Across the Hellespont

Between two continents complain

I’m in Turkey this week for a conference, so I’ve been thinking about the story of Hero and Leander, which tells of the love between Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite on the European side of the Hellespont, and Leander, a young man living on the Asian side, who swims back and forth to reach her but is eventually drowned. The best known English version of t…