Hero and Leander

Chapman’s continuation

Chapman’s translation of Musaeus

Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander is probably the best of the Elizabethan epyllia and it would be foolhardy to attempt a presentation of the text in a brief form. Suffice it to state that the poem explores the themes of love, desire, and fate through the story of its titular characters which the Elizabethans knew through Ovid’s (perhaps spurious) Heroides 18 and 19 and Musaeus’ Hellenistic poem of the same title. Readers (Marlowe included) generally used the Aldine edition, first pioneeringly printed in the final decade of the sixteenth century, which presented the Greek text along with Marcus Musurus’ Latin translation. The Aldine edition was frequently reprinted and featured also two drawings depicting Sestos and Abydos and the tragic fate of the two lovers. Although some scholars (for instance, Giuseppe Giusto Scaligero) had pointed out that there is strong linguistic evidence that the Musaeus who wrote the poem could not be the mythical contemporary of Orpheus mentioned, among others, by Virgil (“Musaeum ante omnes”, Aeneid 6, 666). It is in fact by Musaeus Grammaticus, who lived in the 6^th century CE, but most people still believed that Hero and Leander were the first lovers ever immortalised in literature.

  The poem was published posthumously in 1598 (see Witness Description), five years after Marlowe’s murder, and the text ends after Hero and Leander’s first sexual experience. Edward Blount, the editor, placed the Latin words “Desunt nonnulla” (Some parts are missing) at the end. Scholars disagree on the meaning of this: does it mean that Marlowe decided not to continue the story as he was only interested in showing the burgeoning of the lovers’ relationship? Does it mean that this is not a deliberate fragment and that Marlowe would have written the rest had he not been killed? Everybody knew how the story ended (Leander drowns and Hero hurls herself from her tower), and the very first line of Marlowe’s poem can hardly be considered a spoiler. Edward Blount inserted a dedication to Sir Thomas Walsingham (Marlowe’s patron who however had regularly employed Ingram Frizer, Marlowe’s murderer) and framed the poem as an “unfinished tragedy”.

  The quality of the work and the circumstances of its publication (the text seems to have circulated in manuscript form before) were among the factors behind the extreme success of Hero and Leander, which was read, quoted, and also parodied (most famously in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair) extensively. The poem was republished frequently (in 1600, 1606, 1609, 1613, 1617, 1622, 1629, 1637 – see    https://marlowecensus.org/editions/19/  ) always together with George Chapman's 1598 continuation. Chapman also divided the text into six “sestiads” (only the first two containing Marlowe’s text) and added short arguments in verse summarising the content of each unit.

  The poem is written in couplets of iambic pentameter and showcases Marlowe’s talent for blending classical mythology with contemporary themes, and it is notable for its rich language, intricate imagery, and emotional depth. Marlowe took inspiration from Musaeus but profusely added details embroidering the narrative, often displaying a sort of Ovidian humour, and inserted ex novo several sections, such as the myth of Mercury and the Fates (lines. 386-484) and the homoerotic episode with Neptune. T.W. Baldwin has clearly demonstrated that Marlowe, who had great classicist skills, followed more the original Greek than Musurus’ Latin translation in the Aldine, “with the ultimate aid of Stephanus or Scapula, or some other Greek-Latin dictionary containing their definition of [c]rucial Greek word[s]” (1955, 480). However, Marlowe soon abandoned Musaeus:

At least the groundwork of Marlowe’s use of Musaeus had probably been laid in grammar school, and when he came to compose, he may have done no more than refresh his memory with the old texts. At most, the current text of Musaeus in conventional form is merely a springboard to get Marlowe's Pegasus into the air, where he soars on his own. (485)

Works Cited

Baldwin, T.W. 1955. “Marlowe’s Musaeus”. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 54 (4): 478-85.

Baldwin, T.W. 1955. “Marlowe’s Musaeus”. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 54 (4): 478-85

Bieman, Elizabeth. 1979. “Comic Rhyme in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander”. English Literary Renaissance 9: 69-77.

Campbell, Marion. 1984. “Desunt Nonnulla: the Construction of Marlowe’s Hero and Leander as an Unfinished Poem”. English Literary History 51: 241-68.

Darcy, Robert F. 2022. “‘Under my hands . . . a double duty’: Printing and Pressing Marlowe’s Hero and Leander”. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 2 (2): 26-56.

Demetriou, Tania. “The Non-Ovidian Elizabethan Epyllion: Thomas Watson, Christopher Marlowe, Richard Barnfield”. In Interweaving Myths in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, edited by Janice Valls-Russell, Agnès Lafont, and Charlotte Coffin (n.n., e-book). Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Greg, W.W. 1944. “The Copyright of Hero and Leander”. The Library 4th ser. 24: 165-74.

Haber, Judith. 1998. “‘True-Loves Blood’: Narrative and Desire in Hero and Leander”. English Literary Renaissance 28: 372-86.

Hopkins, Lisa. 2000. Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life. London: Palgrave.

Keach, William. 1972. “Marlowe’s Hero as 'Venus’ Nun'”. English Literary Renaissance 2: 307-32.

Leonard, John. 2000. “Marlowe’s Doric Music: Lust and Aggression in Hero and Leander”. English Literary Renaissance 30: 55-76. 

Macfie, Pamela Royston. 2004. “All Ovids Elegies, the Amores, and the Allusive Close of Marlowe’s Hero and Leander”. Renaissance Papers: 1-16.

Miller, Paul W. 1953. “A Function of Myth in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander”. Studies in Philology 50 (2): 159-67.

Ragni, Cristiano. 2024. Introduction to Christopher Marlowe, Ero e Leandro, edited by Cristiano Ragni. Lavis: La Finestra Editrice. 

Rhodes, Neil . 2013. “Marlowe and the Greeks”. Renaissance Studies 27 (2): 199-218.

Walsh, William. 1972. “Sexual Discovery and Renaissance Morality in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander”. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 12 (1): 33-54.

Weaver, William P. 2008. “Marlowe’s Fable: Hero and Leander and the Rudiments of Eloquence”. Studies in Philology 105: 388-408. 

Four months after Marlowe’s death, Hero and Leander was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 28 September 1593, however the printing seems to have been delayed In 1598 two editions were published. The first was Edward Blount’s (USTC no. 513685) which took Marlowe's text and appended to it the Latin phrase Desunt nonnulla. (Some parts are missing).  Just a few months later, George Chapman’s continuation was published by Paul Linley (USTC no. 513687), together with Marlowe’s poem (and all of the many subsequent editions reprinted Linley’s imprint). Both were quartos. In 1598, Henry Petowe’s continuation was also published separately. It has been speculated that knowledge of Chapman’s continuation was what prompted Blount to publish Marlowe’s poem before transferring the copyright to Linley. Only one copy survives of Blount’s edition: Shakespeare Folger Library, STC 17413 (digitized here: Hero and Leander. 1598 : Marlowe, Christopher : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive). This is the witness which has been transcribed for the GEMS archive. It is a quarto of 20 pages (signatures: A-E4), the first and last leaves of which are blank. It presents the printer Islip's device on the title page and an armorial bookplate of the Dalrymple family (motto: “firm”).  The book is in a goatskin armorial binding by W. Pratt.  

Aldine Edition (c. 1497)