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Theme Of Hero And Leander

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The Greek myth of Hero and Leander is a tragic story of two lovers. In the myth, Hero and Leander lived on opposite sides of the ocean and when they meet for the first time, Leander became enamoured by Hero. Then, Leander begins to pursue Hero and tries to convince her to have sex with him because it would be a crime if she didn’t. Hero tries to resist her sexual urges because she was a priestess of Venus and she had vowed to keep her virginity, but eventually Hero is unable to resist Leander any longer and the two sleep together. At night, Leander would follow the lamp in Hero’s tower as he swam across the Hellespont to visit her, but on a stormy night, the lamp light had gone out and Leander ended up drowning in the ocean. When Hero saw …show more content…

In line one, the two words used to talk about love are “guilty” and “blood” which both have negative connotations. For example, “blood”, is a word typically used to describe death or an injury, and “guilty”, is a word used to admit to wrongdoings. Therefore, the use of these two words pushes the idea that love can either end in death or guilt. Sometimes the first line of a story helps set the tone for the rest of it and by starting the poem with this negative viewpoint on love, it can suggest the idea that love never ends well. This in turn can further suggest that love in general, doesn’t guarantee happy endings, even though Marlowe doesn’t include the lovers’ deaths in his poem. Moreover, the beginning of the poem gives the ending of the myth away, so that could be another reason for why Marlowe neglected the original ending of the Greek myth about the two lovers. Consequently, the first line of the poem is important because it is the first glance the reader gets at understanding the story and for Marlowe to begin it in a negative way can show his purpose for writing the poem. Marlowe could be saying that because love can end badly, there isn’t a need to include the deaths of Hero and Leander, because there is a tragic end is expected. Another instance where it is suggested that love is doomed can be seen through the mention of the

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