Musaeus's Hero and Leander: legend and art that surpasses time

Abstract

Myths like Hero and Leander was already known and plenty publicized even before Musaeus birth, an enigmatic writer due to the little reference that reached us. We seek to address here briefly this intertwining love and many obstacles that permeated the imagination and customs of very old communities.  Hero was possibly a priestess of Aphrodite who lived in a tower in Sestos, and Leander, a young man from Abydos – a thorp in the opposite side of the strait of Dardanelles. Primarily, we will try to expose information about the time of the author and the myth of Hero and Leander, in the work of the Musaeus, especially, but also in the work of other authors, discussing the importance of Eros in loving relationships in antiquity. Then we will go through the discussion of myth – that could have etiological grounds or be based on human relationships – and we will analyze the spread of the Myth in the Middle Ages and how this tragic love was perpetuated in the popular imagination and how it still holds fascination in our times.