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  • 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.

    What should I do, seeing thee so indeed?
    That tremble at th'imagination,
    The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
    670And feare doth teach it diuination;
    I prophecie thy death, my liuing sorrow,
    If thou incounter with the boare to morrow.

    But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me,
    Vncouple at the timerous flying hare,
    675Or at the foxe which liues by subtiltie,
    Or at the Roe which no incounter dare:
    Pursue these fearfull creatures o're the downes,
    And on thy wel breathd horse keep with thy hoūds

    And when thou hast on foote the purblind hare,
    680Marke the poore wretch to ouer-shut his troubles,
    How he outruns the wind, and with what care,
    He crankes and crosses with a thousand doubles,
    The many musits through the which he goes,
    Are like a laberinth to amaze his foes.

    685Sometime he runnes among a flocke of sheepe,
    To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
    And sometime where earth-deluing Conies keepe,
    To stop the loud pursuers in their yell:
    And sometime sorteth with a heard of deare,
    690 Danger deuiseth shifts, wit waites on feare.
    E iij
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