Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

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

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    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Hardy M. Cook
    Peer Reviewed

    Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1593)

    VENVS AND ADONIS.

    595Now is she in the verie lists of loue,
    Her champion mounted for the hot incounter,
    All is imaginarie she doth proue,
    He will not mannage her, although he mount her,
    That worse then Tantalus is her annoy,
    600 To clip Elizium, and to lacke her ioy.

    Euen so poore birds deceiu'd with painted grapes,
    Do surfet by the eye, and pine the maw:
    Euen so she languisheth in her mishaps,
    As those poore birds that helplesse berries saw,
    605 The warme effects which she in him finds missing,
    She seekes to kindle with continuall kissing.

    But all in vaine, good Queene, it will not bee,
    She hath assai'd as much as may be prou'd,
    Her pleading hath deseru'd a greater fee,
    610She's loue; she loues, and yet she is not lou'd,
    Fie, fie, he saies, you crush me, let me go,
    You haue no reason to withhold me so.

    Thou hadst bin gone (quoth she) sweet boy ere this,
    But that thou toldst me, thou woldst hunt the boare,
    615Oh be aduisd, thou know'st not what it is,
    With iauelings point a churlish swine to goare,
    Whose tushes neuer sheathd, he whetteth still,
    Like to a mortall butcher bent to kill.
    On