Hero and Leander is the Greek myth relating the story of Hero (, Hērṓ; ), a priestess of Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) who dwelt in a tower in Sestos on the European side of the Hellespont, and Leander (, Léandros; or Λείανδρος), a young man from Abydos on the opposite side of the strait.

The myth

Leander falls in love with Hero and swims every night across the Hellespont to spend time with her. Hero lights a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. Leander's soft words and charms—and his argument that Aphrodite, as the goddess of love and sex, would scorn the worship of a virgin—convince Hero, and they make love. Their secret love affair lasts through a warm summer, but when winter and its rougher weather looms, they agree to part for the season and resume in the spring. One stormy winter night, however, Leander sees the torch at the top of Hero's tower. He attempts to go to her, but halfway through his swim, a strong winter wind blows out Hero's light, and Leander loses his way and drowns. When Hero sees his dead body, she throws herself off the tower to join him in death. Their bodies wash up on shore together, locked in embrace, and are then subsequently buried in a lovers’ tomb.

Attestations

Scholarship indicates that the myth is attested in Ovid's Heroides, in Virgil's Georgics and in poet Mousaios' (or Musaeus') epic poem. The Double Heroides (attributed to Ovid) treats the narrative in 18 and 19, an exchange of letters between the lovers. Leander has been unable to swim across to Hero in her tower because of bad weather; her summons to him to make the effort will prove fatal to her lover.

Cultural references

The myth of Hero and Leander has been used extensively in literature and the arts:

In classical antiquity

In music

In painting

In literature

<poem style="margin-left: 2em"> Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground, Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned. # [Hero laments the dead Leander by Jan van den Hoecke | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Jan///van///den///Hoecke///-///Hero///laments///the///dead///Leander.jpg] # [Hero mourns the dead Leander by Gillis Backereel | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Gillis///Backereel///-///Hero///mourns///the///dead///Leander.jpg] # [Hero and Leander by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1604 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Hero///and///Leander///by///Peter///Paul///Rubens.jpeg]

In theatre

"'Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.'"

In folkloristics

In folkloristics, the myth of lovers Hero and Leander becomes the Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type ATU 666*, "Hero and Leander". Variants of the tale are also attested in Japan, where they appear as a local legends. In Hiroko Ikeda's index of Japanese folktales, the type is known as Tarai-bune no Momoyo Gayoi. Philologist and folklorist Julian Krzyżanowski, establisher of the Polish Folktale Catalogue according to the international index, located variants of the lovers' myth in Poland, which he classified as T 667, "Hero i Leander" ("Hero and Leander"). The myth seems to have inspired a literary version by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola in his work The Facetious Nights of Straparola. Child ballad number 216 can be read as a variant.

Contemporary references