{"id":"01KG8B0SX8ZAGEJWJSVXN5TQAD","cid":"bafkreifhxidwymxvodgmvgbhriwlatbu62gqwzqcy2473qlxumq64wq75q","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreigu3rtm4zeffb6cgnhqeny34whm7xo5e7367kpdsudhwosyirzg6e","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0022.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769806521464-30rgykj311","label":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0022.jpg","page_number":22,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":569221,"text":"16 VENUS AND ADONIS\nhe had learned something of them is a proposition that is\nhard to refute. In any case it is desirable to indicate briefly\nthe distribution of the story in the literature of the European\nRenaissance, not merely because the attempt does not seem to\nhave been made before, but because only thus is Shakespeare's\nwork, whatever its precise measure of indebtedness, set in its\nrightful place in the broad current of contemporary thought\nand aspiration. Shakespeare's achievements are commonly\ntreated in isolation — as work detached from the great\nmovements of his epoch. In many instances the supreme\nquality and individuality of his genius may largely justify\nthe critic in ignoring the links that bind the poet to his era.\nBut in the case of Venus and Adonis^ no such transcendent\nmerits are in question. He writes on a lofty level. But\nthe plane along which he moves is that in which many\nothers of the century had their being, and his literary no\nless than his historic position is misrepresented, when the\nsimilar work of those who wrote a generation or two before\nhim, or at the same time as he, is passed by in silence.\nThe Greek xhc story of Vcuus and Adonis, which had its source in\nAdonis. Phoenician or Assyrian mythology, was absorbed at an early\nperiod by the religion of Greece. The earliest poems in\nhonour of Adonis, the beloved of Venus, who was pre-\nmaturely slain in a boar-hunt, were elegiac hymns written to\nbe sung at an annual religious festival commemorative of the\nyouth's sad death.* Sappho and Praxilla wrote such lyrics\n' The compilers of the Vulgate version of the Old Testament intro-\nduced areference to the familiar Adonaic festival. Cf. * Et introduxit me per\nostium portae domus Domini, quod respiciebat ad Aquilonem : et ecce ihi mulieres\nsedeBa7it plangent es Adonidem ' (Ezek. viii. 14.). The Hebrew text reads\nThammuz, the god of light. According to the story as it was ultimately\nincorporated into the religion of Greece and of all the lands by the shore of the\nEastern Mediterranean, Adonis, after his wooing by Aphrodite (Venus) and his\nphysical death in the boar-hunt, was suffered, at the earnest entreaty of the","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:21.464Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1632},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG89K4X0DM39SSQK43XXG34R","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KG89JREDR8WY5QQGYR5FZRDY","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:22.280Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:55:24.952Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}