Internet Shakespeare Editions

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

Venus and Adonis (Quarto 1, 1593)

Pure lips, sweet seales in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargaines may I make still to be sealing?
To sell my selfe I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and vse good dealing,
515 Which purchase if thou make, for feare of slips,
Set thy seale manuell, on my wax-red lips.
A thousand kisses buyes my heart from me,
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one,
What is ten hundred touches vnto thee,
520Are they not quickly told, and quickly gone?
Say for non-paimet, that the debt should double,
Is twentie hundred kisses such a trouble?
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.