Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1592-3)
Author: William ShakespeareEditor: Hardy M. CookPeer Reviewed


¶VVhich after him
she dartes, as one on
shore
¶Gazing vpon a late embarked friend,
¶Till the wilde waues will haue him
seene no more,
820VVho
se ridges with the meeting cloudes contend:
¶_So did the mercile
sse, and pitchie night,
¶_Fold in the obiect that did feed her
sight.
¶VVhereat ama
s'd as one that vnaware,
¶Hath dropt a precious iewell in the flood,
825Or
stoni
sht, as night wandrers often are,
¶Their light blowne out in
some mi
stru
stfull wood;
¶_Euen
so confounded in the darke
she lay,
¶_Hauing lo
st the faire di
scouerie of her way.
¶And now
she beates her heart, whereat it grones,
830That all the neighbour caues as
seeming troubled,
¶Make verball repetition of her mones,
¶Pa
ssion on pa
ssion, deeply is redoubled,
¶_Ay me,
she cries, and twentie times, wo, wo,
¶_And twentie ecchoes, twentie times crie
so,
835She marking them, begins a wailing note,
¶And
sings extemporally a wofull dittie,
¶How loue makes yong-men thrall, & old men dote,
¶How loue is wi
se in follie, fooli
sh wittie:
¶_Her heauie antheme
still concludes in wo,
840_And
still the quier of ecchoes an
swer
so.
¶Her
song was tedious, and out-wore the night,
¶For louers houres are long, though
seeming
short,
¶If plea
sd them
selues, others they thinke delight,
¶In
such like circum
stance, with
such like
sport:
845_Their copious
stories oftentimes begunne,
¶_End without audience, and are neuer donne.

