•Hero and Leander •Epyllion: long narrative poem, short of the epic •Epic poem: • long, in media res opening, vast setting • divine intervention, lists •Here: love •Sources: Ovid, Grammaticus (6th cent.) •Poetic format: iambic rhyming couplets •Attraction for Marlowe? • sexual content • ancient world • exotic places

•Description of Hero (9-50): • focuses on clothes • appeals to all senses • surfeit of details • no actual description of Hero •Description of Leander (51-90): • focuses on his body • desirable to men and women •91ff religious feast in Sestos: • Hero is the main attraction • 135-55 Venus’ church: erotic and profane •They see each other: 161 •Speculation on love at first sight: 167-76 •Leander’s first speech (199-294): • compliment • complaint against virginity • virginity as hoarded treasure, idol •Leander’s second (299-328) • “holy Idiot” • Venus’ rites = love •Hero won (330) •Hero’s response (343-57): • description of tower • “come thither” slip •Digression (385-484) • mythological story • Mercury, shepherdess, Cupid, Jove, Destinies • Destinies hate Cupid • Hero and Leander’s love is doomed •Lovers in tower (503) • “He asked, she gave, and nothing was denied” • “And as a brother with his sister toyed” • innocence •Leander swims (638ff): • Neptune, Ganymede • Neptune’s lust and anger •Leander and Hero in the tower • naked encounter: 720-21 •Bed and siege imagery (731ff): • “defense” @ 755 • “truce” 762 • “another world begat / Of unknown joy” • ambivalence of “surrender” •Final vision of poem: Hero’s nakedness •Break of dawn •Themes of poem: • Sex • Defined in period as an act, not essence • Here, hetero and homo, though homo unconsummated • The ancient world • A playground for alternate ideas, beliefs • Play with narrative expectation • Tragedy becomes erotic comedy