Leander: Ovid's Unconventional Lover (Heroides 18)

Nicolas P. Gross (University of Delaware)

Unlike a typical elegiac lover, Ovid's passionate Leander strives to persuade his impulsive beloved that stormy seas preclude his journey. An angry outburst addressed to the wind (36-42) sustains the tension between emotion and self-control as does his all-too prescient vision of Hero addressing his lifeless body (H. 18. 197-200). In glossing Leander's lyrical description of an earlier moonlit crossing, Palmer inadvertently provides a clue to this unique persona: “The writer of these lines was no mean poet” (461). If one views Leander as the “author” of his epistle, his words betray well-honed poetic skills. The arresting passage cited by Palmer reveals Leander's mastery of prosody, his internalization of both the historical and Ovidian Sappho and his understanding of the Aeneid. Other passages confirm his poetic calling within the subtext of love and caution: he comes to embody the letter he addresses as he imagines Hero's passionate embrace from a discreet distance. Ever respectful (what other Roman lover plied the Hellespont to return home by dawn?), he demonstrates an uncommon understanding of the docta puella whom he addresses while revealing himself as a complex (and conflicted) persona. Despite his extraordinary habits of mind and unlike the poet-lover of the Amores, Leander's words fail to persuade, for it is Hero's passionate epistle that motivates his journey thus overwhelming his sound reasoning and judgment. At one with the two talented and troubled Sapphos, Leander stands as the only Roman elegiac amator to die for love.