Believed to be Shakespeare's first work, the narrative poem, Venus and Adonis was also one of his most popular works of the time. He wrote it in 1593 during the the plague in London. Ironically, I read it in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shakespeare modeled his poem after a portion of the epic poem, Metamorphoses by Ovid. Though, Shakespeare puts his own twist on it and instead of Venus and Adonis being lovers as Ovid depicts, Shakespeare has Venus (Goddess of love and sexual desire) relentlessly pursue Adonis (good-looking human) who disses her - What? Who disses a Goddess?
Venus pins down Adonis and tries to kiss him:
"But when her lips were ready for his pay,
He winks and turns his lips another way."
Venus exclaims that all men, even Gods desire her and cannot understand why Adonis wants nothing to do with her:
"Were I hard-favoured, foul or winkled-old,
Ill-nurtured, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,
O'erworn, despised, rheumatic and cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean and lacking juice,
Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee,
But having no defects, why dost abhor me?"
And she tries to convince him that they are meant to "get it on", come on baby, its nature, its procreation:
"Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,
Herbs for their smell and sappy plants to bear,
Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:
Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty.
Thou was begot: to get it is thy duty.
***
By law of nature though art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead:
And so, in spite of death, thou dost survive,
In that thy likeness still is left alive."
To which Adonis responds:
"Fie, no more of love!
The sun doth burn my face. I must remove."
Venus berates him:
"Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,...
Thou art no man, though of a man's complexion,
For men will kiss even by their own direction."
Adonis cannot be swayed, and then Venus swoons and faints and Adonis, thinking he may have killed her, tries to revive her:
"He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
He bends her fingers, hold her pulses hard,
He chafes her lips: a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marred.
He kisses her and she, by her good will,
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still."
And she comes to! Adonis tells her its getting late and he must go, and she begs him for one last kiss, which when he does she jumps him. He tries to break away telling her he will not see her again because he is going boar hunting with his buddies tomorrow and she is confusing love with lust.
"Fie, fie!...You crush me! Let me go!
You have no reason to withhold me so.
***
Call it not love, for love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating lust on earth usurped his name,...
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun:
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done:
Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies:
Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies."
Adonis does go boar hunting, and is gored to death by the boar, where Venus finds him and his distraught and yells out to Death:
"Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm..."
and puts a curse on Love:
"Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning but unsavoury end,
Ne'er settled equally, but high or low,
That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.
It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,
Bud and be blasted in a breathing while,
The bottom poison and the top o'erstrawed
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak."
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