The Shakespeare Book

74

HUNTING HE

LOVED BUT LOVE

HE LAUGHED

TO SCORN

VENUS AND ADONIS (1592–1593)

T

he poem Venus and Adonis

retells the mythical tale

of Venus, goddess of

love, who woos and attempts to

seduce the beautiful mortal youth,

Adonis. Shakespeare announces

the theme in the opening lines:

“Even as the sun with purple-

coloured face / Had ta’en his last

leave of the weeping morn, / Rose-

cheeked Adonis hied him to the

chase. / Hunting he loved, but love

he laughed to scorn.”

Venus approaches Adonis, begs

a kiss, drags him from his horse

and tethers it to a tree, thrusts the

boy to the ground, and smothers

him with kisses. His bashfulness

inflames her lust and, pinning him

IN CONTEXT

THEMES

Erotic desire, youth,

longing, temptation

SETTING

Ancient Greece

SOURCES

8 CE Book X of Roman poet

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in its

original Latin, was probably

used by Shakespeare.

1565–67 An English

translation of Ovid’s

Metamorphoses by Arthur

Golding was also drawn

on for the poem.

LEGACY

1636 Reprinted at least 10

times in Shakespeare’s lifetime,

and another six times by

1636—the most often reprinted

work during his lifetime.

1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge

writes glowingly of the poem

in his Biographia Literaria.