Analysis of Allusions, Metaphors and their interpretation in Christopher Marlow’s “Hero and Leander” Many people have heard of William Shakespeare as he is required reading in high school classrooms across the world. However, far fewer people have heard of Christopher Marlowe who was a great influence upon William Shakespeare (Bakeless, 12). During the time that he was artistically active, he was one of the most widely known playwrights of his day, as popular if not more popular at the time of Shakespeare. To this day, it is not known what led to his demise, and there are different theories of his death. Though he lived relatively short, his influence is still felt today in both his influence on Shakespeare among other playwrights and poets. One of his most influential works “Hero and Leander” is a poem that focuses on Greek mythology. This essay exams Marlow’s life and offers an interpretation and analysis of metaphors and allusions found in one of his most important works, “Hero and Leander.”
The overlap between Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare is uncanny. In addition to being preeminent Elizabethan writers, they were also born the same year. Many scholars wonder if Marlow had lived whether or not he would have surpassed Shakespeare in fame and notoriety (Leech, 56).
There was certainly a similarity between their respective styles that was a departure from the verse and drama being written prior to their arrival on the scene. Allegedly, Marlowe was also a secret agent for the British Crown and due to that he accumulated a number of enemies, which could have led to his demise (Levin, 54).
According to his biography compiled by the Poetry Foundation, “The achievement of Christopher Marlow. . . was enormous” and he changed the entire course of the language of English literate. The biography continues saying that “Most dramatic poets of the sixteenth century followed where Marlowe had led, especially in their use of language and the blank-verse line” (Poetry Foundation, 1). Scholars of Marlow are often frustrated by the relatively little information available about his life and death. What is known is that he was born to a shoemaker named John Marlow in Canterbury England. The exact date of his birth is not known, but it was likely several days before February 26th 1564, since that was the date of his baptism and the custom at the time in England was to baptize children shortly after their birth (Levin, 65).
As indicated in the prologue of one of his works Tamburlaine, he had a lot of contempt for the stage verse of the time and thought that it was “jygging vaines of riming mother wits” which was a “clownage.” This led him to writing a different kind of play and “English verse was never the same” (Poetry Foundation. 1).
Though as stated little was known about his early life, it is known that he went to school in Canterbury at the King’s School, and then studied in Cambridge where in1584 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree (Levin, 67).
It is not entirely known which work we have today was his first, but this is generally believed to be “Dido, Queen of Carthage” which was first preformed by a troupe of boy actors called Children of the Chapel. Like many of his works, including “Hero and Leander” this work focuses on classical figures. According to both Greek and Roman mythology, Dido was a Queen of Carthage. It is likely that she was an actual person, but her historical account is likely to be mixed with legend and mythology (Kocher, 46).
The first play that began to establish Marlow as a literary great was his work Tamburlaine the Great, which today is still considered one of his best. Its premise is a warlord who comes from the humble origins of a sheepherder. What is significant about this play is that it is one of the first plays known to be written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is also called blank verse. This allowed his language to have a “remarkable intensity, intellectual rigor, and emotional complexity” (Norton Anthology of English, 2013).
His next four plays, The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris, Doctor Faustus and Edward the Second were written after the publication of this but it is not known which was written first or last. Each was successful though and deal with hot divisive issues of the time (Kocher, 46). Evidence of the life of Marlow comes to us in the form of legal records and official documents. So unlike writers of our time where one can glean information from biographers, we are left with his body of work and sparse clues to piece together his life and get an idea of the sort of person he was. There are many theories as the legend of Marlow though, ranging from that he was gay, to a criminal, a fighter, a spy and a heretic.
There are likewise competing accounts of Marlow’s death (Brooke, 107). Some have it that it was a lover’s spout which led to him being stabbed to death. Others that it was because he was a spy that he was the victim of a political assassination. There is an inquest that comes down to us in the form of an official document which sheds some official light on the matter, but the problem with that account is that his friends were those who were called to testify, so it is entirely possible that they lied in order to protect him. All in all there are around a dozen competing theories that range from the Queen ordering his death, to him being murdered out of envy, to him accidentally being killed, among various others (Brooke, 107).
What we do know, is that despite all of the contributions that he made to the English literary cannon, the world was denied later works that his genius may have produced. Like many contemporary artists who died in their prime, including Jimmy Hendricks, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Virginia Wolfe and Silvia Plath, we only have what was left us and can only guess at what twists and turns Marlow’s craft could have taken. One of his later works, published shortly before his death and often considered one of his best is “Hero and Leander.” Leander and hero are both figures from Greek Mythology, Leander being a young man who loved the priestess Hero and drowned swimming to visit her across Hellespont.
Some of the most interesting points of this epic poem are the allusions to mythology that Marlow employs, along with the metaphors that he uses to make his point with the poem. What follows is an interpretation of the poem with mention of the allusions and metaphors he employs.
“Hero and Leander” begins with a portrayal of two lovers in the prime of their youth. The lovers are both, “Guilty of true-love’s blood” and separated across “opposite two cities” (Marlow, 2-3). Hero is described as lovely and Leander handsome, but their beauty is described as godlike. Hero’s beauty is so stunningly boundless that Cupid, the Greek God of love mistakes her for his mother Venus, who is the most beautiful of all of the goddesses. Leander for his part has the body of, well a Greek god, and Marlow goes to some length to describe his physique. Marlow writes that “Amorous Leander, beautiful and young . . . “Dwelt at Abydos’ since him dwelt there none” with dangling tresses, that were never shorn” and “had they been cut . . . Would have allured the vent’rous youth of Greece / To hazard more than for the golden fleece” (Marlow, 53, 54, 56, 58). Golden fleece here is an allusion to a winged ram of Greek mythology. It is in the story of Jason who was a mythological hero and leader of a band of Argonauts who set out on a legendery question to retive it on the orders of King Pelias. Various forms of the story exist today and the earliest telling of it was during the time of Homer (Swiecki, 1).
Hero’s role is to work as a virgin priestess of the Goddess Venus where she must remain celibate, but her danger brings her suitors across the water. She is introduced in the poem when she is sacrificing turtledoves, which have their own mythological significance throughout a wide range of religious and cultural traditions. In the Christian tradition, they are a symbol of innocence and the Holy Spirit, so they work well with their connection to Hero whose purity is being sacrificed due to Leander’s love for her. At the time that the poem takes place in the Greek times there is also the fact that doves were seen as a sign of good luck from the gods (Thompson, 36). Marlow writes that “Her kirtle blue, whereupon was many a stain / Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain” (Marlow, 15-16).
But simply staring across the water is soon not enough for these two lovers. They first meet in Sestos during the festival of one of Venus’s lovers, Adonis. At the same time that Leander falls for Hero, Hero falls for Leander due to the fact that Cupid shoots her with one of his potent arrows of love, making her irrevocably inflamed with passion for Leander which makes it seem that her vow of chastity will soon be broken. Hero, despite Leander tempting her, returns to her tower so as not to compromise her chastity. Back in Abydos his father can see plainly that a great change has occurred in Leander and realizes that he has fallen in love. He leaves and goes to the rocks on the water so that he can look across the separating waters to the tower where Hero resides. Unable to deal with the passion of separation, he decides to swim across the divide.
Here it is perhaps important to note the similarity of this tragedy to Marlow’s contemporary, Shakespeare in his work Romeo and Juliet. Just as Romeo and Juliet were both “star-crossed lovers” Hero and Leander can be considered lovers binded by a force stronger than fate. As Leander swims to reach his love, Neptune sees him and things that he is Zeus’s cupbearer who he has long wished to have for himself, so he takes him to his underwater palace. When Leander almost drowns Leander realizes that he cannot be the cupbearer of Zeus, Ganymede and brings him back to the surface where he continues to swim towards hero. Neptune harasses and tries to seduce Leander and only after much prodding and resistance lets him go. This poem could be considered the antithesis of Romeo and Juliet, since it is not a tragedy. When Leander finally reaches Hero, exhausted, naked and dripping wet, she takes him into her arms and they consummate their long awaited love just as the sun rises.
Throughout this narrative told in the form of a poem are a variety of metaphors and allusions that Marlow employs. So dense is it with such references that one could understand the theme of the poem without understanding it’s deeper significance.
Maurice Charney in his book “Marlowe’s Empery: Expanding His Critical Contexts” points out many of the allusions found within “Hero and Leander” He notes in the description of Leander’s attractiveness at the beginning of the poem there is a variety of allusions to homoerotic references that lead to the reference point of “Ovid’s Metaphorphoses” Looking at the lines “His body was as straight as Circe’s wand;/ Jove might have sipp’d out nectar from his hand” (Marlow, 61-62) he writes that this is “loaded with references out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses” and an “allusion to Ganymede” (Charney, 89).
When Marlow writes that in the temple of Sesto there are pictures of “the gods in sundry shapes, / Committing heady riots, incest, rapes” (Marlow, 143-44) that this was another allusion to Ganymede in the form of the sodomite of Renaissance discourse. (Charney, 90). The following lines an allusion to Narcissus: “That leapt into the water for a kiss / OF his own shadow, and despising many, / Died ere he could enjoy the love of any” (Marlow, 74-76). The Greek hunter who was renowned for his beauty to an extreme, dying because he was unable to leave behind staring at his own reflection. Here is a clear allusion tying Leander back to that particular Greek legend.
Charney sees this still as an addition reference to homoerotic love. He writes that “Narcissus in love with himself is generally understood to be a type of homoerotic love, especially when he drowns leaping into the water for a kiss” (Marlow, 90).
Chlow K Preedy, in her essay “I Am No Woman, I: Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Elizabethan Erotic Verse” finds military metaphors in the poem. And sees Leanders resistance of Neptune’s sexual advances as a metaphor for overcoming his sexuality. This ties will into the theories circulating in some scholarly circles that Marlow was homosexual. Preedy writes that, “In conquering Hero sexuality, his manliness is confirmed, and the narrator subsequently compares him to Mars, god of war” (Preedy, 50). Mars is an allusion to a Greek god of war, and also a metaphor for traditional and conquering manliness.
Preedy takes this further and sees the entire poem serving as an overarching metaphor for male sexuality being attached to male genital. She writes that “when the male subjects of these verses dominate sexually, they are described as ‘kingly’ and ‘lustie’, but when this sexual power is lost, either through voluntary submission to the other partner or through the involuntary experience of impotence, their sexual identity is femised.” (Preedy, 54). In this case Preedy would see the allusion to the Greek god of Neptune not as a challenge standing in the way of love, but rather as an obstacle to the “normal” sexuality as expressed between a male and female. In Elizabethan England homosexuality was not accepted, but as stated in this essay it was not necessarily uncommon and there are theories that Marlow himself was homosexual.
Neptune begins to “pry / Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb, / And up again, and close beside him swim, / And talk of love.” Responding to these sexual advances Leander tells Neptune, “You are deceived; I am no woman, I.” But Neptune only smiles at this and continues to play “with a boy so fair and kind.” Homosexuality was much more acceptable during Greek times when these legends were being conjured than at the time of Marlow’s writing. Under Preedy’s interpretation of the metaphor, Neptune represents desires that are emasculating Leander that he is resisting as he swims towards what at the time of Elizabethan England was a more acceptable outlet for his sexuality. There are however, other interpretations of this metaphor. One could see it as resistance to the resistance to homosexuality that existed at the time. Using Greek allusions lessons the shock of such themes.
My interpretation of this was that the poem coincides with already that theory held that Marlow was indeed homosexual at a time when there was social mores against such behavior. The resistance that Leander shows Neptune could be the resistance of Marlow’s own buried desires that were opposed both by the society and religion of the time. It has long been speculated whether or not Marlow was an atheist, and if he indeed was attracted to other men, it would seem a natural conclusion that he would reject a church which rejected his nature.
There are however, more straightforward interpretations of the poem. The poem at face value deals in love and the things that stand in the way of it. That Hero has taken a vow of chastity, can represent the religious rules at the time of Elizabethan Era England that governed and restricted sexuality. Sexuality was not something that could be openly expressed, and as a result those during that time period, like Leander, needed to find ways around the societal restrictions that governed it. They could not openly pursue the object of their desire.
While the allusions and metaphors found within the poem are easily accessible, the theme and intended meaning of Marlow will likely always be open to different views of interpretation since we only have the primary text to look at and do not have access to the author’s thoughts on his work. Like the mystery of his death, there will be aspects of this poems intended meaning and facts around its writing which we as readers do not have full access to.
Works Cited:
Charney, Maurice , and Robert A. Logan.Marlowe's Empery: expanding his critical contexts. Newark: University of Delaware Press ;, 2002. Print.Swiecki, Rafal . "Gold - during the Classic Era." Gold During the Classical Period. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <http://www.minelinks.com/alluvial/goldClassic.html>."The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The 16th Century: Topic 1: Overview." Home | W. W. Norton & Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <http://www.wwnorton.com/college/englis
Brooke, C.F. Tucker. The Life of Marlowe and "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage. "London: Methuen, 1930. (pp. 107, 114, 99, 98) Print. Levin, Harry, The Overreacher: A Study of Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. Print.
Thomson, Darcy, A Glossary of Greek Bird. Oxford University Press, London 1936 Print. Bullen, A. H. ed., The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3; London, John C. Nimmo, 1885; pp. 3–4; Fredson Bowers, ed., The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 2; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973; pg. 426. Print.
Clifford Leech, Christopher Marlowe: Poet for the Stage (New York: AMS Press, 1986). Print. Paul H. Kocher, Christopher Marlowe: A Study of his Thought, Learning, and Character (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1946). Print..
