Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 8
VIII. SHAKESPEARE’S FORMAL DEBUT AS A POET (1598).
Dedication of Venus and Adonis to the Earl of Southampton.
To the Right Honorable Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield.
Right Honorable: I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen; only if your Honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear [plough] so barren a land for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your Honor to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.
Your Honor’s in all duty,
Note. Venus and Adonis was entered for publication, April 18, 1593, by Richard Field, son of a tanner of Stratford. Field, who was three years older than Shakespeare, had left Stratford in 1579 and become a member of the Stationers’ Company in London.