Synopsis

The background story of Venus and Adonis is easy to summarise: Venus, enamoured of Adonis, tries repeatedly to seduce the handsome young man, but he very clearly prefers the hunt. After rejecting the goddess' advances, Adonis goes off to his death, gored by a boar. He is mourned by Venus.

Ovid's Metamorphosis Book X is generally quoted as the source for this tale, but Shakespeare's version does not really follow Ovid's story. His version does follow very closely the text of the Shepherd's Venus and Adonis, usually attributed to Henry Constable (1562-1613), reproduced at the foot of this page.

The poem opens with the morning, and Adonis up early and to the hunt. The main theme is introduced (lines 4-6):

Hunting he lov'd, but love he laught to scorne:

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amaine to him,

And like a bold fac'd suter ginnes to woo him.

She plucks him from his horse, ties up the horse with one arm and carries him under the other, dumping him on the ground, where she takes her place next to him (line 44):

Each leaning on their elbowes and their hips

She then begins to woo him (lines 47-48):

And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,

If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.

His reaction is to burn with 'bashfull shame', as she continues her eulogies to his beauty. The descriptions become very physical: Venus is likened to an eagle devouring its prey, she 'with her teares / Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheekes', she 'murthers' any further discourse 'with a kisse', he breathes on her face and she 'feedeth on the steame', he is compared to a bird tangled in a net, he is again described as feeling shame, which makes him more beautiful, he is described as 'Twixt crimson shame, and anger ashie pale'.

She continues her entreaties, asking 'one sweet kisse'. He raises his chin, 'Like a divedapper peering through a wave', but denies her the kiss. She points out that even the 'direfull god of warre' (Mars) has been her captive and slave, that she led him 'prisoner in a red rose chaine'. She then launches into extensive reasoning to convince the boy to give in, some of which is certainly familiar from the sonnets (lines 131-132):

Faire flowers that are not gathred in their prime,

Rot, and consume them selves in litle time.

The arguments continue through many verses - 'why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes'; if you are ashamed, close your eyes and it will seem as night; the violets on which we rest 'never can blab'; if I were ugly, you might have reason to disdain me; 'bid me discourse and I will inchaunt thine eare,'

Or like a Fairie, trip upon the greene,

Or like a Nimph, with long disheveled heare,

Daunce on the sands, and yet no footing seene.

(lines 146-148)

She asks if he is in love with himself, and comments that Narcissus died to 'kisse his shadow in the brooke'.

Torches are made to light, jewels to weare,

Dainties to tast, fresh beautie for use,

Herbes for their smell, and sappie plants to beare.

(lines 163-165)

Adonis' response is to say he has heard enough of love, and wants to be gone. Venus chides him again:

Art thou obdurate, flintie, hard as steele?

(line 199)

She likens herself to a park, he a deer:

Graze on my lips, and if those hils be drie,

Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

(lines 233-234)

He manages to get away from her, but his horse spies a breeding jennet in a neighbouring copse, breaks his rein, and runs off. There follow ten verses describing the pursuit of the jennet. Venus follows, and, catching up with him, begins her wooing again. He again rejects her. She falls down. He thinks that maybe she is dead, tries to revive her. It is now already evening. He offers her a parting kiss.

And having felt the sweetnesse of the spoile,

With blind fold furie she begins to forrage,

Her face doth reeke, & smoke, her blood doth boile,

And carelesse lust stirs up a desperat courage,

Planting oblivion, beating reason backe,

Forgetting shames pure blush, & honours wrack.

(lines 553-558)

The poet states that a lover must not be put off by complaints:

What though the rose have prickles, yet tis pluckt?

Were beautie under twentie locks kept fast,

Yet love breaks through, & picks them all at last.

(lines 574-576)

She resolves finally to let him depart, but wants to make a rendez-vous for the morning. He tells her that he has decided to go hunting the boar with his friends. She flings her arms round his neck in a swoon, and pulls him down on top of her:

She sincketh downe, still hanging by his necke,

He on her belly falls, she on her backe.

(lines 593-594)

The contradiction in her situation is neatly summarised:

She's love; she loves, and yet she is not lov'd

(line 610)

She tries to dissuade him from hunting the boar

Beautie has naught to do with such foule fiends

(line 638)

She encourages him to hunt rather the 'timerous flying hare', painting the poor creature's miseries with considerable detailed knowledge and compassion in six verses, terminating with:

For miserie is troden on by manie,

And being low, never releev'd by anie.

(lines 707-708)

Adonis finally gives a pretty definitive answer:

What have you urg'd, that I can not reprove?

The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger,

I hate not love, but your devise in love,

That lends imbracements unto every stranger,

You do it for increase: ô straunge excuse!

When reason is the bawd to lusts abuse.

Call it not love, for love to heaven is fled,

Since sweating lust on earth usurpt his name,

Under whose simple semblance he hath fed,

Upon fresh beautie, blotting it with blame;

Which the hot tyrant staines, & soon bereaves:

As Caterpillars do the tender leaves.

Love comforteth like sun-shine after raine,

But lusts effect is tempest after sunne,

Love's gentle spring doth alwayes fresh remaine,

Lusts winter comes, ere summer halfe be donne;

Love surfets not, lust like a glutton dies;

Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.

(lines 793-804)

It is the definitive statement of the difference between lust and love in the poem, but, of course, makes no difference to Venus' emotions. She mourns his absence during the night:

And now she beates her heart, whereat it grones,

That all the neighbour caves as seeming troubled,

Make verball repetition of her mones,

Passion on passion, deeply is redoubled,

Ay me, she cries, and twentie times wo, wo,

And twentie ecchoes, twentie times crie so.

(lines 829-834)

It seems that Venus is living in a cave.

Morning arrives, and Venus goes out to look for Adonis. listening 'for his houndes, and for his horne'. She hears the hounds are 'at a bay', which means that they are in contact with a boar, a bear or a lion, 'Because the crie remaineth in one place'. She is overcome with anxiety. She spies the boar:

Whose frothie mouth bepainted all with red,

Like milke, & blood, being mingled both togither,

A second feare through all her sinewes spred..

(lines 883-885)

She meets several hounds:

Clapping their proud tailes to the ground below,

Shaking their scratcht-eares, bleeding as they go.

(lines 923-924)

She apostrophises Death, chiding him as a 'Hard favourd tyrant, ougly, meagre, leane, / Hatefull divorce of love..' and 'Grim-grinning ghost, earths-worme'. She mourns:

O how her eyes, and teares, did lend, and borrow,

Her eye seene in the teares, teares in her eye,

Both christals, where they viewd ech others sorrow:

Sorrow, that friendly sighs sought still to drye,

But like a stormie day, now wind, now raine,

Sighs drie her cheeks, tears make them wet againe.

(lines 961-966)

But she hears the holloa of a huntsman, and flatters herself it is Adonis voice.

O hard beleeving love how strange it seemes!

Not to beleeve, and yet too credulous:

Thy weale, and wo, are both of them extreames,

Despaire, and hope, makes thee ridiculous.

The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,

In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

(lines 985-990)

She searches hopefully further, but comes across the boy's body:

As Faulcons to the lure, away she flies,

The grasse stoops not, she treads on it so light,

And in her hast, unfortunately spies,

The foule boares conquest, on her faire delight,

Which seene, her eyes, as murdred with the view,

Like stars asham'd of day, themselves withdrew.

Or as the snaile, whose tender hornes being hit,

Shrinks backward in his shellie cave with paine,

And, there all smoothred up, in shade doth sit,

Long after fearing to creepe forth againe:

So, at his bloodie view, her eyes are fled,

Into the deep-darke cabbins of her head.

(lines 1027-1038)

She launches into a long eulogy of Adonis' beauty, at the end of which she curses lovers:

Since thou art dead, lo here I prophecie,

Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:

It shall be wayted on with jealousie,

Find sweet beginning, but unsavourie end.

Nere setled equally, but high or lo,

That all loves pleasure shall not match his wo.

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,

Bud, and be blasted, in a breathing while,

The bottome poyson, and the top ore-strawd

With sweets, that shall the truest sight beguile,

The strongest bodie shall it make most weake,

Strike the wise dumbe, & teach the foole to speake.

It shall be sparing, and too full of ryot,

Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures,

The staring ruffian shall it keepe in quiet,

Pluck down the rich, enrich the poore with treasures,

It shall be raging mad and sillie milde,

Make the young old, the old become a childe.

It shall suspect where is no cause of feare,

It shall not feare where it should most mistrust,

It shall be mercifull, and too seveare,

And most deceiving, when it seemes most just,

Perverse it shall be, where it showes most toward,

Put feare to valour, courage to the coward.

It shall be cause of warre, and dire events,

And set dissention twixt the sonne, and sire,

Subject, and servil to all discontents:

As drie combustious matter is to fire,

Sith in his prime, death doth my love destroy,

They that love best their loves shall not enjoy.

(lines 1135-1164)

A flower springs up from the blood spilt on the ground. Adonis' body

Was melted like a vapour from her sight,

And in his blood that on the ground laie spild,

A purple floure sproong up, checkred with white.

(lines 1166-1168)

Venus departs for Paphos where she 'Meanes to immure her selfe, and not be seen'.