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Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1592-3)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Hardy M. Cook
Peer Reviewed
VENVS AND ADONIS.

235VVitin this limit is reliefe inough,
Sweet bottome grasse, and high delightfull plaine,
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure, and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest, and from raine:
Then be my deare, since I am such a parke,
240No dog shal rowze thee, though a thousand bark.

At this Adonis smiles as in disdaine,
That in ech cheeke appeares a prettie dimple;
Loue made those hollowes, if him selfe were slaine,
He might be buried in a tombe so simple,
245Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
VVhy there loue liu'd, & there he could not die.

These louely caues, these round inchanting pits,
Opend their mouthes to swallow Venus liking:
Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
250Strucke dead at first, what needs a second striking?
Poore Queene of loue, in thine own law forlorne,
To loue a cheeke that smiles at thee in scorne.

Now which way shall she turne? what shall she say?
Her words are done, her woes the more increasing,
255The time is spent, her obiect will away,
And ftom her twining armes doth vrge releasing:
Pitie she cries, some fauour, some remorse,
Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.
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