Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/72

lxii is epic, rather than purely dramatic. Of this, one confirmation is in Hero's sophisticating self-consolations in the Third Sestyad, which though founded in nature, considered in the abstract, are wanting in characteristic and dramatic propriety.—There are several rich pictures in old George's continuation, among which allow me to point out the following. Hero is robing for private sacrifice—

"Then put she on all her religious weeds, A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire. A golden star shin'd in her naked breast In honour of the queen-light of the east. In her right hand she held a silver wand, On whose bright top Peristera did stand Who was a nymph but now, transform'd, a dove,— Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil, That hung on them, as it durst not assail Their different concord; for the weakest air Could raise it, swelling, from her beauties fair; Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully