Venus and Adonis: A narrative poem by William Shakespeare

Venus and Adonis is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare published in 1593. It is probably Shakespeares first publication.The poem tells the story of Venus the goddess of Love of her unrequited love and of her attempted seduction of Adonis an extremely handsome young man who would rather go hunting. The poem is pastoral and at times erotic comic and tragic. It contains discourses on the nature of love and observations of nature.It is written in stanzas of six lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ABABCC although this verse form was known before Shakespeares use it is now commonly known as the Venus and Adonis stanza after this poem. This form was also used by Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge. The poem consists of 199 stanzas or 1194 lines.It was published originally as a quarto pamphlet and published with great care. It was probably printed using Shakespeares fair copy. The printer was Richard Field who like Shakespeare was from Stratford. Venus and Adonis appeared in print before any of Shakespeares plays were published but not before some of his plays had been acted on stage. It has certain qualities in common with A Midsummer Nights Dream Romeo and Juliet and Loves Labours Lost. It was written when the London theatres were closed for a time due to the plague.The poem begins with a brief dedication to Shakespeares patron Henry Wriothesley 3rd Earl of Southampton in which the poet describes the poem as the first heir of my invention.The poem is inspired by and based on stories found in the Metamorphoses a narrative poem by the Latin poet Ovid (43 BC - AD 17/18). Ovids much briefer version of the tale occurs in book ten of his Metamorphoses. It differs greatly from Shakespeares version. Ovids Venus goes hunting with Adonis to please him but otherwise is uninterested in the out-of-doors. She wears tucked up robes worries about her complexion and particularly hates dangerous wild animals. Shakespeares Venus is a bit like a wild animal herself: she apparently goes naked and is not interested in hunting but only in making love to Adonis offering her body to him in graphically explicit terms. In the end she insists that the boars killing of Adonis happened accidentally as the animal impressed by the young hunters beauty gored him while trying to kiss him. Venuss behavior seems to reflect Shakespeares own feelings of empathy about animals: his poem devotes many stanzas to descriptions of a stallions feelings as he pursues a sexually attractive mare and to a hares feelings as hounds run it down which is inconsistent with Venuss request that he hunt only harmless animals like hares. Other stories in Ovids work are to a lesser degree considered sources: the tales of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus Narcissus and Pygmalion.