- description
- # Affinity with Ovid.
## Overview
This subsection, titled "Affinity with Ovid.", is part of a larger collection related to a PDF document. It focuses on the literary influences on Shakespeare's poem *Lucrece*, specifically examining connections to the Roman poet Ovid. The text is derived from a file named `pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt` and is situated within the "PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53" collection.
## Context
This subsection is a segment of a broader analysis of literary sources, as indicated by its placement within the `[PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y)` collection and its extraction from the file `[pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA)`. It follows a previous subsection also titled "Affinity with Ovid." and precedes "The smaller debt to Livy."
## Contents
The text discusses Shakespeare's *Lucrece* in relation to Ovid's works, particularly the *Fasti*. It highlights specific passages where Shakespeare appears to echo Ovidian themes and imagery, such as the comparison of Lucrece's lamb-like innocence to a wolf's prey, and descriptive elements like her "snow-white" chin and "golden threads" of hair, which correspond to descriptions in Ovid's *Fasti*. The subsection notes that while Ovid's *Fasti* was translated into English in 1640, Shakespeare likely had access to the original Latin. It also touches upon potential influences from Livy, suggesting Shakespeare may have drawn directly from Livy's phrasing in certain descriptions, in addition to his engagement with Ovid and potentially other sources like Painter's *Palace of Pleasure*.
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- Affinity with Ovid.
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- *Affinity with Ovid.*
Sed tremit, ut quondam *stabulis* deprensa relictis parua sub infesto cum iacet agna lupo.
Chaucer (ll. 1798–9) accepts the illustration, but strips it of its vivid colouring:—
Ryght as a wolfe that fynt a lambe alone,
To whom shall she compleyne, or makë mone?
Shakespeare catches far more of the Ovidian strain in 677–9—
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14
LUCRECE
The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries;
Till with her own white fleece her voice controll’d
Entombs her outcry in her lips’ sweet *fold*.
Elsewhere Shakespeare borrows from Ovid words which escaped Chaucer’s notice. His insistence on the ‘snow-white’ of Lucrece’s ‘dimpled chin’ (420) and his comparison of her hair to ‘golden threads’ (400) echo the ‘niueusque color flauique capilli’ (*Fasti*, ii. 763) of Ovid’s heroine. Ovid’s *Fasti* was not translated into English before 1640. But there is little doubt that Ovid was accessible to Shakespeare in the original.
At the same time there are touches in Shakespeare’s *Lucrece* which suggest that he assimilated a few of Livy’s phrases direct. Painter, in the version which he introduced into his *Palace of Pleasure*, very loosely paraphrased the Latin historian, and it is unlikely that Shakespeare gained all his knowledge of Livy there. The lucid ‘argument’ in prose which Shakespeare prefixed to the poem catches Livy’s perspicuous manner more exactly than mere dependence on Painter would have allowed. The lines (437–41 and 463) in which Shakespeare pointedly describes how Tarquin’s hand rests on Lucrece’s breast follow Livy’s phrase, ‘sinistraque manu mulieris pectore oppresso.’ The hint is given in Ovid, and Painter merely states that Tarquin keeps Lucrece ‘doune with his lefte hande’. At one point Shakespeare corrects an obvious misapprehension of Painter—a fact which further confutes the theory of exclusive indebtedness to him. Livy, like Ovid, assigns to Tarquin the threat that in case of Lucrece’s resistance he will charge her with misconduct with a slave. Neither Latin writer gives the word ‘slave’ any epithet, and whether the man is in Tarquin’s or in Lucrece’s service is left undetermined. Painter makes Tarquin refer to a slave of his own household. Shakespeare assigns the slave to Lucrece’s
- title
- Affinity with Ovid.