• When Xerxes invaded Greece he crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats with an army of five million. So say the historians. On his return he crossed it in a fishing boat almost alone⁠—“a warning to all human arrogance.” Leander naturally hated the Hellespont, having to swim it so many times. The last time, according to Thomas Hood, he met with a sea nymph, who, enamored of his beauty, carried him to the bottom of the sea. See Hero and Leander , stanza 45:⁠— “His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, His ears are deafened with the wildering noise; He asks the purpose of her fell design, But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice, Under the ponderous sea his body dips, And Hero’s name dies bubbling on his lips. “Look how a man is lowered to his grave, A yearning hollow in the green earth’s lap; So he is sunk into the yawning wave, The plunging sea fills up the watery gap; Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen, But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. “And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping, Over the verdant plain that makes his bed; And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead; The light in vain keeps looking for his face, Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place.” ↩