Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

  • Title: Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1593)
  • Editor: Hardy M. Cook
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-411-0

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Hardy M. Cook
    Peer Reviewed

    Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1593)

    VENVS AND ADONIS.

    Faire Queene (quoth he) if anie loue you owe me,
    Measure my strangenesse with my vnripe yeares,
    525Before I know my selfe, seeke not to know me,
    No fisher but the vngrowne frie forbeares,
    The mellow plum doth fall, the greene sticks fast,
    Or being early pluckt, is sower totast.

    Looke the worlds comforter with wearie gate,
    530His dayes hot taske hath ended in the west,
    The owle (nights herald) shreeks, tis verie late,
    The sheepe are gone to fold, birds to their nest,
    And cole-black clouds, that shadow heauens light,
    Do summon vs to part, and bid good night.

    535Now let me say goodnight, and so say you,
    If you will say so, you shall haue a kis;
    Goodnight (quoth she) and ere he sayes adue,
    The honie fee of parting tendred is,
    Her armes do lend his necke a sweet imbrace,
    540 Incorporate then they seeme, face growes to face.

    Till breathlesse he disioynd, and backward drew,
    The heauenly moisture that sweet corall mouth,
    Whose precious tast, her thirstie lips well knew,
    Whereon they surfet, yet complaine on drouth,
    545 He with her plentie prest, she faint with dearth,
    Their lips together glewed, fall to the earth.