NOTES
Venus and Adonis
Epigraph. From Ovid, Amores, I. El. xv, 35–36. It is printed on the title page of the original edition. Thus translated by Marlowe: ‘Let base conceited wits admire vile things/Fair Phœbus lead me to the Muses’ springs.’
Dedicatory Epistle. Henry Wriothesley. Third Earl of Southampton (1573–1624), Shakespeare’s patron. He is generally identified with the friend to whom Shakespeare addressed his Sonnets.
3. Rose-cheek’d. This expression is to be found in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander (l. 98).
9. Stain. In Elizabethan English the word often meant: ‘to surpass,’ ‘to shame.’ Cf. Romeus and Juliet (Shaks. Soc. 77): ‘Whose beauty and whose shape so far the rest did stain.’ Here used as a noun: the nymphs looked mean compared to Adonis.
11. Nature that made thee, with herself at strife. Nature vied with herself when she created Adonis.
12. the world hath ending with thy life. Should Adonis die, Nature would cease to create other beings.
25. sweating palm. A moist palm was supposed to be the indication of an amorous disposition (cf., further, l. 143, and Othello, III. iv. 36–38), whilst a dry hand meant indifference to love.
53. miss. I.e. misdeed. A more usual form was ‘amiss.’ On this line, cf. Notes and Queries, 10th Ser., vol. IX (1908), pp. 264, 506.
56. Tires. A term of falconry, especially used of hawks tearing their food (from French tirer, to pull).
61. Forc’d to content. Adonis is obliged to bear contentedly what he cannot avoid.
