Part 3

Lines 337–504

337 He sees her coming, and begins to glow,—
338 Even as a dying coal revives with wind,—
339 And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;
340 Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,
341 Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
342 For all askance he holds her in his eye.
343 O! what a sight it was, wistly to view
344 How she came stealing to the wayward boy;
345 To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
346 How white and red each other did destroy:
347 But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
348 It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
349 Now was she just before him as he sat,
350 And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
351 With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
352 Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
353 His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,
354 As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint.
355 O! what a war of looks was then between them;
356 Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing;
357 His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;
358 Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing:
359 And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
360 With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.
361 Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
362 A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
363 Or ivory in an alabaster band;
364 So white a friend engirts so white a foe:
365 This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
366 Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
367 Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
368 'O fairest mover on this mortal round,
369 Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
370 My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;
371 For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
372 Though nothing but my body's bane would cure thee.'
373 'Give me my hand,' saith he, 'why dost thou feel it?'
374 'Give me my heart,' saith she, 'and thou shalt have it;
375 O! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,
376 And being steel'd, soft sighs can never grave it:
377 Then love's deep groans I never shall regard,
378 Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.'
379 'For shame,' he cries, 'let go, and let me go;
380 My day's delight is past, my horse is gone,
381 And 'tis your fault I am bereft him so:
382 I pray you hence, and leave me here alone:
383 For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
384 Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.'
385 Thus she replies: 'Thy palfrey, as he should,
386 Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:
387 Affection is a coal that must be cool'd;
388 Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire:
389 The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
390 Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.
391 'How like a Jade he stood, tied to the tree,
392 Servilely master'd with a leathern rein!
393 But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,
394 He held such petty bondage in disdain;
395 Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
396 Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
397 'Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
398 Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
399 But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
400 His other agents aim at like delight?
401 Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold
402 To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
403 'Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;
404 And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
405 To take advantage on presented joy
406 Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
407 O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
408 And once made perfect, never lost again.
409 'I know not love,' quoth he, 'nor will not know it,
410 Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;
411 'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;
412 My love to love is love but to disgrace it;
413 For I have heard it is a life in death,
414 That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.
415 'Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish'd?
416 Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?
417 If springing things be any jot diminish'd,
418 They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;
419 The colt that's back'd and burden'd being young
420 Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
421 'You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,
422 And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:
423 Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;
424 To love's alarms it will not ope the gate:
425 Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;
426 For where a heart is hard they make no battery.'
427 'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue?
428 O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;
429 Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong;
430 I had my load before, now press'd with bearing:
431 Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,
432 Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding.
433 'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love
434 That inward beauty and invisible;
435 Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
436 Each part in me that were but sensible:
437 Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
438 Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
439 'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
440 And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,
441 And nothing but the very smell were left me,
442 Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
443 For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
444 Comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling.
445 'But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste,
446 Being nurse and feeder of the other four;
447 Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
448 And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,
449 Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
450 Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?'
451 Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd,
452 Which to his speech did honey passage yield,
453 Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
454 Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
455 Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
456 Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
457 This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
458 Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth,
459 Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
460 Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,
461 Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
462 His meaning struck her ere his words begun.
463 And at his look she flatly falleth down
464 For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;
465 A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
466 But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!
467 The silly boy, believing she is dead
468 Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;
469 And all amaz'd brake off his late intent,
470 For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
471 Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
472 Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
473 For on the grass she lies as she were slain
474 Till his breath breatheth life in her again.
475 He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
476 He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,
477 He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
478 To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr'd:
479 He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
480 Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.
481 The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:
482 Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
483 Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array
484 He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:
485 And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
486 So is her face illumin'd with her eye;
487 Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix'd,
488 As if from thence they borrow'd all their shine.
489 Were never four such lamps together mix'd,
490 Had not his clouded with his brow's repine;
491 But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light
492 Shone like the moon in water seen by night.
493 'O! where am I?' quoth she, 'in earth or heaven,
494 Or in the ocean drench'd, or in the fire?
495 What hour is this? or morn or weary even?
496 Do I delight to die, or life desire?
497 But now I liv'd, and life was death's annoy;
498 But now I died, and death was lively joy.
499 'O! thou didst kill me; kill me once again:
500 Thy eyes' shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,
501 Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,
502 That they have murder'd this poor heart of mine;
503 And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
504 But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.

Notes

TLN 337rhetorical device
“He sees her coming, and begins to glow,— Even as a dying coal revives with wind”
The narrator compares Adonis's flush of anger or embarrassment to an almost-extinguished coal that blazes up when the wind hits it. The simile makes his emotional warmth involuntary — something kindled from outside against his will. It also sets up a running fire-and-coal conceit: Venus later uses the identical image for uncontrolled desire (line 387, 'Affection is a coal that must be cool'd').
TLN 342archaic vocab
“all askance he holds her in his eye”
'Askance' means sideways or from the corner of the eye — he is watching her obliquely, pretending not to look. The line captures his ambivalence: he refuses to acknowledge her openly but cannot stop watching. This sidelong gaze is the opposite of the direct reciprocity Venus wants.
TLN 353archaic vocab
“His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print, As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint”
'Dint' means dent or impression. Fresh snow yields to any pressure and holds the mark; the simile says his cheek is so soft and yielding that Venus's touch leaves a visible impression. The parallel between snow's passive softness and Adonis's physical pliability contrasts with his emotional resistance throughout the scene.
TLN 359rhetorical device
“all this dumb play had his acts made plain With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain”
The narrator compares the silent exchange of looks between Venus and Adonis to a 'dumb play' — a mimed or pantomimed drama, the Elizabethan term for a dumb-show — and says Venus's tears serve as a 'chorus,' the figure who explains the action to the audience. The conceit frames their wordless conflict as a theatrical performance, with Venus's weeping as the narrator who translates gesture into meaning.
TLN 367archaic vocab
“Once more the engine of her thoughts began”
'Engine' here means a mechanical device for applying force — specifically a siege engine, such as a battering-ram or catapult. Venus's eloquence is imagined as a weapon hammering at Adonis's resistance; the word anticipates the military siege metaphor Adonis himself uses at line 423 ('Remove your siege from my unyielding heart'). In Elizabethan English 'engine' broadly meant any contrivance or instrument of power, including the tongue.
TLN 387rhetorical device
“Affection is a coal that must be cool'd; Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire: The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none”
Venus strings together two compressed maxims (sententiae): that desire is a coal which will consume you if not controlled, and that the sea has shores but desire has none. The argument is that the horse was right to follow nature, because trying to suppress desire only makes it fiercer. 'Suffer'd' means allowed to persist unchecked. The maxim-style is deliberate — Venus casts sexual appetite as natural philosophy, not moral failure.
classical Venus and Adonis
TLN 391archaic vocab
“How like a Jade he stood, tied to the tree, Servilely master'd with a leathern rein”
A 'jade' is a worn-out, broken-down horse — the opposite of Adonis's spirited stallion. Venus is saying that before the mare appeared, the courser stood there as passive and dulled as a plodding nag, merely enduring the rein instead of living. The word carries contempt: a jade is a horse whose spirit has been suppressed by servitude.
TLN 395archaic vocab
“Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast”
A horse's 'crest' is the top of its neck, where the mane grows; 'bending' describes how it arches proudly. The stallion shakes the bridle ('base thong') off his neck, freeing — 'enfranchising' (a legal word for releasing from bondage) — his mouth from the bit, his back from the saddle-weight, and his chest from the girth. Venus presents the horse's escape from tack as a model of freedom that Adonis should imitate.
TLN 409classical allusion
“'I know not love,' quoth he, 'nor will not know it, Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it”
Adonis dismisses love entirely but says he would 'know' a boar — and chase it. For a reader who knows Ovid's story, the line is deeply ironic: Adonis's preference for hunting a boar over pursuing love is exactly the choice that kills him. He will chase a wild boar, it will gore him to death, and his blood will become a flower — the Ovidian ending this poem is moving toward.
classical Venus and Adonisclassical Ovid's Metamorphoses
TLN 423rhetorical device
“Remove your siege from my unyielding heart: To love's alarms it will not ope the gate”
Adonis uses a sustained military metaphor: his heart is a fortified town under siege, Venus is the besieging army, her vows and tears are weapons ('alarms' = calls to attack), and he tells her to give up the assault because no 'battery' (cannon fire) will breach his walls. The extended metaphor frames his refusal as military honour rather than mere coldness.
TLN 429classical allusion
“Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; I had my load before, now press'd with bearing”
Venus calls Adonis's voice a 'mermaid's voice' — the deadly sweet singing of the Sirens, who in classical myth lured sailors to their deaths with irresistible song. She means the paradox that his speaking is a second wound: before he spoke she was already in pain from his cold looks; his beautiful voice has now made it worse. 'Mermaid' in Elizabethan English was used interchangeably with 'siren.'
TLN 443archaic vocab
“For from the stillitory of thy face excelling Comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling”
A 'stillitory' (also spelled 'stillatorie') is a distillery — an apparatus used in alchemy and medicine to extract essences and perfumes from flowers or herbs by distillation. Venus says Adonis's face is like a distillery from which his very breath emerges as a concentrated perfume, and that this perfumed breath is enough to breed love through the sense of smell alone. The image belongs to the poem's argument that all five senses lead to love.
TLN 451rhetorical device
“Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd, Which to his speech did honey passage yield, Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd Wrack to the seaman”
'The ruby-colour'd portal' is a periphrasis — an elaborate descriptive phrase — for Adonis's lips. But the narrator immediately undercuts the beauty: the red mouth is like a red morning sky, which sailors read as a warning of storm ('Wrack' = shipwreck or destruction). The simile converts a conventional blazon of physical beauty into a bad omen, foreshadowing that what Adonis is about to say will cause Venus harm.
TLN 465archaic vocab
“A smile recures the wounding of a frown”
'Recures' means heals or cures again — it is the verb 'recure' (to restore to health), now obsolete. The line means that a smile is enough to heal the hurt that a frown inflicted. The idea captures the extreme vulnerability Venus feels to Adonis's changes of expression.
TLN 496rhetorical device
“Do I delight to die, or life desire? But now I liv'd, and life was death's annoy; But now I died, and death was lively joy”
Venus uses tight antithesis — opposites placed side by side — to describe her swoon and revival: being alive was painful ('death's annoy'), and fainting (a little death) was joyful. 'Annoy' means injury or torment, not mere irritation. The paradox also plays on the Petrarchan convention of the 'little death' (Italian: la petite morte) — the idea that intense passion, including the faint, temporarily suspends the self.