Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind;
Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.
Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume,
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.
His testy master goeth about to take him,
When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.
All swoln with chafing3, down Adonis sits,
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:
And now the happy season once more fits,
That love-sick love by pleading may be blest;
For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong,
When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue.
An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:
So of concealed sorrow may be said,
Free vent of words love's-fire doth assuage;
But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,
8 All swoln with CHAFING,] Modern editors misprint "chafing" chasing: "chafing" is the word in the editions of 1593, 1594, and 1596: the edition of 1600 first substituted chasing, by an error of the press, and Malone of course adopted it in his " Supplement," 1780, printed from that edition: it is chasing also in Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, xx. p. 29. The next line seems to show that "chafing " is the true word. Banning," there also used, is of course cursing. See Vol. iii. p. 724; Vol. iv. pp. 42. 67; and Vol. v. p. 258.
Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askaunce he holds her in his eye.
Oh! what a sight it was, wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy;
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy:
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels ;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,
As apt as new-fall'n snow takes
Oh, what a war of looks was then between them!
Her eyes, petitioners, to his eyes suing;
His
eyes saw her
eyes as they had not seen them;
Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing:
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain'.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prison'd in a jail of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirts so white a foe:
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Show'd like two silver doves that sit a billing.
Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
Oh fairest mover on this mortal round,
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;
For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
Though nothing but my body's bane would cure thee.
9 With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.] In this couplet we have an obvious allusion to the dumb shows, and accompanying choruses, of our older stage, and hence Malone would hastily infer, that "Venus and Adonis" was written after Shakespeare came to London : anterior to his sojourn in the metro. polis he must have seen such pieces performed, even in his native town; or if not, it is easy to suppose that the couplet was inserted subsequently. Shakespeare did not print his poem in 1593 without some additions and alterations.
Give me my hand, saith he, why dost thou feel it?
Give me my heart, saith she, and thou shalt have it;
Oh! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,
And being steel'd, soft sighs can never grave it :
Then, love's deep groans I never shall regard,
Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.
For shame! he cries, let go, and let me go;
My day's delight is past, my horse is gone,
And 'tis your fault I am bereft him so :
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone;
For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.
Thus she replies: thy palfrey, as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:
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;
Therefore, no marvel though thy horse be gone.
How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree,
Servilely master'd with a leathern rein;
But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain;
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?
Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
To take advantage on presented joy ;
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee:
Oh! learn to love: the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again.
I know not love, quoth he, nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;
"Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it; My love to love is love but to disgrace it; For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs, and weeps, and all but with a breath.
Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish'd?
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?
If springing things be any jot diminish'd,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth:
The colt that's back'd and burden'd, being young,
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
You hurt my hand with wringing; let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;
To love's alarms it will not ope the gate:
Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery,
For where a heart is hard, they make no battery.
What! canst thou talk? (quoth she,) hast thou a tongue?
Oh, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing!
Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong!
I had my load before, now press'd with bearing:
Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh-sounding,
Ear's deep sweet music, and heart's deep sore wounding.
Had I no eyes, but ears, my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or, were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible:
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear or see,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfum'd, that breedeth love by smelling.
1 To love's ALARMS] "Alarms," and not alarm, is the reading of every old edition anterior to that of 1600: but Malone and other modern editors have preferred a corruption to the author's original text, although he maintained (and upon this point we entirely agree with him) that "all the changes in the copy of 1600 were made without any authority."
But oh! what banquet wert thou to the taste,
Being nurse and feeder of the other four:
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid suspicion double lock the door,
Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?
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
Wreck to the sea-man, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
This ill presage advisedly she marketh :
Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth;
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth;
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
His meaning struck her ere his words begun.
And at his look she flatly falleth down,
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth:
A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
But blessed bankrupt that by love so thriveth!
The silly boy, believing she is dead,
Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;
And all amaz'd brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
For on the grass she lies, as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again.
He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr'd:
He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.
' GUSTS and foul FLAWS] A "gust" and a "flaw" seem to have been nearly synonymous. See Vol. iv. pp. 55. 708, and Vol. v. p. 426.
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