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# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
In two sonnets (published in Jan. 1595) Barnfield depreciated the beauty of heroes of antiquity compared with his own fair friend. *Sonnet* XII begins:—
Some talke of Ganymede th’ Idalian Boy
And some of faire *Adonis* make their boast,
Some talk of him [i.e. Castor], whom louely *Laeda* [i.e. mother of Helen] lost . . .
*Sonnet* XVII opens:—
Cherry-lipt *Adonis* in his snowie shape,
Might not compare with his pure Iuorie white.
Both seem crude echoes of Shakespeare’s sonnet LIII:—
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you.
## III
The sonnets in private circulation.
All occasional poetry, and especially poetry for patrons ‘in the liver vein’, was usually ‘kept in private’ in the possibly reflect Barnfield’s lines in the *Affectionate Shepheard* (I. iii):—
His *Iuory-white* and Alabaster skin
Is staind throughout with *rare Vermillion* red.
But *as* the *Lillie* and the blushing *Rose*,
*So* white and red on him in order grows.
It is curious to note that this is the only place in all his works where Shakespeare uses the word ‘vermilion’. It is not uncommon in Elizabethan literature; cf. Sidney’s *Astrophel*, cil. 5, ‘vermillion dyes’; Daniel’s *Rosamond* (1592), l. 678, ‘vermilion red’ (of roses); J. C.’s *Alcilia* (1596), ‘vermillion hue’ (in Elizabethan Longer Poems, p. 361). But it is far more frequent in sixteenth-century French and Italian poetry (*vermeil* and *vermiglio*). It is used in all the early Italian poems concerning Venus and Adonis which were accessible to Shakespeare. Cf. Dolce’s *La Favola d’Adone*, iv. 71—
Quivi tra Gigli le *vermiglie* Rose
Si dimostrano ogn’ hor liete e vezzose.
In both Dolce’s *La Favola d’Adone* (83. 8) and Tarchagnota’s *L’Adone* (72. 6 and 74. 2) Adonis’ dead body is metamorphosed into ‘uno *vermiglio* fiore’ or ‘quel fior *vermiglio*’, the flower assuming ‘*vermiglio* color del sangue’.
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