About her shoulders gather'd up her weed. All these fore-tokens are that men shall speed.

Of a persuaded virgin, to her bed Promise is most given when the least is said.

And now she took in Love's sweet bitter sting,

Burn'd in a fire that cool'd her surfeiting. Her beauties likewise strook her friend amazed;

For, while her eyes fix'd on the pavement gazed,

Love on Leander's looks show'd fury seas'd.

Never enough his greedy eyes were pleased To view the fair gloss of her tender neck. At last this sweet voice past, and out did break

A ruddy moisture from her bashful eyes : "Stranger, perhaps thy words might exercise

Motion in flints, as well as my soft breast. Who taught thee words, 15 that err from East to West

In their wild liberty? O woe is me!

To this my native soil who guided thee? All thou hast said is vain: for how canst

This said, her white robe hid her cheeks like spheres.

And then (with shame affected, since she used

Words that desired youths, and her friends accused)

She blamed herself for them, and them for her.

Mean-space Leander felt Love's arrow err Through all his thoughts; devising how he might

Encounter Love, that dared him so to fight.

Mind-changing Love wounds men and cures again.

Those mortals over whom he lists to reign, Th' All-tamer stoops to, in advising how They may with some ease bear the yoke, his bow.

So our Leander, whom he hurt, he heal'd. Who having long his hidden fire conceal'd,

And vex'd with thoughts he thirsted to

impart,

His stay he quitted with this quickest art: "Virgin, for thy love I will swim a wave That ships denies; and though with fire it rave,

In way to thy bed, all the seas in one
I would despise; the Hellespont were none.
All nights to swim to one 17sweet bed with

thee

Were nothing, if when Love had landed me,
All hid in weeds and in Venerean foam,
I brought withal bright Hero's husband
home.

Not far from hence, and just against thy town,

Abydus stands, that my birth calls mine

own.

Hold but a torch then in thy 18heaven-high

tower

(Which I beholding, to that starry power May plough the dark seas, as the Ship of Love),

I will not care to see Boötes move
Down to the sea, nor sharp Orion trail
His never-wet car, but arrive my sail,
Against my country, at thy pleasing shore.
But, dear, take heed that no ungentle
blore

The torch extinguish, bearing all the light
By which my life sails, lest I lose thee

quite.

Fraught all with sleep; yet took Leander none,

But on th' opposed shore of the noiseful seas
The messenger of glittering marriages
Look'd wishly for; or rather long'd to see
The witness of their Light to misery,
Far off discover'd in their covert bed.
When Hero saw the blackest curtain spread
That veil'd the dark night, her bright torch
she show'd.

Whose light no sooner th' eager lover view'd,

But love his blood set on as bright a fire: Together burn'd the torch and his desire. But hearing of the sea the horrid roar, With which the tender air the mad waves tore,

At first he trembled ; but at last he rear'd High as the storm his spirit, and thus cheer'd

Art thou to know that Venus' birth was here?

Commands the sea, and all that grieves us there?"

This said, his fair limbs of his weed he stript;

Which, at his head with both hands bound, he shipt,

Leapt from the shore, and cast into the

sea

His lovely body; thrusting all his way
Up to the torch, that still he thought did
call;

He oars, he steerer, he the ship and all.
Hero advanced upon a tower so high,
As soon would lose on it the fixed'st eye;
And, like the Goddess Star, with her light
shining,

The winds, that always (as at her repining) Would blast her pleasures, with her veil she check'd,

And from their envies did her torch protect.

And this she never left, till she had brought Leander to the havenful shore he sought. When down she ran, and up she lighted then,

To her tower's top, the weariest of men. First at the gates (without a syllable used) She hugg'd her panting husband, all diffused

With foamy drops still stilling from his hair.

Then brought she him into the inmost fair Of all, her virgin-chamber, that, at best, Was with her beauties ten times better dress'd.

His body then she cleansed; his body oil'd

With rosy odours, and his bosom (soil'd With the unsavoury sea) she render'd sweet. Then, in the high-made bed (even panting yet)

Herself she pour'd about her husband's breast,

To Venus what her gentle statutes bound. Here weddings were, but not a musical sound;

Here bed-rites offer'd, but no hymns of praise,

Nor poet sacred wedlock's worth did raise. No torches gilt the honour'd nuptial bed, Nor any youths much-moving dances led. No father, nor no reverend mother, sung Hymen, O Hymen, blessing loves so young. But when the consummating hours had crown'd

The downright nuptials, a calm bed was found;

Silence the room fix'd; Darkness deck'd the bride;

But hymns and such rites far were laid aside.

Night was sole gracer of this nuptial house;
Cheerful Aurora never saw the spouse
In any beds that were too broadly known,
Away he fled still to his region,

And breathed insatiate of the absent Sun.
Hero kept all this from her parents still,
Her priestly weed was large, and would not
fill,

A maid by day she was, a wife by night; Which both so loved they wish'd it never light.

And thus both, hiding the strong need of love,

In Venus' secret sphere rejoiced to move. But soon their joy died; and that stilltoss'd state

Of their stolen nuptials drew but little date.

For when the frosty Winter kept his justs,
Rousing together all the horrid gusts
That from the ever-whirling pits arise,
And those weak deeps that drive up to the
skies,

Against the drench'd foundations making knock

Their curled foreheads; then with many a shock

The winds and seas met, made the storms aloud

Beat all the rough sea with a pitchy cloud. And then the black bark, buffeted with gales,

Earth checks so rudely that in two it falls;

The seaman flying winter's faithless sea. Yet, brave Leander, all this bent at thee Could not compel in thee one fit of fear; But when the cruel faithless messenger, The tower, appear'd, and show'd th' accustom'd light,

It stung thee on, secure of all the spite

The raging sea spit. But since Winter

came,

Unhappy Hero should have cool'd her flame,

And lie without Leander, no more lighting Her short-lived bed-star; but strange fate exciting

As well as Love, and both their powers combined

Enticing her, in her hand never shined The fatal love-torch, but this one hour,

more.

Night came. And now the Sea against the shore,

Muster'd her winds up; from whose wintry jaws

They belch'd their rude breaths out in bitterest flaws.

In midst of which Leander, with the pride

Of his dear hope to bord his matchless bride,

Upon the rough back of the high sea leaps ;

And then waves thrust-up waves; the watery heaps

Tumbled together; sea and sky were mix'd; The fighting winds the frame of earth unfix'd;

Zephyr and Eurus flew in either's face, Notus and Boreas wrastler-like embrace, And toss each other with their bristled backs..

Inevitable were the horrid cracks
The shaken Sea gave; ruthful were the
wracks

Leander suffer'd in the savage gale
Th' inexorable whirlpits did exhale.
Often he pray'd to Venus born of seas,
Neptune their King; and Boreas, that
'twould please

His godhead, for the Nymph Althea's sake,

Not to forget the like stealth he did make For her dear love, touch'd then with his

sad state.

But none would help him; Love compels not Fate.

Every way toss'd with waves and Air's rude breath

Justling together, he was crush'd to death. No more his youthful force his feet commands,

Unmoved lay now his late all-moving hands.

His throat was turn'd free channel to the flood,

And drink went down that did him far

from good.

13 Ερωτοτόκοισι μύθοις, ἐρωτοτόκος σάρξ, corpus amorem pariens et alliciens, according

to which I have turned it.

14 Απαλόχροον αυχένα. Απαλόχροος signifies qui tenera et delicata est cute; tenerum therefore not enough expressing, I have enlarged the expression as in his place.

15 Hoλvπλavéшv énéwv is turned variorum verborum, поλunλavns signifying multivagus, erroneus, or errorum plenus, intending that sort of error that is in the planets; of whose wandering they are called λavnτes aσTepes, sidera errantia. So that Hero taxed him for so bold a liberty in words, as erred toto cælo from what was fit, or became the youth of one so graceful; which made her break into the admiring exclamation, that one so young and

gracious should put on so experienced and licentious a boldness, as in that holy temple encouraged him to make love to her.

16 Δόμος ουρανομήκης. It is translated domo altissima; but because it is a compound, and hath a grace superior to the others in his more near and verbal conversion, oupavoμńkηs signifying cælum sua proceritate tangens, I have so rendered it.

17 "Yypòs ȧkoirηs, translated madidus maritus, when as aкoírns is taken here for oμokoiτns, signifying unum et idem cubile habens, which is more particular and true.

18 Ηλιβάτου σέο πύργου, &c. Ηλίβατος signifies tam altus aut profundus ut ab ejus accessu aberres, intending the tower upon which Hero stood.