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OVID
in the latter part of the first century B.C., probably in a lost Hellenistic poem. 1
It was Ovid •who gave it the literary form which has proved definitive. Comparison
with the Hero and Leander of the late fifth-century A.D. Greek poet
Musaeus, who in certain respects followed the original source quite closely,
shows the freedom with which Ovid treated it. An obscure story originally
connected with a local landmark, the * Tower of Hero', was immortalized in
one of the most romantic poems in all ancient literature.
The epistle of Leander {Her. 18) begins in mediis rebus: a storm is brewing
and he cannot cross the straits to Hero. This emphasis on separation and the
emotions which it engenders in the two lovers dominates Ovid's handling of
the story; with the mechanics of the plot he scarcely concerns himself. In
Musaeus' poem the social status of Hero and the circumstances of their first
meeting bulk large; Ovid does not mention them, and we are left to surmise
why Leander's parents must be kept in the dark (13). As in a Savoy Opera, the
situation is given, what interests the poet is the consequences. In Musaeus the
crossing of the straits is dealt with briefly and drily, in Ovid the narrative of
Leander's visits to Hero and their romantic concomitants form the centrepiece
of his letter (53—124). The actual descriptive touches are not many, but they are
sketched in surely and delicately; this is what Macaulay called 'sweet writing':
unda repercussae radiabat imagine lunae
et nitor in tacita nocte diurnus erat;
nullaque uox usquam, nullum ueniebat ad aures
praeter dimotae corpore murmur aquae.
Alcyones solae, memores Ceycis amati,
nescioquid uisae sunt mihi dulce queri. (18.77—82)
The water shone with the reflected radiance of the moon, and the silent night was
bright as day. No voice, no sound came to my ears but for the murmur of the water
as I swam. Only it seemed to me that I heard the halcyons singing some sweet lament
in memory of the beloved Ceyx.
Similarly the lovemaking of the pair is suggested rather than described (105-
10). With a brief account of his departure and return Leander comes back to
Abydos and the present (124), but the poem is not yet half over. There follows
a long expostulation, liberally embellished with verbal and mythological
conceits, against his situation. Like Narcissus in his celebrated soliloquy in the
Metamorphoses (3.446—53), he dwells on the paradoxes of his position, and like
Narcissus he resorts to elegiac cliche:
quo propior nunc es, flamma propiore calesco,
et res non semper, spes mihi semper adest. (177--8)
As it is, the closer you are, the hotter I burn; but it is only the hope of you, not the
reality, that is always with me.
1 Cf. Page (1950) 512-13, Kost (1971) 20—1.
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