Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare
"Venus and Adonis" is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare, composed in 1593, which explores themes of beauty, love, and mortality through the lens of classical mythology. The story centers on Venus, the goddess of love, who becomes infatuated with the strikingly handsome young Adonis, who is indifferent to love and prefers hunting to romantic pursuits. Despite Venus's earnest attempts to woo him, Adonis remains resistant, focusing instead on his passion for hunting.
The narrative takes a tragic turn when Adonis disregards Venus's warning about a dangerous boar while hunting, leading to his untimely death. This event plunges Venus into profound grief, illustrating the interplay of love and loss. The poem also reflects on the nature of desire and the inevitability of sorrow that often accompanies love. Through its vivid imagery and emotional depth, "Venus and Adonis" holds a significant place in Shakespeare's body of work and offers insight into the complexities of human relationships, making it a poignant exploration of desire and its consequences.
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Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare
First published: 1593
Type of work: Poetry
Type of plot: Erotic
Time of plot: Antiquity
Locale: Greece
Principal characters
Venus , goddess of loveAdonis , a handsome youth loved by Venus
The Poem:
In all the world there is no more beautiful figure, no more perfectly made creature, than young Adonis. Although his beauty is a delight to the sun and to the winds, he has no interest in love. His only joy is in hunting and riding over the hills and fields after the deer and the fox. When Venus, the goddess of love, sees the beauty of young Adonis, she comes down to Earth because she is filled with love for him.
Meeting him one morning in the fields as he rides out to the hunt, she urges him to dismount, tie his horse to a tree, and talk with her. Adonis has no desire to talk to any woman, even the goddess, but she forces him to do as she wishes. Reclining by his side, she looks at him with caressing glances and talks passionately of the wonder and glory of love. The more she talks, the more she begs him for a kind look, a kiss, the more anxious he becomes to leave her and go on with his hunting. Venus is not easily repulsed, however; she tells him how even the god of war was a willing prisoner of her charms. She numbers all the pleasures she can offer him if he will accept her love. Blushing, Adonis finally breaks from her arms and goes to get his horse.
At that moment, his stallion hears the call of a jennet in a field nearby. Aroused, he breaks the leather thong that holds him and gallops to her. At first the jennet pretends to be cold to the stallion’s advances, but when she perceives that Adonis is about to overtake his mount, she gives a neigh of affection and the two horses gallop away to another field. Adonis is left behind.
Dejected, he stands thinking of the hunt that he is missing because his horse ran away. Venus comes up to him again and continues her pleas of love. For a while he listens to her, but in disgust he turns finally and gives her such a look of scorn that the lovesick goddess faints and falls to the ground. Thinking he killed her with his unkind look, Adonis kneels beside her, rubs her wrists, and kisses her in hope of forgiveness. Venus, recovering from her swoon, asks him for one last kiss. He grudgingly consents before turning to leave. When Venus asks when they can meet the next day. Adonis replies that he will not see her, for he is to go boar hunting. Struck with a vision, the goddess warns the youth that he will be killed by a boar if he hunts the next day, and she begs him to meet her instead. She throws herself on the boy and carries him to the Earth in her arms in a last attempt to gain his love, Adonis admonishes the goddess on the difference between heavenly love and earthly lust. He leaves her alone and weeping.
The next morning finds Venus wandering through the woods in search of Adonis. In the distance, she can hear the noise of the dogs and the voices of the hunters. Frantic because of her vision of the dead Adonis, she rushes through the forest trying to follow the sounds of the hunt. When she sees a wounded and bleeding dog, the fear she feels for Adonis becomes almost overpowering. Suddenly she comes upon Adonis lying dead, killed by the fierce wild boar he hunted. Venus’s grief knows no bounds. If this love is taken from her, then never again should man love happily. Where love is, there also will mistrust, fear, and grief be found.
The body of Adonis lies white and cold on the ground, his blood coloring the soil and plants about him. From this soil grows a flower, white and purple like the blood that spots his skin. With a broken heart, Venus leaves Earth to hide her sorrow in the dwelling place of the gods.
Bibliography
Beauregard, David N. “Venus and Adonis.” Shakespeare Studies 8. Edited by J. Leeds Barroll. New York: Burt Franklin, 1975. Considers critical studies of the story that range from classical interpretations of the original myth to twentieth century analyses of Shakespeare’s poem.
Bullough, Geoffrey, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966. Part of a six-volume series of critical essays on the sources of Shakespeare’s works. Included in the discussion of Venus and Adonis is a 1575 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Arthur Golding.
Cheney, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Includes essays discussing Shakespeare and the development of English poetry; rhetoric, style, and form in his verse; the poetry in his plays; and his poetry as viewed from a twenty-first century perspective. “Venus and Adonis” by Coppélia Kahn analyzes this poem.
Cousins, A. D. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Narrative Poems. New York: Longman, 2000. Chapter 1 focuses on Venus and Adonis, including discussions of the poem’s narrator, Venus and metamorphosis, and Adonis the rhetorician.
Hyland, Peter. An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Poems. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Discusses the sources of Shakespeare’s poetry. Analyzes Venus and Adonis and other nondramatic verse. Places Shakespeare’s poetry within the context of the politics, values, and tastes of Elizabethan England, arguing that he was a skeptical voice during this socially turbulent era.
Jahn, J. D. The Lamb of Lust: The Role of Adonis in Shakespeare’s“Venus and Adonis.” Shakespeare Studies 6. Edited by J. Leeds Barroll. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1970. An intense study of the personality of Adonis that Shakespeare creates in his poem.
Mortimer, Anthony Robert. Variable Passions: A Reading of Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis.” New York: AMS Press, 2000. Detailed analysis of the poem, examining its shifts in tone, means of continuity, and inversion of gender roles. Places the poem within the context of its Ovidian source and within the continental tradition of poems about Venus and Adonis.
Muir, Kenneth. “Venus and Adonis: Comedy or Tragedy?” In Shakespearean Essays, vol. 2. Edited by Alwin Thaler and Norman Sanders. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974. Considers how the myth of Venus and Adonis has been interpreted by various authors and how Shakespeare’s audience might have interpreted the poem.
Prince, Frank Templeton. Introduction to The Poems, by William Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 1990. Provides more than forty pages of introductory material in which Prince discusses the text and provides critical interpretations of the works. Includes appendixes with information about the sources of Shakespeare’s poems, with particular emphasis on Venus and Adonis.