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VENUS AND ADONIS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(ca. 1592) The lengthy narrative poem Venus and
Adonis begins with the goddess’s supplications to
Adonis to grant her amorous desires; however, Venus’s
entreaties soon turn to frustration and questions
regarding his masculinity. The two then engage in a
rhetorical discourse on love, and after a great deal of
pleading, Adonis grants Venus a farewell kiss that
infl ames her passion. Her desire quickly turns to fears
for his safety when she learns that he plans to hunt
boar the next day. Adonis ignores her suggestion to
pursue tamer beasts such as the hare. The next day,
hearing the furious baying of the hounds, Venus runs
out to discover Adonis’s lifeless, bloody body. She
laments his death but soon observes his body “melt”
and marvels that from his blood, “A purple fl ow’r
sprung up, check’red with white” (l. 1168). Plucking
the fl ower and wearing it near her heart to observe her
lover’s memory, Venus then departs dejectedly for her
home in Paphos.
Venus and Adonis is an Ovidian mythological love
poem, a style popular in Elizabethan England and well
known by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE and Henry Wriothes-
ley, earl of Southhampton, Shakespeare’s patron to
whom the poem is dedicated. It is written in six-line
verse STANZAs rhyming ababcc. Several other Tudor
poets wrote versions of the Venus and Adonis story.
Thomas Lodge completed Scilla’s Metamorphosis, Inter-
laced with the Unfortunate Love of Glaucus (1589), a
work that comments briefl y on the love between Venus

and Adonis but centers on a maiden’s courtship of a

reluctant young man. In The FAERIE QUEENE, EDMUND

SPENSER also briefl y treats the legend of Venus and

Adonis. Scholars continue to debate whether either or

both of these infl uenced Shakespeare’s poem. As well,

some critics believe that Shakespeare read CHRISTOPHER

MARLOWE’s HERO AND LEANDER in draft form before its

publication after Marlowe’s death. Though not directly

about the same subject, Marlowe’s poem details the

erotic love between the title characters and may have

served as an inspiring model.

In 1593, Richard Field, son of a Stratford tanner

and probably Shakespeare’s friend, printed the fi rst

edition of Venus and Adonis. The Stationers’ Register

records the poem in April 1593, which means that it

was probably composed sometime between August

1592 and April 1593, when the theaters were closed

due to the plague. Venus and Adonis was the fi rst poem

Shakespeare published and one of the few he saw

through the entire publication process, probably

because of its dedication to a noble patron. It was

quite popular in its own time and immediately there-

after, and by 1636, Venus and Adonis had gone through

at least 20 editions.

Despite its contemporary popularity, Venus and

Adonis was long overlooked critically. Like A LOVER’S

COMPLAINT, its place within the Shakespeare canon was

often doubted based on its unique subject matter and

verse form. However, most scholars now accept this

poem as Shakespeare’s, and its reputation has been

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