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- 2^8 VENUS AND ADONIS
Shakespeare of her railing indictment of Death seems to grow
out of the goddess' gentle cry in the Italian of Tarchagnota,
when Death claims her lover: —
lo ti perdonerei ci6 che fatto hai.
Venus is represented, too, by Sliakespeare as excusing
the boar's murderous assault on Adonis on the ground that
the fatal thrust was an amorous embrace, to which the brute
was provoked by the boy's beauty. Venus exclaims in Shake-
speare's poem :—
He
thought
to
kiss
him, and
hath
killed
him
so.
'Tis
true,
'tis
true
j
thus
was
Adonis
slain
:
He
ran
upon
the
boar with
his
sharp
spear,
Who
did
not
whet
his
teeth
at
him
again.
But
by
a
kiss
thought
to
persuade
him
there;
And
nuzzling
in his flank,
the loving
swine
Sheath'd
unaware
the tusk in
his
soft
groin.
(Venus and Adonis^ 11. 1 1 1 o— i d.)
The
boar's
appeal to
Venus
after
Adonis' death
in
Tarchagnota's
poem
is
to
like
curious
effect
:
—
Ti
giuro,
che
il
voler
mio non
fu
mai
Di
offender
questo tuo
si
caro
amante
:
Ben
e
egli
il
ver,
che
tosto, ch' io mirai
Nel corpo ignudo
sue
bellezze
tante,
Di
tanta
fiamma
acceso mi
trovai,
Che
cieco
a forza
mi
sospinsi avante.
Per baciar
la belta,
che
il
cor
m'
apria,
Et ismorzar Pardor, che
in
me
sentia.
{VAdone^ Stanza
Ixv.')
' This episode is of Greek classical origin. It is the topic of the last poem
in the ordinary collections of Theocritus' idylls, although the autho-- was some
late imitator of Theocritus, and not the poet himself. Antonius Sebastianus
Minturnus* Latin epigram called De Adone ah Apro Interempto deals with the
same theme [d. Shakespeare, Variorum edition, i8ii, xx. p. 784). The
Theocritcan idyll was rendered into crude English verse in a volume entitled
Six Id'tllia , . . chosen out of the right famous Sictlian poet Theocritus ^ Oxford, 1 588,
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