lay And sweetly on his pipe began to play, And with smooth speech her fancy to assay, Till in his twining arms he locked her fast And then he wooed with kisses; and at last, As shepherds do, her on the ground he laid And, tumbling in the grass, he often strayed Beyond the bounds of shame, in being bold To eye those parts which no eye should behold.

They offered him the deadly fatal knife That shears the slender threads of human life.

(Of virginity) Jewels being lost are found again, this never; 'Tis lost but once, and once lost, lost forever.

Profile Image for Carlos.
189 reviews90 followers
January 18, 2024
Aunque "Hero y Leandro" me parezca inferior a "Venus y Adonis" como poema narrativo, particularmente en aspectos formales de su construcción poética, si lo evalúo como narrativa me parece superior.
Profile Image for jtabz.
97 reviews10 followers
February 18, 2009
Maddeningly inconclusive, and, since no one can seem to agree on whether or not Marlowe finished it before he died, there's no way for the reader to place this inconclusivity into a larger framework. If we know he means it to be ambigious, then we can deal with that accordingly, but if we don't know what he intended, the reading's a pretty murky task.

Dude also really hates chicks.
Just sayin'.
Profile Image for connie.
1,425 reviews98 followers
November 14, 2018
4/5 stars

if marlowe's gay ass can have an unfinished piece of work published and praised cause he got stabbed in the eye before he could finish it, why the fuck can't i, huh?

Also I really love this, Marlowe was a beautiful writer and the poetic imagery in this makes it a delight to read. Definitely one I'll use for my assessment!
Profile Image for laura.
37 reviews3 followers
March 16, 2023
‘These lovers parled by the touch of hands,
True love is mute, and oft amazed stands.’
Profile Image for Alessio.
153 reviews2 followers
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December 24, 2020
DESUNT NONNULLA

For me, this epyllion exists in the same universe as the porcelain ars est celare artem universe of Bronzino. Extravagant; naughty as an antitype to Marcantonio Raimondi's I Modi; the stylish style (TS Eliot called it "pretty simple huffe‐snuffe bombast") - the Neptune episode felt like something out of Disney's Little Mermaid x Bronzino's sexy Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune. "Venus's nun" LOL.
17 reviews3 followers
September 11, 2020
Put simply, I didn't finish this. I made a heroic (see what I did there?) effort, but halfway through I had to put this down out of sheer boredom. This was a good read - but certainly not without its flaws, especially when compared to that literary giant, William Shakespeare.

This is my first work by Christopher Marlowe. He's an interesting man in his own right - a gay atheist spy who died as he lived, in a pub brawl. He apparently infamously said, 'Those who love not tobacco and boys are fools', and, also, went on to say the Bible was written badly and he could do a better job. He's a contemporary of Shakespeare and, let's face facts, they probably knew each other - or at least operated in the same circles. With this in mind, I really expected more. Probably the fact he was an interesting person meant he was so busy being interesting he couldn't sit down and...make this just as interesting as him.

This is ~around~ the same time as when Shakespeare was writing Sonnet 130 - you know the one. 'My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun'? Classic. An Early Modern banging tune, even more so because he mentions her boobs by line 3 (always a plus). It's the archetypal anti-sonnet sonnet. Essentially, it's saying that love poems are overrated, comparisons are ridiculous and by being truthful he is paying more of a compliment to the subject of his affections.

Marlowe down the road, on the other hand, shrugged his shoulders and played it straight. Painfully, painfully straight. This poem is full of overblown comparisons. I hope to find when I study this at uni that this is purposeful as a satire. Please, please God be a satire in the same vein as Sonnet 130. Satirical or not, though, I found it incredibly flowery, and, although I hate to compare (no, I'm kidding, I live for comparing and contrasting works) it really doesn't stand up to Shakespeare. Hero wears a cloak of fake flowers and greenery, and everyone thinks that's where the pleasant smell is coming from - no, it's her breath. Half the earth went dark because Nature herself mourned the way Hero had taken some natural beauty for herself. Don't get me wrong - some of the imagery is beautiful:

Leander strived; the waves about him wound,
And pulled him to the bottom, where the ground
Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves
Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves
On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure
To spurn in careless sort the shipwrack treasure.


The outside of her garments were of lawn,
The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove,
Where Venus in her naked glory strove
To please the careless and disdainful eyes
Of proud Adonis, that before her lies.
Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.


But the mesmerising passages become clogged in overdone hyperbole. Romances are like this, sure, but I found this very, very heavily laden with this utopian kind of language - everything is the best, the worst, both of our leading protagonists are the most beautiful. Again, I'm a Shakespeare girl, used to more...complex characters than this, I suppose? Characters such as The Tempest's Miranda and Romeo and Juliet's....well, Juliet, are meant to be beautiful - but I never felt it was overdone there. Perhaps this was not exactly satire and more an imitation of the classical style of Homer and (Ovid? I think?) but whereas that style carries well in the Ancient World, it doesn't so much here.

And that's not even mentioning the rhyme scheme! The verse's rhyming couplets began to grate very early on. It was very simplistic, and as a primarily Shakespeare girl used to more complex structures I found the recurring rhymes very difficult to read and painfully predictable, with rhymes that are a stretch at best and are (although this isn't Marlowe's fault) outdated at worst. The part when Marlowe's pal Chapman took over didn't improve matters. It was the combination of this with the rhyme scheme that made me read halfway through and then stop - it was making me fairly miserable and after six days of hacking through it I think it's a safe bet that I can look up the rest and not miss much.

However, other reviewers have noted Hero's agency, and I would agree in that Marlowe (and Chapman) made an interesting character in writing Hero. A lot of time is spent reviewing her feelings about whether or not to give in to her desire for Leander - in fact, I found Leander a cardboard cut-out in comparison. They fleshed her out into a character with thoughts, emotions and problems to wrestle with. Her thoughts regarding her virginity are complex and intricate, and deeply steeped in her beliefs about her faith and position in society. She also doesn't give her virginity to Leander straight away; she makes him wait after changing her mind during a session of heavy petting. This is also pretty ground-breaking for the time.

I may try this again after some time, when I'm not on such a time limit reading set texts for university - and I may also come back to this after having learnt more about it at the lectures/seminars etc. However, this is my bare-bones review - for now - and I value gut-instinct responses to works as much as educated ones.
Profile Image for Alina Kokina.
38 reviews
March 19, 2022
Leander begging Hero to have sex with him 'if not for love, for pity sake' is the peak of romance
Profile Image for Roberta  Suárez.
81 reviews2 followers
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November 25, 2022
Christopher Marlowe tiene razón, love is too full of faith.
[update después de mi clase: sí está torcido el poema tho]
Profile Image for Georgia.
273 reviews4 followers
Read
November 17, 2023
technically I read the unfinished version but I’m counting it anyway
Profile Image for Ele.
134 reviews
Read
September 23, 2023
boy meets girl but girl has made a vow of chastity which boy counteracts with persuasive rhetoric (conclusion: very dubious consent and girl's eternal damnation of course)

moral of the story: don't show up to bae's house butt naked, may not be appreciated
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Ellis ♥.
939 reviews10 followers
October 28, 2022
Di un amore sventurato che sfocia in tragedia. Eros (῎Ερως) e Thanatos (θάνατος ) indissolubilmente legati.

Se nel mito greco che riguardava Piramo e Tisbe a ostacolare i due innamorati era un muro che separava le loro abitazioni, per Ero e Leandro l'intralcio è l'Ellesponto.
L’autore si focalizza prevalentemente sull'esplorare il sentimento della coppia che ha inizio nel modo più tradizionale: a prima vista.

[…] Chi
ha mai amato se non al primo sguardo? […] Si parlarono
quegli amanti esprimendosi col tocco
delle mani: muto è il vero amore
e spesso sgomenta. In segni silenti
s’impigliarono, vinti, i loro cuori,
e l’aria risplendette per scintille
di fuoco vivo; e la Notte immersa
negli abissi dell’Acheronte esalante
vapori, il capo sollevò e la terra
a metà avvolse nella tenebra
(L’oscura notte è il giorno di Cupido).

Christopher Marlowe nella riscrittura di questo classico, lascia la sua impronta. L’amore dei due giovani esula dai canoni della società (elisabettiana per quanto riguarda Marlowe stesso) e della religione, lasciando ampio spazio anche all’aspetto erotico… Si mostra una sorta di ambiguità sull’orientamento sessuale di Leandro, una rivisitazione che proprio non mi aspettavo. Tuttavia non c’è scampo, fin da subito lo scrittore ci lancia chiari segnali sul drammatico destino che li attende.
Una poesia artificiosa e ricca di metafore che ha reso un po' ostica la lettura nonostante la brevità dell’esposto.
Profile Image for Phantomº.
492 reviews51 followers
November 10, 2021
I can not rate this, it is...in a few words, you do not miss anything by not reading it. If you want to get into Marlowe start with one of his plays.
Profile Image for Merve Özcan.
Author 24 books33 followers
December 4, 2012
Hero and Leander
Christopher Marlowe

Tür: Aşk Hikayesi, Şiir, Klasik, Yunan Mitolojisi

Uzun bir mücadele ve azimin ardından Marlowe'un Hero ve Leander'ını bitirdim.

Sevdim mi peki? Emin olamıyorum... Aslında güzeldi; yoğundu ve birazda anlaşılmaz... Ama şiiri okumaktan çok dinlediğim için daha da etkileyiciydi . Eğer Hades ve Persephone gibi parodileri varsa okumak isterim, biraz bakınacağım... Şiir benim tarzım değil.

Hero, bir erkeğin ismini andırsa da aslında bir tanrıça ile karşılaştırılabilecek kadar güzel bir kadındır ve Venüs'ün rahibedir, Leander ise bir kadın kadar güzel, ama aynı zamanda en harbi erkekler kadar kaslı bir erkektir. Bu iki birbirlerini görür ve aşık olurlar ama Hero bakireliğini korumak ister, bizim azgın Leander ise çeşitli sözler ile Hero'nun aklını çeler ve kızı kötü emellerine alet eder :D

Şaka yapıyorum tabii, herşey Hero'nun başının altından çıktı.

Neptün'ün olaylar beni güldürdü, şu Yunan ya da Roma tanrılarının onun bunun ilişkilerine burnunu sokma arzusunu okumaktan gına geldi. Çok ayıp ama.

Bu arada ben sadece Marlowe'un yazdığı kısmı okudum,şiir George Chapman tarafından tamamlanmış

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