Venus and Adonis

Textual Introduction
By Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine

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Your Honor’s in all duty,
William Shakespeare.
example, from 
Henry V
: “With blood and sword and fire to win your
right,”), or angle brackets (for example, from 
Hamlet
: “O farewell,
honest soldier. Who hath relieved/you?”). At any point in the text,
you can hover your cursor over a bracket for more information.
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century knowledge about Shakespeare’s texts, the Folger here
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enjoyment of Shakespeare.
I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to
your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so
strong a prop to support so weak a burden; only if your Honor seem
but pleased, I account myself highly praised and vow to take advantage
of all idle hours till I have honored you with some graver labor.
But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it
had so noble a godfather and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it
yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and
your Honor to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer
your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.
Right Honorable,
Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton,
and Baron of Titchfield.

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Even as the sun with purple-colored face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase.
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
Sick-thoughtèd Venus makes amain unto him
And, like a bold-faced suitor, gins to woo him.
“Thrice fairer than myself,” thus she began,
“The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are,
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.
“Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddlebow.
If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know.
Here come and sit where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses,
“And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety—
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty.
A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good.
Being so enraged, desire doth lend her force
Courageously to pluck him from his horse.
Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,
Under her other was the tender boy,
Who blushed and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy—
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
He red for shame but frosty in desire.