Christopher Marlowe: The Seduction of Leander

“With that he stripped him to the ivory skin,

And crying, ‘Love, I come,’ leapt lively in.”

At the time of his violent and mysterious death in 1593, Christopher Marlowe left unfinished a long narrative poem based on the Greek myth of Hero and Leander. The story tells of two lovers separated by the waters of the Hellespont. Nightly, Leander swims across the sea to “dally” with his beloved. Yet, one night, things do not go as he had planned.

In this one-off Salon we will undertake a close reading of about forty lines of Marlowe’s poem. We will take up the story where Leander leaps into the Hellespont, but on the night when, rather than reaching the further shore, he attracts the attention of the sea god, Neptune . . .

In this poem Marlowe showcases the poetic form, the deceptively simple rhyming couplets, which (in the words of David Riggs, Marlowe’s biographer) reproduced in English “the elegance and wit of Ovid’s love poetry”. We will read and re-read these forty lines, examining the linguistic virtuosity and rhetorical skill which Marlowe employs to dazzling effect, to capture those moments when powerful divinity meets frail humanity, when the beauty of corporeal movement blends with erotic desire in the depths of the ocean. Together we will try to tease out what makes these lines some of the most sensual and playful in English verse, while not neglecting the poem’s unsettling undercurrents in which a mighty hunter ensnares his vulnerable prey.

“Leander strived, the waves about him wound,

And pulled him to the bottom, where the ground

Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves

Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves…”

JOINING DETAILS:

• Single-session study, live on Zoom, led by Tim Swinglehurst
• Tuesday 24 November, 6.00-8.00pm (UK time)
• Tim will provide participants with the relevant text
• £35.00 for two-hour meeting