ABSTRACT
Like Leander, Hero is deeply in love, frustrated and miserable. She also links herself to him: her first and last couplets pick up his first and last couplets; in line 5 she states that she burns with an equal fire; and in 22 she says that she uses almost the same words as he does to berate the sea. In addition, she too finds a week's delay long, speaks about their love-making warmly but with a delicate restraint, fantasizes about him being blissfully trapped in Sestos with her by bad weather and complains to a god and appeals to him in the name of his own love to calm the sea. In Heroides 18 Leander teetered on the brink of crossing to Hero, but just managed to hold back. Ovid only hints at the drowning of Leander and Hero's suicide.
