Notes on The Bridge (3_2)

III. Cutty Sark

Leander

The Leander appears along with the Rainbow, the first true clipper, near the end of "Cutty Sark." The name, along with "that torch of hers you know" earlier in the poem, suggests the legend of Hero and Leander, about which see the following article. The legend is later mentioned by Marlowe's Hero and Leander cited as epigraph to "Three Songs."

Hero and Leander

In Greek mythology Hero and Leander were lovers. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, lived in Sestos; Leander lived in Abydos, on the order side of the Hellespont (Dardanelles). Each night, Leander swam across the strait to be with Hero. One night a tempest arose and Leander drowned; when Hero saw her dead lover she drowned herself. The story is the subject of Christopher Marlowe's unfinished poem Hero and Leander (completed by George Chapman) and Lord Byron's The Bride of Abydos.

[The Academic American Encyclopedia (1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Version), copyright (c) 1995 Grolier, Inc. Danbury, CT.]


This is a page of interlinear reading of, and notes on, Hart Crane's The Bridge by Eiichi Hishikawa. Copyright (c) 1996 Eiichi Hishikawa.
Updated: 21 October, 1996
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