Great Regulars: This week's "poem" is an excerpt from

Christopher Marlowe's epyllion, Hero and Leander, a splendid piece of narrative verse that was never completed--or not by Marlowe. It was entered into the Stationer's Register in 1593, a few months after the dramatist's alleged murder in a tavern brawl, and, at that stage, consisted of only two cantos. In 1598, George Chapman completed the poem with four more cantos, one of them an extensive digression, "The Tale of Teras", and additional "arguments" to all six. It was Chapman who called the cantos "Sestyads", on the principle of the Iliad, so named because it focused on events in Ilium. The tale of Hero and Leander is set largely in Hero's birthplace, Sestos.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe

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