{"id":"01KG8B0T34SKZAZV825GTY4435","cid":"bafkreidq7cb5cw62uomfbkgtkiu2kna2bkzm7x4rm7x7kbqf3sh3szga4m","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreiap5bdegdnxf2nz37kyabs6myj7n4c24ne2eiuf2ba7faw6lk7y7i","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0033.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769806521469-qenp8q2yd9b","label":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0033.jpg","page_number":33,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":550835,"text":"VENUS AND ADONIS 27\nThe sun's rising or falling rays constantly illumine Shake-\nspeare's story, which opens in the dawn of a summer's day.*\nThe sunlit atmosphere, no less than the flower-strewn grove,\nseems redolent of an Italian origin.\nThere are indeed other and more definite accretions to\nthe classical legend, both in Shakespeare and the Italian\npoets, which seem to indicate loans levied by the English\npoet on his foreign predecessors. The impressive execration\nof death which Shakespeare puts into Venus' mouth has\nthe true ring of poetic fervour, and bears the stamp of the\nShakespearean mint (11. 931-5-4, 991-1002). But Shakespeare\nappears there to work up an episode in the Italian poem\nof Tarchagnota, who set on Venus' lips an impassioned\ncomplaint, in a like number of lines, of the blind cruelty\nof the hard-favoured Tyrant (Stanzas liv-lix). ' Tu morte\ncrudel,' ' o cosa mostruosa e strana,' cries the Venus of the\nItalian poet at the thought of Adonis' loss; Death, she\nsorrowfully reflects, destroys the pleasure of mortal life as\nsuddenly as it devours the beauty of the flowers of the\nfield. The sentiment is clothed by the Venus of Shakespeare\nin richer language, yet it is doubtful if it would have had\nits precise place in the English poem's machinery, but for\nthe Italian suggestion.^ Again, Venus' final retractation in\n* Cf. Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face\nHad\nta'en his\nlast\nleave\nof the\nweeping\nmorn.\n(II.\ni-i.)\nA\nSummers's day\nwill\nseem\nan hour\nbut\nshort\n(1.\n23.)\nAnd Titan, tired in the midday heat,\nWith burning eye did hotly overlook them. (II. 177-8.)\nThe sun ariseth in his majesty :\nWho doth the world so gloriously behold\nThat cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold. (11. Sffi'-S.)\n' In introducing Venus' apostrophe to Death, the Italian poets themselves\ndeveloped a very slight and bare hint in Bion's Lament^ where Venus is made\nto describe Adonis as ' journeying to Acheron, that hateful king and cruel '\n{(TTvyvov Pa(ri.Xrja Kal aypiov). D 2","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:21.469Z","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":"2026-01-30T20:55:22.468Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:55:25.353Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}