“Of Aphrodite’s wrath?” Effie asked.
“I suppose so. Or perhaps she is concerned about the treacherous swim. There are various versions of the story. I’m sure we all read Ovid at school.”
Effie had only a vague memory of that, and the characters of the various myths blurred in his mind. Someone was always drowning or burning or being pecked to death by birds.
“Hero is meant to hang a light in her window every night to guide Leander on his swim,” Simon continued. “Which she does, and he makes his nightly crossing, though there is a detour in Marlowe’s accounting where he gets mistaken for someone else by Neptune—this is the Roman version—and if I recall correctly, there’s a magical bracelet involved.”
“Isn’t there always?” Archie said.
“Will you hold your tongue?” Simon said. Archie smirked as Simon continued. “Marlowe ends his poem there. He died before he finished it, apparently.”
“You’ve been reading poetry?” Effie asked.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve ‘been reading’ poetry. I readapoem.”
“But why?” Not that a person needed a reason to read poetry, but it was out of character for Simon.
Simon ignored the question. “In other versions of the myth, the lovers agree to part ways at the end of summer. The waters will be too treacherous to swim come wintertime.”
The lovers agree to part ways at the end of summer.
“How? How did they agree to part ways? Did they simply say, ‘Well, that was diverting. Have a lovely summer,’ and go on their merry ways?”
Simon and Archie were both looking at Effie strangely. Effie gestured for Simon to continue.
“But then one winter night, Leander sees the light in Hero’s tower and takes it as a summons.”
“That seems rather a leap,” Archie said. “Perhaps Hero is engrossed in a novel she can’t put down. Perhaps she has forgotten all about Leander and taken another lover. Perhaps she merely fell asleep with the light burning.”
Simon turned to Effie. “You’re the one who asked for this tale. Can you make him stop?”
Archie held up his hands and made a show of closing his mouth.
With a short sigh, Simon resumed his tale. “Leander starts across the strait, but it’s a terribly stormy night and the light is extinguished. He loses his way and is drowned. Hero, seeing that, drowns herself too.”
“If she could see him drowning, could she not see that her light had gone out?” Archie, apparently unable to help himself, said.
“I repeat: Who knows why the Greeks did anything?”
“And then,” Effie said, “Keats says of Leander’s death, ‘Nigh swooning he doth purse his weary lips for Hero’s cheek and smiles against her smile.’”
Smiles against her smile.
How lovely. How devastating.
“What is the point, do you think?” Effie asked, after taking a moment to collect himself. “Love across a chasm such as the Hellespont is doomed?”
As doomed as between the heir to an earl and the editor of a magazine? As doomed as between the heir to an earl who can’t marry the editor of a magazine and the editor of a magazine who won’t marry anyone?
“Don’t take vows of chastity you don’t intend to keep,” Archie offered.
“I should think it’s more ‘Do not anger the gods,’” Simon said.
Perhaps it wasn’t that high-minded. Perhaps it was simply,Only fools willingly swim to their deaths.
* * *
Effie dallied in going to Julianna that night. The past two nights, he had appeared in her bedchamber sans coat—the first night sans waistcoat, too. He had merely gone to her in whatever he had been—or hadn’t been—wearing by the end of his evening session with the boys.
