Ganymede is a character of beauty who is desired by both women and gods. At least this is true for the Ganymede from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Ovid’s Ganymede is commonly used in other stories, and one of these stories is Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander. While Ganymede does not make a physical appearance, he is closely compared to the character Leander. Marlowe took the story line of Hero and Leander from Ovid, and using these two parts of Ovid’s work, Marlowe gives viewers a different perspective on who Ganymede is and the effects of homosexual love and desire. This is done by both invoking Ganymede’s name and putting Leander through a situation similar to Ganymede’s interaction with Jove. By comparing Ovid and Marlowe’s work, one can see how Marlowe advances his own view that the goal should not be to possess the desired but being desired should empowers a person and homosexual desire is one of the different types of desire.…show more content… Ganymede is presented as one of the “pretty boys / That were the darlings of the god” (187-189) who is desired by both girls and Jove. Besides these details, there is not a lot given about Ganymede’s beauty, but the fact that he is the boy chosen to be included in this piece by the singer and the fact that Jove choses to take him over all the other boys says a lot about his appearance. Ganymede’s beauty is then further defined by Marlowe when he compares him to the character Leander. The narrator of Hero and Leander spends a great deal of time detailing Leander’s physical
