Internet Shakespeare Editions

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

Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1593)

VENVS AND ADONIS.

And yet not cloy thy lips with loth'd sacietie,
20But rather famish them amid their plentie,
Making them red, and pale, with fresh varietie:
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twentie:
A sommers day will seeme an houre but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.

25With this she ceazeth on his sweating palme,
The president of pith, and liuelyhood,
And trembling in her passion, calls it balme,
Earths soueraigne salue, to do a goddesse good,
Being so enrag'd, desire doth lend her force,
30 Couragiously to plucke him from his horse.

Ouer one arme the lustie coursers raine,
Vnder her other was the tender boy,
Who blusht, and powted in a dull disdaine,
With leaden appetite, vnapt to toy,
35 She red, and hot, as coles of glowing fier,
He red for shame, but frostie in desier.

The studded bridle on a ragged bough,
Nimbly she fastens, (ô how quicke is loue!)
The steed is stalled vp, and euen now,
40To tie the rider she begins to proue:
Backward she pusht him, as she would be thrust,
And gouernd him in strength though not in lust.
So