Part 2

Lines 169–336

169 'Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed,
170 Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?
171 By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
172 That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;
173 And so in spite of death thou dost survive,
174 In that thy likeness still is left alive.'
175 By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,
176 For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,
177 And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat
178 With burning eye did hotly overlook them,
179 Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,
180 So he were like him and by Venus' side.
181 And now Adonis with a lazy spright,
182 And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,
183 His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight,
184 Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,
185 Souring his cheeks, cries, 'Fie! no more of love:
186 The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.'
187 'Ay me,' quoth Venus, 'young, and so unkind!
188 What bare excuses mak'st thou to be gone!
189 I'll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
190 Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:
191 I'll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;
192 If they burn too, I'll quench them with my tears.
193 'The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,
194 And lo! I lie between that sun and thee:
195 The heat I have from thence doth little harm,
196 Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;
197 And were I not immortal, life were done
198 Between this heavenly and earthly sun.
199 'Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?
200 Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:
201 Art thou a woman's son, and canst not feel
202 What 'tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?
203 O! had thy mother borne so hard a mind,
204 She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.
205 'What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?
206 Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?
207 What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?
208 Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:
209 Give me one kiss, I'll give it thee again,
210 And one for interest if thou wilt have twain.
211 'Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
212 Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,
213 Statue contenting but the eye alone,
214 Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:
215 Thou art no man, though of a man's complexion,
216 For men will kiss even by their own direction.'
217 This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,
218 And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;
219 Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;
220 Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause:
221 And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,
222 And now her sobs do her intendments break.
223 Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand;
224 Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;
225 Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:
226 She would, he will not in her arms be bound;
227 And when from thence he struggles to be gone,
228 She locks her lily fingers one in one.
229 'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here
230 Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
231 I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
232 Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
233 Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
234 Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.
235 'Within this limit is relief enough,
236 Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,
237 Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
238 To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:
239 Then be my deer, since I am such a park;
240 No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.'
241 At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
242 That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple:
243 Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
244 He might be buried in a tomb so simple;
245 Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
246 Why, there Love liv'd, and there he could not die.
247 These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,
248 Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking.
249 Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
250 Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?
251 Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,
252 To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!
253 Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?
254 Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;
255 The time is spent, her object will away,
256 And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:
257 'Pity,' she cries; 'some favour, some remorse!'
258 Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.
259 But lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
260 A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
261 Adonis' tramping courier doth espy,
262 And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:
263 The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
264 Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.
265 Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
266 And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
267 The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
268 Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;
269 The iron bit he crusheth 'tween his teeth,
270 Controlling what he was controlled with.
271 His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane
272 Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;
273 His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
274 As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
275 His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
276 Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
277 Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
278 With gentle majesty and modest pride;
279 Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
280 As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;
281 And this I do to captivate the eye
282 Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'
283 What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
284 His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'?
285 What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?
286 For rich caparisons or trapping gay?
287 He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
288 Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.
289 Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
290 In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
291 His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
292 As if the dead the living should exceed;
293 So did this horse excel a common one,
294 In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.
295 Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
296 Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
297 High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
298 Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
299 Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
300 Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
301 Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
302 Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
303 To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
304 And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether;
305 For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
306 Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.
307 He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
308 She answers him as if she knew his mind;
309 Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
310 She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
311 Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
312 Beating his kind embracements with her heels.
313 Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
314 He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume,
315 Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
316 He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
317 His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
318 Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.
319 His testy master goeth about to take him;
320 When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
321 Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
322 With her the horse, and left Adonis there:
323 As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
324 Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.
325 All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,
326 Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:
327 And now the happy season once more fits,
328 That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;
329 For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong
330 When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue.
331 An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd,
332 Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:
333 So of concealed sorrow may be said;
334 Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;
335 But when the heart's attorney once is mute
336 The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.

Notes

TLN 171rhetorical device
“law of nature thou art bound to breed”
Venus delivers the procreation argument: nature's law obliges every living creature to reproduce so that it survives in its offspring after death. The same logic drives Shakespeare's first seventeen sonnets, urging the Fair Youth to marry and have children.
classical Venus and Adonis
TLN 177classical allusion
“Titan, tired in the mid-day heat”
Titan is a poetic name for the sun-god (Helios or Phoebus Apollo). Here the narrator imagines the sun growing weary and jealous, wishing he could swap places with Adonis to lie beside Venus.
TLN 181archaic vocab
“lazy spright, And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye”
'Spright' is an Elizabethan spelling of 'spirit,' here meaning Adonis's mood or disposition — his listless, unwilling state of mind. The narrator piles up words for his sulky reluctance: lazy, heavy, dark, disliking.
TLN 187archaic vocab
“young, and so unkind”
'Unkind' in Elizabethan English means both 'unkindly' (cruel, lacking in feeling) and 'unnatural' — acting against one's own kind or nature. Venus puns on both senses: Adonis is cruel to her and also acting against human (and divine) nature by refusing love.
TLN 199archaic vocab
“obdurate, flinty, hard as steel”
'Obdurate' means stubbornly hardened against feeling — refusing to be moved or softened. Venus then escalates: Adonis is harder than flint, because even flint softens at rain ('relenteth'), yet he does not. The comparison also picks up the running fire-and-rain imagery: flint makes sparks when struck, but yields to water.
TLN 211rhetorical device
“lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone, Well-painted idol, image dull and dead”
In frustration Venus piles up art-objects — picture, stone, idol, statue, image — to accuse Adonis of being beautiful but inert, like an artwork. The stanza is a mini-blazon-in-reverse: instead of praising each feature, she lists what he is NOT doing with them. 'Idol' specifically implies worship without life.
TLN 243rhetorical device
“Love made those hollows, if himself were slain, He might be buried in a tomb so simple”
The narrator imagines that Adonis's dimples were made by Cupid himself, and that they would be the perfect tomb for the god of love — except that Cupid could never die there, because where love rests it cannot perish. The conceit is a paradox: love's grave is the very place love cannot die.
classical Cupid's golden and leaden arrows
TLN 260archaic vocab
“A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud”
A jennet (also 'genet') is a small Spanish horse, particularly a mare. 'Breeding' here means she is in heat and ready to mate; 'lusty' means vigorous or full of desire. The arrival of this mare triggers a digression in which Adonis's stallion breaks free to pursue her — a parallel to Adonis himself being pursued by Venus.
TLN 265rhetorical device
“Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds”
The description of Adonis's stallion breaking free is a classical ecphrasis — an elaborate, rhetorically formal description of an object or creature. The horse is depicted as if it were a work of art surpassing any painter's skill (lines 289-294), with each physical feature catalogued in turn. This was a set-piece form derived from Greek and Latin poetry.
TLN 303historical topical
“To bid the wind a base he now prepares”
'Bid the wind a base' means to challenge the wind to a race. 'Base' (or 'prisoner's base') was a popular Elizabethan children's and young men's game in which one side challenges the other by running from their 'base' (home station). To 'bid base' meant to dare your opponent to catch you.
TLN 325archaic vocab
“All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits, Banning his boisterous and unruly beast”
'Banning' means cursing. Adonis, swollen with anger ('chafing'), sits down and curses his unruly horse. 'Chafing' means heated irritation — being rubbed raw with frustration.
TLN 335rhetorical device
“when the heart's attorney once is mute The client breaks”
The narrator uses a legal metaphor: the tongue is the 'attorney' (lawyer) pleading the case of the heart (the client). When the tongue is silenced, the client — the heart — 'breaks,' meaning either collapses or goes bankrupt (a legal sense of 'break'). The conceit implies that suppressed love becomes more, not less, intense, like a stopped oven or a dammed river.