LEANDER

Form: Gr. Leandros.

A youth of Abydos, on the Hellespont, whose story was very celebrated in ancient times, and was the theme of a minor epic poem by Musaeus (q.v.). He was in love with Hero (q.v.), and every night swam across the Hellespont to visit her in her solitary tower at Lesbos. He was guided by a light in the tower, and on its being extinguished in a night of tempest, he lost his life in the waves. When Hero saw his corpse washed up the next morning on the shore, she threw herself down from the tower, and was thus killed.