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- 26 VENUS AND ADONIS
imagery which are not derived from Ovid or Theocritus or Bion can any theory of immediate interdependence deserve a hearing. There are too many details peculiar to Shakespeare’s poem and to its Italian predecessors, to preclude the suggestion that Shakespeare was acquainted with the latter and absorbed some of their ornaments and episodes.¹ The deliberate setting of the scene of *Venus and Adonis* amid flowers blooming under the languorous heat of summer skies is outside the scheme of the Latin or Greek poets. Yet this is a feature which is common to the work of Shakespeare and the Italians. Dolce gives (Stanza vii) an enchanting picture of the pleasant spot (‘alma stagion’) where Venus and Adonis first meet:—
Quivi tra gigli le vermiglie rose
Vi dimostrano ogn’ hor liete & vezzose.
Parabosco (Stanza iii) is equally alive to
L’ herbette e fiori et ogni verde stelo
which deck out the fair trysting-place (‘la bella stagione’),
and nearly bury Adonis out of sight. Shakespeare is no
more sparing of references to lilies and roses. Flowers—‘blue-
veined violets’ and primroses—embroider the bank (ll. 125,
151) whereon Venus lies while she tempts Adonis. Again,
Tarchagnota’s opening stanza shows the afternoon sun shining
on the flowery meads:—
Né l’ ardente stagion, che in ciascun prato
Secca ogni vago fior, ch’ odor rendeva;
Era già Phebo oltre il merigie andato,
E partendo men caldo il ciel faceva.
¹ A similarity meets us in the preliminary pages. Each of the early Italian poems is preceded, as in the case of Shakespeare’s work, by a very short dedicatory epistle in prose addressed to a patron. In two cases the patron is a man, and in the third a woman. The pointed brevity of the salutation, and the employment of prose instead of verse, are somewhat rare characteristics which are precisely paralleled in Shakespeare’s two narrative poems.
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