HERO AND LEANDER.

Hero and Leander: Begunne by Christopher Marloe, and finished by George Chapman. Ut nectar, Ingenium. At London. Imprinted for John Flasket, and are to be sold in Paule's Church Yard, at the signe of the Blacke Beare, 1606.

This poem, founded on the story of Hero and Leander, as related by Musæus, was projected by Marlowe, who, however, only lived to finish the first and second Sestyads, and to commence the third. The part completed by Marlowe was published in 1598, and was reprinted, with a continuation by George Chapman in 1600, and again in 1606 and 1687. Sir Egerton Bridges almost entirely reprinted it in his Restituta, and a complete edition forms No. VIII. of the Select Early English Poets. Another continuation of Marlowe's unfinished poem was written by Henry Petowe, and published in 1598.

THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST SESTYAD.

Hero's description, and her loves;

The Fane of Venus, where he moves

His worthy love-suit, and attains;

Whose bliss the wrath of Fates restrains,

For Cupid's grace to Mercury:
Which tale the author doth imply.

HERO AND LEANDER.

THE FIRST SESTYAD.

ON Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might:
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos HERO dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair;
And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.
The outside of her garments was of lawn,
The lining, purple silk, with gilt stars drawn,
Her wide sleeves green, and border'd 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.
Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,

From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath.
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives.
Many would praise the sweet smell as she pass'd,
When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast.

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