{"id":"01KG8B0SXNDF29FM1P40KM2GDS","cid":"bafkreidonq4rsm4lmzqxuiycnbqzpaqd4igvhvkzx33sqdjeaxipqw2xsm","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreib62kludk5ou4jgrccrei4zvk7ehfbdowcphxo4742rlbpevjv76e","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0035.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769806521471-19f3bka3m7l","label":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0035.jpg","page_number":35,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":549158,"text":"VENUS AND ADONIS 29\nIII\nBut it was not only the Ovidian outline and Italian The story in\nadaptations that Shakespeare assimilated. None had chosen ^\"S^^\"^-\nthe legend for independent treatment in England before\nShakespeare. But many Elizabethan poets of earlier date\nhad made incidental reference to the tale, and had laid special\nstress on features of it which Shakespeare seems to have\nelaborated in emulation of them.\nSpenser in his Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney adapts the details Spenser's\nof the fable to his special purpose. Spenser figuratively ofTtTiTs^J)\ncredited his hero with Adonis' precise manner of death.\n'AstropheP is slain in the chase by 'a cruel beast ', who inflicts\na wound in his thigh, and his corpse is metamorphosed into\na flower. Spenser, too, sets on the lips of Sidney's lady-\nlove Stella the pathetic lamentation which poetic tradition\nassigned to Venus on the discovery of Adonis' dead body.\nSpenser's description of the flow of blood from the boar's\nfatal thrust, and the transformation of the fair white corpse\ninto a flower <•both red and blue ', anticipate Shakespeare's\naccount of how\nin his blood that on the ground lay spill'd,\nA purple flower sprung up.\nThe\ncurious identity of\ntone,\nas\nwell\nas\nof\ntopic, can\nonly be\nappreciated by\na\nclose\nstudy\nof the\ntwo\npoems\nside\nby\nside.\nThe\nmetre\nof Spenser's Astrophel^\nmoreover,\nwas\nthat\nadopted\nby Shakespeare\nin his\npoem\no^ Venus and\nAdonu. Many\na\ncritic\nmight\nbe forgiven\nif\nhe\nmistook\nsuch\na\nstanza\nas\nthe\nfollowing\nof which only one copy — in the Bodleian Library — is known (cf. reprint in\nSome Longer 'Elizabethan Voems^ ed. A. H. Bullen, Constable's edition of Arber's\nEnglish Garner, 1903, pp. 125, i4()). But the Italian version of Tarchagnota\nhas far closer affinity to Shakespeare's treatment of the incident, than the\nEnglish translation of the Thcocritcan idyll or Minturnus' epigram.","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:21.471Z","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":"2026-01-30T20:55:22.293Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:55:25.006Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}