ABSTRACT
The earliest English epyllion, Thomas Lodges Scillas Metamorphosis (1589), offers a loose adaptation of an Ovidian tale with many ornamental additions. Lodges poem favors Petrarchan complaint over the more overt eroticism of later authors in the epyllion tradition. Marlowes Hero is dressed in an artificial veil and golden sparrows that distract the enchanted gazers mind. Marlowe uses economic language in Hero and Leanderto describe sexuality as a form of money put to use in exchange for interest. Hero and Leander also reflects on contemporary efforts by Elizabethan economic authors to understand how monetary value shapes religious and political order. Marlowes poem was published in 1598 by George Chapman, who adapted the economic language of Hero and Leander in both his expansion of the poem and in his own contribution to the genre, Ovids Banquet of Sense. Like Champan, Shakespeare also revised Marlowes economic tropes in the minor epic of Venus and Adonis.
