- cid
- bafkreiav54vaqgowjckqt5uk75hz3o2pczz3iwkaumqp6ggfp3ehm6pray
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- 02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0026.jpg
- height
- 2400
- key
- pdf-page-1769806521467-f5uvtfrve6k
- page_number
- 26
- pdf_type
- born_digital
- size
- 488936
- text
- 2 0 VENUS AND ADONIS
story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus at second-hand — that
he appropriated it from an original poetic adaptation by an
English contemporary, Thomas Lodge.' It is beyond reason-
able doubt, however, that Shakespeare's eye caught direct
Ovid's description of the Calydonian boar, which figures in
the eighth book of his Metamorphoses. Golding thus renders
Ovid's description of the brute of Calydon {Metamorphoses^
viii. 2 8 4-5): —
His eies did glister blud and fire : right dreadfull was to see
His hrawned necke^ right dredfull was his heare which grew
as thicke
With pricking points as one of them could well by other sticke.
And like a front of armed Pikes set close in battall ray^
The sturdie bristles on his back stoode staring up alway.
In Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis the boar is pictured thus
(di9-2i,
<J2
5'-7):
—
On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Oi bristly pikes^ that ever threat his foes ;
His eyes^ like glotv-rvorms^ shine when he doth fret ^ . . .
His brairny sides^ with hairy bristles arm'd,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter ;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd.
By way of acknowledging a large indebtedness to Ovid,
Shakespeare selected a somewhat self-complacent quotation
from him as the motto of his poem. On the title-page are
the two lines from Ovid's Amores (I. Elegy xv. z^-^y. —
Vilia miretur vulgus : mihi flavus Apollo
Pocuhi Castalia plena ministret aqua.""
' See pp. 11 sq. infra.
- Ovid's Amores^ translated by Marlowe about i^Sp, was first printed
about i5'97. That translation was probably accessible to Shakespeare in
manuscript. Marlowe rendered the cited lines thus :—
Let base conceited wits admire vile things,
Fair Phoebus lead mc to the Muses' springs.
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:55:21.467Z
- text_extracted_by
- pdf-processor
- text_has_content
- true
- text_source
- born_digital
- uploaded
- true
- width
- 1632