Musaeus: Hero and Leander,

Translated by David Bruce Gain

A lamp, goddess, saw how a swimmer sped,
Unknown, in darkness, to his lover's bed,
High herald of Aphrodite's rite
(A marriage merging in the dead of night,
And never seen by ever-living Light)
Love's glory, Abydene Leander's guide
To Sestian Hero, his brine-sought bride.
Would Zeus had brought it, Eros' delight,
And witness of wet struggles of the night,
Up to the congress of stars above
And named it, bride's escort, the star of love!
It watched the message and it gave relief
In love's own sleepless gadding glading grief,
Before Leander felt the fierce blasts stun
And lamp and lovers alike died as one.
Sestos and Abydos feel the same flow;
They are so close that Love's upstraining bow
Shot through them both with one most stunning blow.
At once Leander, rouser of desire,
And virgin Hero felt the self-same fire.
She was the Sestian, he the Abydene,
The fairest stars either city has seen.
But you, if you sail the Hellespont, scour
The Sestian shore; you soon shall see a tower.
'twas here that Hero held her lamp, to shed
The light whence her loved Leander was led.
Seek Abydos' sea-resounding strait;
It still laments Leander's love and fate.
How came the Abydene to feel this fire
And bind Hero too in his dire desire?
Hero, of line gendered by Zeus above,
Priestess to Cypris, great goddess of love,
Yet knew as yet naught of its awesome power;
Sconsed high in her ancestors' sea-swept tower,
There she was e'er another Cyprian queen,
Both in her modesty and maiden mien.
She never entered older women's sight
Or into other girls' gay dance delight,
Fearing what beauty will always invite
In other women when they see it - spite.
Cytherean Aphrodite and Love
Looked on her sacrifices from above,
At her as she cowered far far below,
Seeking in vain to flee his fiery bow.
Now sacred Sestos sees all make their way
For Cypris' and Adonis' day.
For her, Cyprus and the other island coasts
And her Haemonia had sent their hosts,
With Cythera and the dancers that smite
Winged Lebanon's balmed incense-bearing height.
Phrygia and Abydos too could be found,
With all that live in all the land around.
'tis there too that a crowd of eager youths swirls,
Come not to glad the gods, but for the girls.
Her lordly fane held Hero, of a grace
Glimpsed in the radiant lightning of her face.
On snowy cheeks' high curves 'twas crimson strewn,
Most like the white cheeks of the rising Moon,
Since, as she walked, all her enchanting form
Was a fair field where endless flowers swarm;
From head to foot flesh and white robes disclose
The twy-hued softness of the budding rose.
The ancients' tale of three Joys is a lie;
She had a hundred in each laughing eye,
Giving Cypris one most fit for her call;
Of fair women she far far surpassed all.
And so it was this new Cypris revealed
Cypris' self, though Cypris was concealed,
Since not a single man there was not led
To lust for lovely Hero in his bed.
She left, wandering through the fair-founded fane,
No heart or eye that she could not constrain.
'twas thus that one expressed the thoughts of all:
"Though Lacedaemon's beauty frays enthrall,
E'en there I have not seen one of a face
Or form fit to compare with any Grace.
I now would die, unsated, though e'er fed
By her beauty, but first must mount her bed.
I'd not e'en deem th' Olympians' life divine
If I at home could but call Hero mine.
But e'en if touch of her is banned to me,
At least allow some such young wife as she".
So he, and all the others of the swarm,
Maddened in secret by so fair a form.
But, when his heart was pricked by such a goad,
Leander was most loath to love the load.
How could th' unexpected shaft be forgot?
Death was alluring and his life was not
Unless the lovely Hero be his lot.
His seething heart felt love's fierce firebrand rise
Under the glance of all-consuming eyes.
A shaft can pierce, but beauty even more,
Sent from a far-famed form that knows no flaw,
Since far the fiercest frenzy that e'er flies
Straight to the heaving heart comes from her eyes.
At first rejoicing when she overcame,
Straightway he shuddered with a sudden shame.
But then, bewitched by her so wondrous form,
He conquered his cold shame; love made him warm.
And so he came up close, from far apart,
In hopes the voiceless glances he could dart
Might serve to win the maiden's hapless heart.
But, when she saw the beauty of the boy,
And his desire, she stood his snares with joy.
He saw her gestures and her silent gaze;
She turned away; she'd filled him with amaze.
His heart, once heavy, was now light, and burned;
He knew the love that he felt was returned.
At last Leander saw the death of light
And the deep shadows of the Star of Night
Leaping upon him in her azure dress;
He took her rosy fingers, fain to press.
His sigh came from his heart, but she said naught,
As if annoyed, freeing what he'd caught.
He saw that she would now no more withstand,
And seized her broidered robe in his bold hand.
He led, she followed, so as to gain
The furthest coverts of the fine fair fane.
As if averse, she raised her voice to chide
With threatening words women have often tried:
"Release my robe; why use such futile force
On a girl, stranger? Try another course.
Fear, fool, my wealthy parents' ruthless ire.
Should Cypris' priestess fill with desire?
You are of men most mad and most misled
To think you can invade a virgin's bed".
Leander, gadded by her girlish goad,
Knew what her female flirting must forebode.
Whenever women weep and coyly cry
It is a sign that they shall soon comply.
As soon as sharp Love's stings most savage smote
He kissed full on the fair flesh of her throat
And cried: "What rival need you ever fear?
You are Cypris' and Pallas' peer,
True daughter of dire Zeus, Cronus' son!
It was a womb most blest bore such a one,
And with your mother I must praise your sire.
But hear my prayer and pity my desire.
Cypris' priestess performs dire delights
In her Cypris' mystic marriage rites.
A virgin complete Aphrodite's act?
You please not Aphrodite if intact.
If you, who serve Love's goddess, would be led
Into her loving laws, I have the bed.
If you're beguiled by Love's most honeyed charms,
Take me, your husband, in your willing arms,
Whom Love's shafts took, as gold-staffed Hermes sold
Iardanus' daughter Hercles the bold.
Though Cypris sent me, Hermes sold me not.
Arcadian Atalanta's not forgot,
Who, in her care for her own maidenhead,
Once shunned her beloved Milanion's bed.
But angry Aphrodite made her thirst
With all her heart for one she'd scorned at first.
Yield, or Cypris' ire will make you cursed".
'twas with these winning words that he appealed
And saw, at last, th' unwilling woman yield.
Speechless, she made the ground her gazing place,
To hide from him her fiercely flushing face,
And smoothed the soil in continual foot tests,
E'er clasped her clothes and chastely hid her breasts.
'twas such signs showed his suit's success was sped;
Consent is clearest when the least is said.
She that was cold now felt the hotness eat
As she drew in Love's sting, so bitter sweet.
Leander's form, instilling soft desire,
Had thrilled her heart and set her soul on fire.
While she e'er gave the ground her glowing gaze,
Leander looked with love and with amaze,
Her soft-skinned throat th' unwearied's chiefest aim;
Slowly her face was undiffused of shame;
At last she durst, her blush now dry, proclaim:
"By you, stranger, e'en a stone might be stirred;
Who gave such wise ways to your every word?
How strange it is that here our paths converged!
But these your pleas have all in vain been urged!
How could a wanderer and I be merged
In open marriage? - both parents forbid;
A secret union cannot long be hid,
Since oft at crossways men's jeers have revealed
E'en love that is most carefully concealed.
But tell me (my name, Hero, is well known)
Stranger, what is your country and your own.
I and one thrall live where the deep waves lour,
Sundered from Sestos, in a heaven-high tower.
So have my hateful parents ta'en all joys
From girls of my age or dances with boys;
Instead, I must in solitude survey
The wind-voiced sea through all the night and day".
So she; deeming such words brought but disgrace,
She used her robe to hide her rose-red face.
Leander, meanwhile, felt Love's goad assail
And wondered whether he would e'er prevail.
Love, though he o'ercomes (sure's his sweet shafts' lure,
Wanton wonder!) himself conveys the cure,
Famed lord counselling his subjects when they call
With the counsel of one who conquers all.
So Leander's well-wrought words were arrayed,
Despite distraction, with his mighty aid:
"For you I'd cross a sea that surges hid,
Though fleets should falter and fierce fire forbid.
The savagest storms prompt not the slightest dread
When I've begun to bound back to your bed,
Since your husband, tossed by night's stormy seas,
Crosses strong-flowing Hellespont with ease.
Abydos (most close to the counter-coast,
Your own Sestos) is the rich home I boast.
With but a single lamp your tower's display,
The dark horizon shall direct my way.
Then I, love's vessel, shall securely glide,
Yourself my haven and your lamp my guide.
Late setting Bootes, bold Orion and Wain
Ne'er wet, from her, not you, my course be ta'en!
But let your lamp, in fiercely gusting air,
My only safety, be my only care,
Since, should it fail me in its guiding light,
My life is lost in never ending night.
More would you know? Leander is my name,
Husband of her whom all men's wreaths acclaim".
Thus they agreed that the concealing night
Should see them merged, watched by the witness light.
Her task - to stretch to him the lamp he craves;
His task - to brave the slowly rolling waves.
Though nightlong bouts of bliss now filled their heart,
Most cruel necessity tore them apart,
She to the tower, he to the dark of night
(The tower's place imprinted on his sight,
Lest, through ignorance, he be forced to roam)
To seek deep-founded Abydos, his home.
Both, longing to inaugurate the rite,
Prayed fervently for bride-attending Night.
All made azure-robed Night's sweet sleep their own,
All men who live, save Leander alone.
To sight the signal of his spousal home,
He searched void shores of everlasting foam
Where light, doomed to bring naught but darkness, shed
Its far-seen witness of the unseen bed.
At last his Hero lit the lamp, when light
Was fading in the gloom of dark-hued night.
At once, seeing the lighted lamp above,
Hastening Leander's mind was fired with love.
He burned as it burned; when he heard the roar
Of thundering billows breaking on the shore,
He stood aghast at first, but soon addressed
These words of boldness to his beating breast:
"Ah cruel love, whose woes the waves conspire!
The waves are water, but I burn with fire!
So burn, burn on, my beating breast, and brave
The foaming billows of the wintry wave!
Fair Cypris rose propitious from the main;
She calms sea's rage and soothes a lover's pain".
He gave the garments of his lovely limbs
To crown his head, as best suits one who swims,
Then, plunging dauntless in the foaming tide,
Dashed with his arms th' intruding waves aside.
Full in his view he kept the shining mark
Which Hero held high on her tower so stark,
Himself the pilot, passenger and barque.
Oft with her robe she screened the torch's blaze
From subtle breaths that blew a thousand ways,
While he - wild were the wanton waves he clove
To reach the haven, Sestos' safe cove.
She took him high and there, before her room,
Embraced in silence her panting bridegroom.
She bore him, dripping foam, far far inside
The beauteous bower of the virgin bride,
Drenching the stale sweat of his long hard toil
With her own soft and sweet scented rose oil.
These were the words her love, close clasping, said,
While he breathed hard upon the buried bed:
"Hard heavy toiler, you have suffered more
Than fondest bridegroom e'er endured before.
Away with fishy, smelly, briny scurf
Laid by the thunder of the pounding surf!
My toiler, tired from hard labour, now rests
His sweaty head twixt my enfolding breasts".
With this, wise Cytherea's rites were known;
She spoke these words; he loosed her virgin zone;
A danceless wedding without song's delights,
With no praises of Hera who unites,
Nuptials without the servant torches' glance,
No springs and gambols in the daring dance,
No Io paeans were musically rung,
No greeting parents' hymeneals sung,
But o'er the couch at consummation loom
As bride's attendants, stern Silence and Gloom.
Leander filled the bridal bed at night,
And knew it well, but left before the light;
The trailing-robed, far from her parents' sight,
By day a virgin, was a wife at night.
Thus could they joy; thus only could they feed
Only in secret love's compelling need.
But sleepless marriage, bought at such a cost
Of such journeying, all too soon was lost.
Too soon they saw fierce frosty shuddering storms,
When cold, relentless winter's whirling swarms,
When weak and wet foundations feel the smash
Scouring the brine with its wild whirlwind lash.
The trembling sailor hears the raucous roar,
Tumultuous turbulence terrible to explore,
And drags his dark ship to a safer shore.
But loved Leander's service in the tower
Withstood all Ocean's stormstruck, seething power.
It was the well known, spousal-signalling light
Spurred him unsparing by its maddened might,
When it proved worthless and the winter spate
Had doomed the hapless Hero to her fate.
Would she and loved Leander had stayed far,
Nor lit the light of love's bed's short lived star,
Since what the fond, fate-struck lovers saw loom
Was not the light of love but light of doom.
'twas night, and angry Aeolus had hurled
His whitened winds o'er all the watery world.
What rage was in their wild impetuous roar,
Breaking their billows on the foaming shore!
E'en so, Leander sought his own loved bride
Upon the black back of the shrieking tide.
Wave wallowed on wave; 'twas turmoil all around;
Sea met the sky; from all there shrieked the sound
Of warring winds; the West hit the East hard,
As North and South seethed savagely and sparred.
Although unending was his trembling toil,
He could not curb its cruelly curling coil.
Although he oft with trembling prayer implored
The sea-sprung goddess and old Ocean's lord -
You, North Wind, too, he summoned to his aid,
And made you mindful of th' Athenian maid -
These prayers were fruitless and petitions vain;
Love must submit to what the Fates ordain,
Since everywhere his tries to keep his course
Were curbed by wild waves' unrelenting force.
His feet far far too weary to obey,
His arms hung useless and forgot to flay.
Resistless was the giant gush that smote
And forced foul brine down his still thirsty throat.
A bitter blast blew out, biting above,
Not only lamp, but also light and love.
At dawn Hero looked o'er the murky main,
And long she looked, but long she looked in vain,
Till with most savage curses she reviled
The wind that wiped him with its whip so wild.
Yet still her sleepless eyes, swollen with grief,
E'er raked the rocks in vain hope of relief.
But when she saw his corpse bounced by the tide,
Breaking the band that bound her breasts inside
Th' emroidered band, she, in her passioned power,
Swept down to her husband from her tall tower.
Leander lay with Hero by his side,
Together when they lived and when they died.