{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1045/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1045","id":"gutenberg_1045","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1045","summary":null,"tags":["Adonis (Greek deity) -- Poetry","Category: British Literature","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Venus (Roman deity) -- Poetry"],"text":"VENUS AND ADONIS\n\n\n by William Shakespeare\n\n\n            _Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo\n            Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua._\n\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE\n\nHENRY WRIOTHESLEY,  EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON,\n\nand Baron of Titchfield.\n\n\nRight Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my\nunpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me\nfor choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if\nyour honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow\nto take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some\ngraver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I\nshall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so\nbarren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it\nto your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart\u2019s content;\nwhich I wish may always answer your own wish and the world\u2019s hopeful\nexpectation.\n\n\nYour honour\u2019s in all duty,\n\n\nWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n VENUS AND ADONIS\n\n\nEven as the sun with purple-colour\u2019d face\nHad ta\u2019en his last leave of the weeping morn,\nRose-cheek\u2019d Adonis hied him to the chase;\nHunting he lov\u2019d, but love he laugh\u2019d to scorn;        4\n  Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,\n  And like a bold-fac\u2019d suitor \u2019gins to woo him.\n\n\u201cThrice fairer than myself,\u201d thus she began,\n\u201cThe field\u2019s chief flower, sweet above compare,        8\nStain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,\nMore white and red than doves or roses are:\n  Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,\n  Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.     12\n\n\u201cVouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,\nAnd rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;\nIf thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed\nA thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:             16\n  Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,\n  And being set, I\u2019ll smother thee with kisses.\n\n\u201cAnd yet not cloy thy lips with loath\u2019d satiety,\nBut rather famish them amid their plenty,             20\nMaking them red, and pale, with fresh variety:\nTen kisses short as one, one long as twenty:\n  A summer\u2019s day will seem an hour but short,\n  Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.\u201d         24\n\nWith this she seizeth on his sweating palm,\nThe precedent of pith and livelihood,\nAnd trembling in her passion, calls it balm,\nEarth\u2019s sovereign salve to do a goddess good:         28\n  Being so enrag\u2019d, desire doth lend her force\n  Courageously to pluck him from his horse.\n\nOver one arm the lusty courser\u2019s rein,\nUnder her other was the tender boy,                   32\nWho blush\u2019d and pouted in a dull disdain,\nWith leaden appetite, unapt to toy;\n  She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,\n  He red for shame, but frosty in desire.             36\n\nThe studded bridle on a ragged bough\nNimbly she fastens;\u2014O! how quick is love!\u2014\nThe steed is stalled up, and even now\nTo tie the rider she begins to prove:                 40\n  Backward she push\u2019d him, as she would be thrust,\n  And govern\u2019d him in strength, though not in lust.\n\nSo soon was she along, as he was down,\nEach leaning on their elbows and their hips:          44\nNow doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,\nAnd \u2019gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips,\n  And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,\n  \u201cIf thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.\u201d    48\n\nHe burns with bashful shame, she with her tears\nDoth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;\nThen with her windy sighs and golden hairs\nTo fan and blow them dry again she seeks.             52\n  He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;\n  What follows more, she murders with a kiss.\n\nEven as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,\nTires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,      56\nShaking her wings, devouring all in haste,\nTill either gorge be stuff\u2019d or prey be gone:\n  Even so she kiss\u2019d his brow, his cheek, his chin,\n  And where she ends she doth anew begin.             60\n\nForc\u2019d to content, but never to obey,\nPanting he lies, and breatheth in her face.\nShe feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,\nAnd calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace,         64\n  Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers\n  So they were dew\u2019d with such distilling showers.\n\nLook how a bird lies tangled in a net,\nSo fasten\u2019d in her arms Adonis lies;                  68\nPure shame and aw\u2019d resistance made him fret,\nWhich bred more beauty in his angry eyes:\n  Rain added to a river that is rank\n  Perforce will force it overflow the bank.           72\n\nStill she entreats, and prettily entreats,\nFor to a pretty ear she tunes her tale.\nStill is he sullen, still he lours and frets,\n\u2019Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale;             76\n  Being red she loves him best, and being white,\n  Her best is better\u2019d with a more delight.\n\nLook how he can, she cannot choose but love;\nAnd by her fair immortal hand she swears,             80\nFrom his soft bosom never to remove,\nTill he take truce with her contending tears,\n  Which long have rain\u2019d, making her cheeks all wet;\n  And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.\n\nUpon this promise did he raise his chin,               85\nLike a dive-dapper peering through a wave,\nWho, being look\u2019d on, ducks as quickly in;\nSo offers he to give what she did crave,               88\n  But when her lips were ready for his pay,\n  He winks, and turns his lips another way.\n\nNever did passenger in summer\u2019s heat\nMore thirst for drink than she for this good turn.    92\nHer help she sees, but help she cannot get;\nShe bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:\n  \u201cO! pity,\u201d \u2019gan she cry, \u201cflint-hearted boy,\n  \u2019Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?            96\n\n\u201cI have been woo\u2019d as I entreat thee now,\nEven by the stern and direful god of war,\nWhose sinewy neck in battle ne\u2019er did bow,\nWho conquers where he comes in every jar;             100\n  Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,\n  And begg\u2019d for that which thou unask\u2019d shalt have.\n\n\u201cOver my altars hath he hung his lance,\nHis batter\u2019d shield, his uncontrolled crest,          104\nAnd for my sake hath learn\u2019d to sport and dance,\nTo toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;\n  Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red\n  Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.         108\n\n\u201cThus he that overrul\u2019d I oversway\u2019d,\nLeading him prisoner in a red rose chain:\nStrong-temper\u2019d steel his stronger strength obey\u2019d,\nYet was he servile to my coy disdain.                112\n  Oh be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,\n  For mast\u2019ring her that foil\u2019d the god of fight.\n\n\u201cTouch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,\nThough mine be not so fair, yet are they red,        116\nThe kiss shall be thine own as well as mine:\nWhat see\u2019st thou in the ground? hold up thy head,\n  Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;\n  Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?     120\n\n\u201cArt thou asham\u2019d to kiss? then wink again,\nAnd I will wink; so shall the day seem night.\nLove keeps his revels where there are but twain;\nBe bold to play, our sport is not in sight,          124\n  These blue-vein\u2019d violets whereon we lean\n  Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.\n\n\u201cThe tender spring upon thy tempting lip             127\nShows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted,\nMake use of time, let not advantage slip;\nBeauty within itself should not be wasted,\n  Fair flowers that are not gather\u2019d in their prime\n  Rot, and consume themselves in little time.         132\n\n\u201cWere I hard-favour\u2019d, foul, or wrinkled old,\nIll-nurtur\u2019d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,\nO\u2019erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,\nThick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,      136\n  Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;\n  But having no defects, why dost abhor me?\n\n\u201cThou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow,           139\nMine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;\nMy beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,\nMy flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning,\n  My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,\n  Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.       144\n\n\u201cBid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,\nOr like a fairy, trip upon the green,\nOr like a nymph, with long dishevell\u2019d hair,\nDance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.         148\n  Love is a spirit all compact of fire,\n  Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.\n\n\u201cWitness this primrose bank whereon I lie:           151\nThese forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;\nTwo strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,\nFrom morn till night, even where I list to sport me.\n  Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be\n  That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?       156\n\n\u201cIs thine own heart to thine own face affected?\nCan thy right hand seize love upon thy left?\nThen woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,\nSteal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.      160\n  Narcissus so himself himself forsook,\n  And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.\n\n\u201cTorches are made to light, jewels to wear,\nDainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,         164\nHerbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;\nThings growing to themselves are growth\u2019s abuse,\n  Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;\n  Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.            168\n\n\u201cUpon the earth\u2019s increase why shouldst thou feed,\nUnless the earth with thy increase be fed?\nBy law of nature thou art bound to breed,\nThat thine may live when thou thyself art dead;      172\n  And so in spite of death thou dost survive,\n  In that thy likeness still is left alive.\u201d\n\nBy this the love-sick queen began to sweat,\nFor where they lay the shadow had forsook them,      176\nAnd Titan, tired in the midday heat,\nWith burning eye did hotly overlook them,\n  Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,\n  So he were like him and by Venus\u2019 side.            180\n\nAnd now Adonis with a lazy spright,\nAnd with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,\nHis louring brows o\u2019erwhelming his fair sight,\nLike misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184\n  Souring his cheeks, cries, \u201cFie, no more of love:\n  The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy me,\u201d quoth Venus, \u201cyoung, and so unkind!\nWhat bare excuses mak\u2019st thou to be gone!            188\nI\u2019ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind\nShall cool the heat of this descending sun:\n  I\u2019ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;\n  If they burn too, I\u2019ll quench them with my tears.  192\n\n\u201cThe sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,\nAnd lo I lie between that sun and thee:\nThe heat I have from thence doth little harm,\nThine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;      196\n  And were I not immortal, life were done,\n  Between this heavenly and earthly sun.\n\n\u201cArt thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?\nNay more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:    200\nArt thou a woman\u2019s son and canst not feel\nWhat \u2019tis to love, how want of love tormenteth?\n  O had thy mother borne so hard a mind,\n  She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.   204\n\n\u201cWhat am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?\nOr what great danger dwells upon my suit?\nWhat were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?\nSpeak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:  208\n  Give me one kiss, I\u2019ll give it thee again,\n  And one for int\u2019rest, if thou wilt have twain.\n\n\u201cFie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,\nWell-painted idol, image dull and dead,              212\nStatue contenting but the eye alone,\nThing like a man, but of no woman bred:\n  Thou art no man, though of a man\u2019s complexion,\n  For men will kiss even by their own direction.\u201d    216\n\nThis said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,\nAnd swelling passion doth provoke a pause;\nRed cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;\nBeing judge in love, she cannot right her cause.     220\n  And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,\n  And now her sobs do her intendments break.\n\nSometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand,\nNow gazeth she on him, now on the ground;            224\nSometimes her arms infold him like a band:\nShe would, he will not in her arms be bound;\n  And when from thence he struggles to be gone,\n  She locks her lily fingers one in one.             228\n\n\u201cFondling,\u201d she saith, \u201csince I have hemm\u2019d thee here\nWithin the circuit of this ivory pale,\nI\u2019ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;\nFeed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:        232\n  Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,\n  Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.\n\n\u201cWithin this limit is relief enough,\nSweet bottom grass and high delightful plain,        236\nRound rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,\nTo shelter thee from tempest and from rain:\n  Then be my deer, since I am such a park,           239\n  No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.\u201d\n\nAt this Adonis smiles as in disdain,\nThat in each cheek appears a pretty dimple;\nLove made those hollows, if himself were slain,\nHe might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244\n  Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,\n  Why there love liv\u2019d, and there he could not die.\n\nThese lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,\nOpen\u2019d their mouths to swallow Venus\u2019 liking.        248\nBeing mad before, how doth she now for wits?\nStruck dead at first, what needs a second striking?\n  Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,\n  To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252\n\nNow which way shall she turn? what shall she say?\nHer words are done, her woes the more increasing;\nThe time is spent, her object will away,\nAnd from her twining arms doth urge releasing:       256\n  \u201cPity,\u201d she cries; \u201csome favour, some remorse!\u201d\n  Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.\n\nBut lo from forth a copse that neighbours by,\nA breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,          260\nAdonis\u2019 tramping courser doth espy,\nAnd forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:\n  The strong-neck\u2019d steed, being tied unto a tree,\n  Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.    264\n\nImperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,\nAnd now his woven girths he breaks asunder;\nThe bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,\nWhose hollow womb resounds like heaven\u2019s thunder;\n  The iron bit he crusheth \u2019tween his teeth,         269\n  Controlling what he was controlled with.\n\nHis ears up-prick\u2019d; his braided hanging mane\nUpon his compass\u2019d crest now stand on end;           272\nHis nostrils drink the air, and forth again,\nAs from a furnace, vapours doth he send:\n  His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,\n  Shows his hot courage and his high desire.         276\n\nSometime he trots, as if he told the steps,\nWith gentle majesty and modest pride;\nAnon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,\nAs who should say, \u201cLo thus my strength is tried;\n  And this I do to captivate the eye                 281\n  Of the fair breeder that is standing by.\u201d\n\nWhat recketh he his rider\u2019s angry stir,\nHis flattering \u201cHolla\u201d, or his \u201cStand, I say\u201d?       284\nWhat cares he now for curb or pricking spur?\nFor rich caparisons or trappings gay?\n  He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,\n  For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.      288\n\nLook when a painter would surpass the life,\nIn limning out a well-proportion\u2019d steed,\nHis art with nature\u2019s workmanship at strife,\nAs if the dead the living should exceed:             292\n  So did this horse excel a common one,\n  In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.\n\nRound-hoof\u2019d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,\nBroad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,\nHigh crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,\nThin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:\n  Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,\n  Save a proud rider on so proud a back.             300\n\nSometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;\nAnon he starts at stirring of a feather:\nTo bid the wind a base he now prepares,\nAnd where he run or fly they know not whether;       304\n  For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,\n  Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather\u2019d wings.\n\nHe looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;\nShe answers him as if she knew his mind,             308\nBeing proud, as females are, to see him woo her,\nShe puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,\n  Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,\n  Beating his kind embracements with her heels.      312\n\nThen like a melancholy malcontent,\nHe vails his tail that like a falling plume,\nCool shadow to his melting buttock lent:\nHe stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.     316\n  His love, perceiving how he was enrag\u2019d,\n  Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag\u2019d.\n\nHis testy master goeth about to take him,\nWhen lo the unback\u2019d breeder, full of fear,         320\nJealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,\nWith her the horse, and left Adonis there:\n  As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,\n  Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.    324\n\nAll swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,\nBanning his boisterous and unruly beast;\nAnd now the happy season once more fits\nThat love-sick love by pleading may be blest;        328\n  For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong,\n  When it is barr\u2019d the aidance of the tongue.\n\nAn oven that is stopp\u2019d, or river stay\u2019d,\nBurneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:         332\nSo of concealed sorrow may be said,\nFree vent of words love\u2019s fire doth assuage;\n  But when the heart\u2019s attorney once is mute,\n  The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.       336\n\nHe sees her coming, and begins to glow,\nEven as a dying coal revives with wind,\nAnd with his bonnet hides his angry brow,\nLooks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,         340\n  Taking no notice that she is so nigh,\n  For all askance he holds her in his eye.\n\nO what a sight it was, wistly to view\nHow she came stealing to the wayward boy,            344\nTo note the fighting conflict of her hue,\nHow white and red each other did destroy:\n  But now her cheek was pale, and by and by\n  It flash\u2019d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.  348\n\nNow was she just before him as he sat,\nAnd like a lowly lover down she kneels;\nWith one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,\nHer other tender hand his fair cheek feels:          352\n  His tend\u2019rer cheek receives her soft hand\u2019s print,\n  As apt as new-fall\u2019n snow takes any dint.\n\nOh what a war of looks was then between them,\nHer eyes petitioners to his eyes suing,              356\nHis eyes saw her eyes, as they had not seen them,\nHer eyes woo\u2019d still, his eyes disdain\u2019d the wooing:\n  And all this dumb play had his acts made plain\n  With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.\n\nFull gently now she takes him by the hand,           361\nA lily prison\u2019d in a gaol of snow,\nOr ivory in an alabaster band,\nSo white a friend engirts so white a foe:            364\n  This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,\n  Show\u2019d like two silver doves that sit a-billing.\n\nOnce more the engine of her thoughts began:\n\u201cO fairest mover on this mortal round,               368\nWould thou wert as I am, and I a man,\nMy heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound,\n  For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,\n  Though nothing but my body\u2019s bane would cure thee.\u201d\n\n\u201cGive me my hand,\u201d saith he, \u201cwhy dost thou feel it?\u201d\n\u201cGive me my heart,\u201d saith she, \u201cand thou shalt have it.\nO give it me lest thy hard heart do steel it,\nAnd being steel\u2019d, soft sighs can never grave it.    376\n  Then love\u2019s deep groans I never shall regard,\n  Because Adonis\u2019 heart hath made mine hard.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor shame,\u201d he cries, \u201clet go, and let me go,\nMy day\u2019s delight is past, my horse is gone,          380\nAnd \u2019tis your fault I am bereft him so,\nI pray you hence, and leave me here alone,\n  For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,\n  Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.\u201d           384\n\nThus she replies: \u201cThy palfrey as he should,\nWelcomes the warm approach of sweet desire,\nAffection is a coal that must be cool\u2019d;\nElse, suffer\u2019d, it will set the heart on fire,       388\n  The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;\n  Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.\n\n\u201cHow like a jade he stood tied to the tree,\nServilely master\u2019d with a leathern rein!             392\nBut when he saw his love, his youth\u2019s fair fee,\nHe held such petty bondage in disdain;\n  Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,\n  Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.     396\n\n\u201cWho sees his true-love in her naked bed,\nTeaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,\nBut when his glutton eye so full hath fed,\nHis other agents aim at like delight?                400\n  Who is so faint that dare not be so bold\n  To touch the fire, the weather being cold?\n\n\u201cLet me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,\nAnd learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,           404\nTo take advantage on presented joy,\nThough I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.\n  O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,\n  And once made perfect, never lost again.\u201d          408\n\n\u201cI know not love,\u201d quoth he, \u201cnor will not know it,\nUnless it be a boar, and then I chase it;\n\u2019Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;\nMy love to love is love but to disgrace it;          412\n  For I have heard, it is a life in death,\n  That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.\n\n\u201cWho wears a garment shapeless and unfinish\u2019d?\nWho plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?        416\nIf springing things be any jot diminish\u2019d,\nThey wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;\n  The colt that\u2019s back\u2019d and burden\u2019d being young,\n  Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.         420\n\n\u201cYou hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,\nAnd leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:\nRemove your siege from my unyielding heart,\nTo love\u2019s alarms it will not ope the gate:           424\n  Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flatt\u2019ry;\n  For where a heart is hard they make no batt\u2019ry.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! canst thou talk?\u201d quoth she, \u201chast thou a tongue?\nO would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;        428\nThy mermaid\u2019s voice hath done me double wrong;\nI had my load before, now press\u2019d with bearing:\n  Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,\n  Ear\u2019s deep sweet music, and heart\u2019s deep sore wounding.\n\n\u201cHad I no eyes but ears, my ears would love          433\nThat inward beauty and invisible;\nOr were I deaf, thy outward parts would move\nEach part in me that were but sensible:              436\n  Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,\n  Yet should I be in love by touching thee.\n\n\u201cSay that the sense of feeling were bereft me,\nAnd that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,       440\nAnd nothing but the very smell were left me,\nYet would my love to thee be still as much;\n  For from the stillitory of thy face excelling\n  Comes breath perfum\u2019d, that breedeth love by smelling.\n\n\u201cBut oh what banquet wert thou to the taste,         445\nBeing nurse and feeder of the other four;\nWould they not wish the feast might ever last,\nAnd bid suspicion double-lock the door,\n  Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,\n  Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?\u201d      448\n\nOnce more the ruby-colour\u2019d portal open\u2019d,\nWhich to his speech did honey passage yield,         452\nLike a red morn that ever yet betoken\u2019d\nWrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,\n  Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,\n  Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.      456\n\nThis ill presage advisedly she marketh:\nEven as the wind is hush\u2019d before it raineth,\nOr as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,\nOr as the berry breaks before it staineth,           460\n  Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,\n  His meaning struck her ere his words begun.\n\nAnd at his look she flatly falleth down\nFor looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;     464\nA smile recures the wounding of a frown;\nBut blessed bankrout, that by love so thriveth!\n  The silly boy, believing she is dead,\n  Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red.  468\n\nAnd all amaz\u2019d brake off his late intent,\nFor sharply he did think to reprehend her,\nWhich cunning love did wittily prevent:\nFair fall the wit that can so well defend her!       472\n  For on the grass she lies as she were slain,\n  Till his breath breatheth life in her again.\n\nHe wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,\nHe bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,         476\nHe chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks\nTo mend the hurt that his unkindness marr\u2019d:\n  He kisses her; and she, by her good will,\n  Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.        480\n\nThe night of sorrow now is turn\u2019d to day:\nHer two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,\nLike the fair sun when in his fresh array\nHe cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:     484\n  And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,\n  So is her face illumin\u2019d with her eye.\n\nWhose beams upon his hairless face are fix\u2019d,\nAs if from thence they borrow\u2019d all their shine.     488\nWere never four such lamps together mix\u2019d,\nHad not his clouded with his brow\u2019s repine;\n  But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light\n  Shone like the moon in water seen by night.        492\n\n\u201cO where am I?\u201d quoth she, \u201cin earth or heaven?\nOr in the ocean drench\u2019d, or in the fire?\nWhat hour is this? or morn or weary even?\nDo I delight to die, or life desire?                 496\n  But now I liv\u2019d, and life was death\u2019s annoy;\n  But now I died, and death was lively joy.\n\n\u201cO thou didst kill me; kill me once again:\nThy eyes\u2019 shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,    500\nHath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,\nThat they have murder\u2019d this poor heart of mine;\n  And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,\n  But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.         504\n\n\u201cLong may they kiss each other for this cure!\nOh never let their crimson liveries wear,\nAnd as they last, their verdure still endure,\nTo drive infection from the dangerous year:          508\n  That the star-gazers, having writ on death,\n  May say, the plague is banish\u2019d by thy breath.\n\n\u201cPure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,\nWhat bargains may I make, still to be sealing?       512\nTo sell myself I can be well contented,\nSo thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing;\n  Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,\n  Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.            516\n\n\u201cA thousand kisses buys my heart from me;\nAnd pay them at thy leisure, one by one,\nWhat is ten hundred touches unto thee?\nAre they not quickly told and quickly gone?          520\n  Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,\n  Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?\u201d\n\n\u201cFair queen,\u201d quoth he, \u201cif any love you owe me,\nMeasure my strangeness with my unripe years:         524\nBefore I know myself, seek not to know me;\nNo fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:\n  The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,\n  Or being early pluck\u2019d, is sour to taste.          528\n\n\u201cLook the world\u2019s comforter, with weary gait\nHis day\u2019s hot task hath ended in the west;\nThe owl, night\u2019s herald, shrieks, \u2019tis very late;\nThe sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,     532\n  And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven\u2019s light\n  Do summon us to part, and bid good night.\n\n\u201cNow let me say good night, and so say you;\nIf you will say so, you shall have a kiss.\u201d          536\n\u201cGood night,\u201d quoth she; and ere he says adieu,\nThe honey fee of parting tender\u2019d is:\n  Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;\n  Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.    540\n\nTill breathless he disjoin\u2019d, and backward drew\nThe heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,\nWhose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,\nWhereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth,        544\n  He with her plenty press\u2019d, she faint with dearth,\n  Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.\n\nNow quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,\nAnd glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;       548\nHer lips are conquerors, his lips obey,\nPaying what ransom the insulter willeth;\n  Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,\n  That she will draw his lips\u2019 rich treasure dry.    552\n\nAnd having felt the sweetness of the spoil,\nWith blindfold fury she begins to forage;\nHer face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,\nAnd careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,      556\n  Planting oblivion, beating reason back,\n  Forgetting shame\u2019s pure blush and honour\u2019s wrack.\n\nHot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,\nLike a wild bird being tam\u2019d with too much handling,\nOr as the fleet-foot roe that\u2019s tir\u2019d with chasing,  561\nOr like the froward infant still\u2019d with dandling:\n  He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,\n  While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.  564\n\nWhat wax so frozen but dissolves with temp\u2019ring,\nAnd yields at last to every light impression?\nThings out of hope are compass\u2019d oft with vent\u2019ring,\nChiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:     568\n  Affection faints not like a pale-fac\u2019d coward,\n  But then woos best when most his choice is froward.\n\nWhen he did frown, O had she then gave over,\nSuch nectar from his lips she had not suck\u2019d.        572\nFoul words and frowns must not repel a lover;\nWhat though the rose have prickles, yet \u2019tis pluck\u2019d.\n  Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,\n  Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.\n\nFor pity now she can no more detain him;             577\nThe poor fool prays her that he may depart:\nShe is resolv\u2019d no longer to restrain him,\nBids him farewell, and look well to her heart,       580\n  The which by Cupid\u2019s bow she doth protest,\n  He carries thence encaged in his breast.\n\n\u201cSweet boy,\u201d she says, \u201cthis night I\u2019ll waste in sorrow,\nFor my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.       584\nTell me, love\u2019s master, shall we meet tomorrow\nSay, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?\u201d\n  He tells her no, tomorrow he intends\n  To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.      588\n\n\u201cThe boar!\u201d quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,\nLike lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,\nUsurps her cheek, she trembles at his tale,\nAnd on his neck her yoking arms she throws.          592\n  She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,\n  He on her belly falls, she on her back.\n\nNow is she in the very lists of love,\nHer champion mounted for the hot encounter:          596\nAll is imaginary she doth prove,\nHe will not manage her, although he mount her;\n  That worse than Tantalus\u2019 is her annoy,\n  To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.               600\n\nEven as poor birds, deceiv\u2019d with painted grapes,\nDo surfeit by the eye and pine the maw:\nEven so she languisheth in her mishaps,\nAs those poor birds that helpless berries saw.       604\n  The warm effects which she in him finds missing,\n  She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.\n\nBut all in vain, good queen, it will not be,\nShe hath assay\u2019d as much as may be prov\u2019d;           608\nHer pleading hath deserv\u2019d a greater fee;\nShe\u2019s love, she loves, and yet she is not lov\u2019d.\n  \u201cFie, fie,\u201d he says, \u201cyou crush me; let me go;\n  You have no reason to withhold me so.\u201d             612\n\n\u201cThou hadst been gone,\u201d quoth she, \u201csweet boy, ere this,\nBut that thou told\u2019st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.\nOh be advis\u2019d; thou know\u2019st not what it is,\nWith javelin\u2019s point a churlish swine to gore,       616\n  Whose tushes never sheath\u2019d he whetteth still,\n  Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.\n\n\u201cOn his bow-back he hath a battle set\nOf bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;         620\nHis eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;\nHis snout digs sepulchres where\u2019er he goes;\n  Being mov\u2019d, he strikes whate\u2019er is in his way,\n  And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.       624\n\n\u201cHis brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,\nAre better proof than thy spear\u2019s point can enter;\nHis short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;\nBeing ireful, on the lion he will venture:           628\n  The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,\n  As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.\n\n\u201cAlas! he naught esteems that face of thine,\nTo which love\u2019s eyes pay tributary gazes;            632\nNor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,\nWhose full perfection all the world amazes;\n  But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!\n  Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.\n\n\u201cOh let him keep his loathsome cabin still,          637\nBeauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends:\nCome not within his danger by thy will;\nThey that thrive well, take counsel of their friends.\n  When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,\n  I fear\u2019d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.\n\n\u201cDidst thou not mark my face, was it not white?\nSaw\u2019st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?      644\nGrew I not faint, and fell I not downright?\nWithin my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,\n  My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,\n  But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.\n\n\u201cFor where love reigns, disturbing jealousy          649\nDoth call himself affection\u2019s sentinel;\nGives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,\nAnd in a peaceful hour doth cry \u201cKill, kill!\u201d        652\n  Distemp\u2019ring gentle love in his desire,\n  As air and water do abate the fire.\n\n\u201cThis sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,\nThis canker that eats up love\u2019s tender spring,       656\nThis carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,\nThat sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,\n  Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,\n  That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.      660\n\n\u201cAnd more than so, presenteth to mine eye\nThe picture of an angry chafing boar,\nUnder whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie\nAn image like thyself, all stain\u2019d with gore;        664\n  Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed,\n  Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.\n\n\u201cWhat should I do, seeing thee so indeed,\nThat tremble at th\u2019imagination?                      668\nThe thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,\nAnd fear doth teach it divination:\n  I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,\n  If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.          672\n\n\u201cBut if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul\u2019d by me;\nUncouple at the timorous flying hare,\nOr at the fox which lives by subtilty,\nOr at the roe which no encounter dare:               676\n  Pursue these fearful creatures o\u2019er the downs,\n  And on thy well-breath\u2019d horse keep with thy hounds.\n\n\u201cAnd when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,\nMark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles      680\nHow he outruns the wind, and with what care\nHe cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:\n  The many musits through the which he goes\n  Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.            684\n\n\u201cSometime he runs among a flock of sheep,\nTo make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,\nAnd sometime where earth-delving conies keep,\nTo stop the loud pursuers in their yell,             688\n  And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;\n  Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.\n\n\u201cFor there his smell with others being mingled,      691\nThe hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,\nCeasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled\nWith much ado the cold fault cleanly out;\n  Then do they spend their mouths: echo replies,\n  As if another chase were in the skies.             696\n\n\u201cBy this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,\nStands on his hinder legs with list\u2019ning ear,\nTo hearken if his foes pursue him still.\nAnon their loud alarums he doth hear;                700\n  And now his grief may be compared well\n  To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.\n\n\u201cThen shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch\nTurn, and return, indenting with the way,            704\nEach envious briar his weary legs do scratch,\nEach shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:\n  For misery is trodden on by many,\n  And being low never reliev\u2019d by any.               708\n\n\u201cLie quietly, and hear a little more;\nNay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:\nTo make thee hate the hunting of the boar,\nUnlike myself thou hear\u2019st me moralize,              712\n  Applying this to that, and so to so,\n  For love can comment upon every woe.\n\n\u201cWhere did I leave?\u201d \u201cNo matter where,\u201d quoth he\n\u201cLeave me, and then the story aptly ends:            716\nThe night is spent.\u201d \u201cWhy, what of that?\u201d quoth she.\n\u201cI am,\u201d quoth he, \u201cexpected of my friends;\n  And now \u2019tis dark, and going I shall fall.\u201d\n  \u201cIn night,\u201d quoth she, \u201cdesire sees best of all.  720\n\nBut if thou fall, oh then imagine this,\nThe earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,\nAnd all is but to rob thee of a kiss.                723\nRich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips\n  Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,\n  Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.\"\n\n\u201cNow of this dark night I perceive the reason:\nCynthia for shame obscures her silver shine          728\nTill forging nature be condemn\u2019d of treason,\nFor stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine;\n  Wherein she fram\u2019d thee, in high heaven\u2019s despite,\n  To shame the sun by day and her by night.          732\n\n\u201cAnd therefore hath she brib\u2019d the destinies,\nTo cross the curious workmanship of nature,\nTo mingle beauty with infirmities,\nAnd pure perfection with impure defeature,           736\n  Making it subject to the tyranny\n  Of mad mischances and much misery.\n\n\u201cAs burning fevers, agues pale and faint,\nLife-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,         740\nThe marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint\nDisorder breeds by heating of the blood;\n  Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn\u2019d despair,\n  Swear nature\u2019s death, for framing thee so fair.    744\n\n\u201cAnd not the least of all these maladies\nBut in one minute\u2019s fight brings beauty under:\nBoth favour, savour, hue and qualities,\nWhereat th\u2019impartial gazer late did wonder,          748\n  Are on the sudden wasted, thaw\u2019d and done,\n  As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.\n\n\u201cTherefore despite of fruitless chastity,\nLove-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,           752\nThat on the earth would breed a scarcity\nAnd barren dearth of daughters and of sons,\n  Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night\n  Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.      756\n\n\u201cWhat is thy body but a swallowing grave,\nSeeming to bury that posterity,\nWhich by the rights of time thou needs must have,\nIf thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?          760\n  If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,\n  Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.\n\n\u201cSo in thyself thyself art made away;\nA mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,        764\nOr theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,\nOr butcher sire that reeves his son of life.\n  Foul cank\u2019ring rust the hidden treasure frets,\n  But gold that\u2019s put to use more gold begets.\u201d      768\n\n\u201cNay then,\u201d quoth Adon, \u201cyou will fall again\nInto your idle over-handled theme;\nThe kiss I gave you is bestow\u2019d in vain,\nAnd all in vain you strive against the stream;       772\n  For by this black-fac\u2019d night, desire\u2019s foul nurse,\n  Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.\n\n\u201cIf love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,\nAnd every tongue more moving than your own,          776\nBewitching like the wanton mermaid\u2019s songs,\nYet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;\n  For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,\n  And will not let a false sound enter there.        780\n\n\u201cLest the deceiving harmony should run\nInto the quiet closure of my breast,\nAnd then my little heart were quite undone,\nIn his bedchamber to be barr\u2019d of rest.              784\n  No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,\n  But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.\n\n\u201cWhat have you urg\u2019d that I cannot reprove?\nThe path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;        790\nI hate not love, but your device in love\nThat lends embracements unto every stranger.\n  You do it for increase: O strange excuse!\n  When reason is the bawd to lust\u2019s abuse.           792\n\n\u201cCall it not love, for love to heaven is fled,\nSince sweating lust on earth usurp\u2019d his name;\nUnder whose simple semblance he hath fed\nUpon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;           796\n  Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,\n  As caterpillars do the tender leaves.\n\n\u201cLove comforteth like sunshine after rain,\nBut lust\u2019s effect is tempest after sun;              800\nLove\u2019s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,\nLust\u2019s winter comes ere summer half be done.\n  Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies;\n  Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.       804\n\n\u201cMore I could tell, but more I dare not say;\nThe text is old, the orator too green.\nTherefore, in sadness, now I will away;\nMy face is full of shame, my heart of teen,          808\n  Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended\n  Do burn themselves for having so offended.\u201d\n\nWith this he breaketh from the sweet embrace         811\nOf those fair arms which bound him to her breast,\nAnd homeward through the dark laund runs apace;\nLeaves love upon her back deeply distress\u2019d.\n  Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,\n  So glides he in the night from Venus\u2019 eye.         816\n\nWhich after him she darts, as one on shore\nGazing upon a late embarked friend,\nTill the wild waves will have him seen no more,\nWhose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:        820\n  So did the merciless and pitchy night\n  Fold in the object that did feed her sight.\n\nWhereat amaz\u2019d, as one that unaware\nHath dropp\u2019d a precious jewel in the flood,          824\nOr \u2019stonish\u2019d as night-wanderers often are,\nTheir light blown out in some mistrustful wood;\n  Even so confounded in the dark she lay,\n  Having lost the fair discovery of her way.         828\n\nAnd now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,\nThat all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,\nMake verbal repetition of her moans;\nPassion on passion deeply is redoubled:              832\n  \u201cAy me!\u201d she cries, and twenty times, \u201cWoe, woe!\u201d\n  And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.\n\nShe marking them, begins a wailing note,\nAnd sings extemporally a woeful ditty;               836\nHow love makes young men thrall, and old men dote,\nHow love is wise in folly foolish witty:\n  Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,\n  And still the choir of echoes answer so.           840\n\nHer song was tedious, and outwore the night,\nFor lovers\u2019 hours are long, though seeming short,\nIf pleas\u2019d themselves, others they think, delight\nIn such like circumstance, with such like sport:     844\n  Their copious stories oftentimes begun,\n  End without audience, and are never done.\n\nFor who hath she to spend the night withal,\nBut idle sounds resembling parasites;                848\nLike shrill-tongu\u2019d tapsters answering every call,\nSoothing the humour of fantastic wits?\n  She says, \u201c\u2019Tis so:\u201d they answer all, \u201c\u2019Tis so;\u201d\n  And would say after her, if she said \u201cNo.\u201d         852\n\nLo here the gentle lark, weary of rest,\nFrom his moist cabinet mounts up on high,\nAnd wakes the morning, from whose silver breast\nThe sun ariseth in his majesty;                      856\n  Who doth the world so gloriously behold,\n  That cedar tops and hills seem burnish\u2019d gold.\n\nVenus salutes him with this fair good morrow:\n\u201cOh thou clear god, and patron of all light,         860\nFrom whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow\nThe beauteous influence that makes him bright,\n  There lives a son that suck\u2019d an earthly mother,\n  May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.\u201d\n\nThis said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,            865\nMusing the morning is so much o\u2019erworn,\nAnd yet she hears no tidings of her love;\nShe hearkens for his hounds and for his horn.        868\n  Anon she hears them chant it lustily,\n  And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.\n\nAnd as she runs, the bushes in the way\nSome catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,      872\nSome twine about her thigh to make her stay:\nShe wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,\n  Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,\n  Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.        876\n\nBy this she hears the hounds are at a bay,\nWhereat she starts like one that spies an adder\nWreath\u2019d up in fatal folds just in his way,\nThe fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;    880\n  Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds\n  Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.\n\nFor now she knows it is no gentle chase,\nBut the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,       884\nBecause the cry remaineth in one place,\nWhere fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud,\n  Finding their enemy to be so curst,\n  They all strain court\u2019sy who shall cope him first. 888\n\nThis dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,\nThrough which it enters to surprise her heart;\nWho overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,\nWith cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;     892\n  Like soldiers when their captain once doth yield,\n  They basely fly and dare not stay the field.\n\nThus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,\nTill cheering up her senses sore dismay\u2019d,           896\nShe tells them \u2019tis a causeless fantasy,\nAnd childish error, that they are afraid;\n  Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:\n  And with that word, she spied the hunted boar.     900\n\nWhose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,\nLike milk and blood being mingled both together,\nA second fear through all her sinews spread,\nWhich madly hurries her she knows not whither:       904\n  This way she runs, and now she will no further,\n  But back retires, to rate the boar for murther.\n\nA thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,\nShe treads the path that she untreads again;         908\nHer more than haste is mated with delays,\nLike the proceedings of a drunken brain,\n  Full of respects, yet naught at all respecting,\n  In hand with all things, naught at all effecting.\n\nHere kennel\u2019d in a brake she finds a hound,          913\nAnd asks the weary caitiff for his master,\nAnd there another licking of his wound,\n\u2019Gainst venom\u2019d sores the only sovereign plaster.    916\n  And here she meets another sadly scowling,\n  To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.\n\nWhen he hath ceas\u2019d his ill-resounding noise,\nAnother flap-mouth\u2019d mourner, black and grim,        920\nAgainst the welkin volleys out his voice;\nAnother and another answer him,\n  Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,\n  Shaking their scratch\u2019d ears, bleeding as they go.\n\nLook how the world\u2019s poor people are amazed          925\nAt apparitions, signs, and prodigies,\nWhereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,\nInfusing them with dreadful prophecies;              928\n  So she at these sad signs draws up her breath,\n  And sighing it again, exclaims on death.\n\n\u201cHard-favour\u2019d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,           931\nHateful divorce of love,\u201d thus chides she death,\n\u201cGrim-grinning ghost, earth\u2019s worm, what dost thou mean?\nTo stifle beauty and to steal his breath,\n  Who when he liv\u2019d, his breath and beauty set\n  Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.            936\n\n\u201cIf he be dead, O no, it cannot be,\nSeeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it,\nO yes, it may, thou hast no eyes to see,\nBut hatefully at random dost thou hit.               940\n  Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart\n  Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant\u2019s heart.\n\n\u201cHadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,\nAnd hearing him, thy power had lost his power.       944\nThe destinies will curse thee for this stroke;\nThey bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck\u2019st a flower.\n  Love\u2019s golden arrow at him should have fled,\n  And not death\u2019s ebon dart to strike him dead.      948\n\n\u201cDost thou drink tears, that thou provok\u2019st such weeping?\nWhat may a heavy groan advantage thee?\nWhy hast thou cast into eternal sleeping\nThose eyes that taught all other eyes to see?        952\n  Now nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,\n  Since her best work is ruin\u2019d with thy rigour.\u201d\n\nHere overcome, as one full of despair,\nShe vail\u2019d her eyelids, who like sluices stopp\u2019d     956\nThe crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair\nIn the sweet channel of her bosom dropp\u2019d\n  But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,\n  And with his strong course opens them again.       960\n\nO how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;\nHer eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;\nBoth crystals, where they view\u2019d each other\u2019s sorrow,\nSorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;      964\n  But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,\n  Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.\n\nVariable passions throng her constant woe,\nAs striving who should best become her grief;        968\nAll entertain\u2019d, each passion labours so,\nThat every present sorrow seemeth chief,\n  But none is best, then join they all together,\n  Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.      972\n\nBy this, far off she hears some huntsman holla;\nA nurse\u2019s song ne\u2019er pleas\u2019d her babe so well:\nThe dire imagination she did follow\nThis sound of hope doth labour to expel;             976\n  For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,\n  And flatters her it is Adonis\u2019 voice.\n\nWhereat her tears began to turn their tide,\nBeing prison\u2019d in her eye, like pearls in glass;     980\nYet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,\nWhich her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass\n  To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,\n  Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown\u2019d.\n\nO hard-believing love, how strange it seems          985\nNot to believe, and yet too credulous;\nThy weal and woe are both of them extremes;\nDespair and hope make thee ridiculous,               988\n  The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,\n  In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.\n\nNow she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,\nAdonis lives, and death is not to blame;             992\nIt was not she that call\u2019d him all to naught;\nNow she adds honours to his hateful name.\n  She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,\n  Imperious supreme of all mortal things.            996\n\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d quoth she, \u201csweet death, I did but jest;\nYet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear\nWhenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,\nWhich knows no pity, but is still severe;           1000\n  Then, gentle shadow,\u2014truth I must confess\u2014\n  I rail\u2019d on thee, fearing my love\u2019s decease.\n\n\u201c\u2019Tis not my fault, the boar provok\u2019d my tongue;\nBe wreak\u2019d on him, invisible commander;             1004\n\u2019Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;\nI did but act, he\u2019s author of my slander.\n  Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet,\n  Could rule them both, without ten women\u2019s wit.\u201d\n\nThus hoping that Adonis is alive,                   1009\nHer rash suspect she doth extenuate;\nAnd that his beauty may the better thrive,\nWith death she humbly doth insinuate;               1012\n  Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs and stories\n  His victories, his triumphs and his glories.\n\n\u201cO love!\u201d quoth she, \u201chow much a fool was I,\nTo be of such a weak and silly mind,                1016\nTo wail his death who lives, and must not die\nTill mutual overthrow of mortal kind;\n  For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,\n  And beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.         1020\n\n\u201cFie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear\nAs one with treasure laden, hemm\u2019d with thieves,\nTrifles unwitnessed with eye or ear,\nThy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.\u201d    1024\n  Even at this word she hears a merry horn,\n  Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.\n\nAs falcon to the lure, away she flies;\nThe grass stoops not, she treads on it so light,    1028\nAnd in her haste unfortunately spies\nThe foul boar\u2019s conquest on her fair delight;\n  Which seen, her eyes, as murder\u2019d with the view,\n  Like stars asham\u2019d of day, themselves withdrew.\n\nOr as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,      1033\nShrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,\nAnd there all smother\u2019d up, in shade doth sit,\nLong after fearing to creep forth again:            1036\n  So at his bloody view her eyes are fled\n  Into the deep dark cabins of her head.\n\nWhere they resign their office and their light\nTo the disposing of her troubled brain,             1040\nWho bids them still consort with ugly night,\nAnd never wound the heart with looks again;\n  Who like a king perplexed in his throne,\n  By their suggestion gives a deadly groan.         1044\n\nWhereat each tributary subject quakes,\nAs when the wind imprison\u2019d in the ground,\nStruggling for passage, earth\u2019s foundation shakes,\nWhich with cold terror doth men\u2019s minds confound.\n  This mutiny each part doth so surprise            1049\n  That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes.\n\nAnd being open\u2019d, threw unwilling light\nUpon the wide wound that the boar had trench\u2019d\nIn his soft flank, whose wonted lily white          1053\nWith purple tears that his wound wept, was drench\u2019d.\n  No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf or weed,\n  But stole his blood and seem\u2019d with him to bleed.\n\nThis solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,             1057\nOver one shoulder doth she hang her head,\nDumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;\nShe thinks he could not die, he is not dead:        1060\n  Her voice is stopp\u2019d, her joints forget to bow,\n  Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now.\n\nUpon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,\nThat her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;\nAnd then she reprehends her mangling eye,           1065\nThat makes more gashes, where no breach should be:\n  His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled,\n  For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.\n\n\u201cMy tongue cannot express my grief for one,         1069\nAnd yet,\u201d quoth she, \u201cbehold two Adons dead!\nMy sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,\nMine eyes are turn\u2019d to fire, my heart to lead:     1072\n  Heavy heart\u2019s lead, melt at mine eyes\u2019 red fire!\n  So shall I die by drops of hot desire.\n\n\u201cAlas poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!\nWhat face remains alive that\u2019s worth the viewing?\nWhose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast\nOf things long since, or anything ensuing?          1078\n  The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim,\n  But true sweet beauty liv\u2019d and died with him.\n\n\u201cBonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!       1081\nNor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:\nHaving no fair to lose, you need not fear;\nThe sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you.\n  But when Adonis liv\u2019d, sun and sharp air          1085\n  Lurk\u2019d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair.\n\n\u201cAnd therefore would he put his bonnet on,\nUnder whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;          1088\nThe wind would blow it off, and being gone,\nPlay with his locks; then would Adonis weep;\n  And straight, in pity of his tender years,\n  They both would strive who first should dry his tears.\n\n\u201cTo see his face the lion walk\u2019d along              1093\nBehind some hedge, because he would not fear him;\nTo recreate himself when he hath sung,\nThe tiger would be tame and gently hear him.        1096\n  If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,\n  And never fright the silly lamb that day.\n\n\u201cWhen he beheld his shadow in the brook,\nThe fishes spread on it their golden gills;         1100\nWhen he was by, the birds such pleasure took,\nThat some would sing, some other in their bills\n  Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries,\n  He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.\n\n\u201cBut this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,      1105\nWhose downward eye still looketh for a grave,\nNe\u2019er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;\nWitness the entertainment that he gave.             1108\n  If he did see his face, why then I know\n  He thought to kiss him, and hath kill\u2019d him so.\n\n\u201c\u2019Tis true, \u2019tis true; thus was Adonis slain:\nHe ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,          1112\nWho did not whet his teeth at him again,\nBut by a kiss thought to persuade him there;\n  And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine\n  Sheath\u2019d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.      1116\n\n\u201cHad I been tooth\u2019d like him, I must confess,\nWith kissing him I should have kill\u2019d him first;\nBut he is dead, and never did he bless\nMy youth with his; the more am I accurst.\u201d          1120\n  With this she falleth in the place she stood,\n  And stains her face with his congealed blood.\n\nShe looks upon his lips, and they are pale;\nShe takes him by the hand, and that is cold,        1124\nShe whispers in his ears a heavy tale,\nAs if they heard the woeful words she told;\nShe lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,\nWhere lo, two lamps burnt out in darkness lies.\n\nTwo glasses where herself herself beheld            1129\nA thousand times, and now no more reflect;\nTheir virtue lost, wherein they late excell\u2019d,\nAnd every beauty robb\u2019d of his effect.              1132\n  \u201cWonder of time,\u201d quoth she, \u201cthis is my spite,\n  That thou being dead, the day should yet be light.\n\n\u201cSince thou art dead, lo here I prophesy,\nSorrow on love hereafter shall attend:              1136\nIt shall be waited on with jealousy,\nFind sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;\n  Ne\u2019er settled equally, but high or low,\n  That all love\u2019s pleasure shall not match his woe.\n\n\u201cIt shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,       1141\nBud, and be blasted in a breathing while;\nThe bottom poison, and the top o\u2019erstraw\u2019d\nWith sweets that shall the truest sight beguile.    1144\n  The strongest body shall it make most weak,\n  Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.\n\n\u201cIt shall be sparing, and too full of riot,\nTeaching decrepit age to tread the measures;        1148\nThe staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,\nPluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;\n  It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,\n  Make the young old, the old become a child.       1152\n\n\u201cIt shall suspect where is no cause of fear,\nIt shall not fear where it should most mistrust;\nIt shall be merciful, and too severe,\nAnd most deceiving when it seems most just;         1156\n  Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,\n  Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.\n\n\u201cIt shall be cause of war and dire events,\nAnd set dissension \u2019twixt the son and sire;         1160\nSubject and servile to all discontents,\nAs dry combustious matter is to fire,\n  Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,\n  They that love best their love shall not enjoy.\u201d  1164\n\nBy this the boy that by her side lay kill\u2019d\nWas melted like a vapour from her sight,\nAnd in his blood that on the ground lay spill\u2019d,\nA purple flower sprung up, chequer\u2019d with white,    1168\n  Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood\n  Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.\n\nShe bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,\nComparing it to her Adonis\u2019 breath;                 1172\nAnd says within her bosom it shall dwell,\nSince he himself is reft from her by death;\n  She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears\n  Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.\n\n\u201cPoor flower,\u201d quoth she, \u201cthis was thy father\u2019s guise,\nSweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,\nFor every little grief to wet his eyes,\nTo grow unto himself was his desire,                1180\n  And so \u2019tis thine; but know, it is as good\n  To wither in my breast as in his blood.\n\n\u201cHere was thy father\u2019s bed, here in my breast;\nThou art the next of blood, and \u2019tis thy right:     1184\nLo in this hollow cradle take thy rest,\nMy throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:\n  There shall not be one minute in an hour\n  Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love\u2019s flower.\u201d\n\nThus weary of the world, away she hies,             1189\nAnd yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid\nTheir mistress mounted through the empty skies,\nIn her light chariot quickly is convey\u2019d;           1192\n  Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen\n  Means to immure herself and not be seen.\n\n\n  FINIS","title":"Venus and Adonis","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":10193}