980
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.
O hard-believing love, how strange it seems
985
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope makes thee ridiculous:
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.
990
Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought:
Adonis lives, and death is not to blame;
It was not she that call’d him all to naught;
Now she adds honours to his hateful name:
She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,
995
Imperious supreme of all mortal things.
‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘sweet death, I did but jest;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe:
1000
Then, gentle shadow, – truth I must confess, –
I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease.
‘ ’Tis not my fault, the boar provok’d my tongue:
Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander.
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong:
1005
I did but act, he’s author of thy slander.
Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet
Could rule them both, without ten women’s wit.’
Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,
Her rash suspects she doth extenuate;
1010
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With death she humbly doth insinuate;
Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories
His victories, his triumphs and his glories.
‘O love,’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I,
1015
To be of such a weak and silly mind,
To wail his death who lives, and must not die
’Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.
1020
‘Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves!
Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.’
Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
1025
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.
As falcons to the lure, away she flies;
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light,
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight:
1030
Which seen, her eyes as murder’d with the view,
Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew.
Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smother’d up in shade doth sit,
1035
Long after fearing to creep forth again:
So at his bloody view her eyes are fled
Into the deep dark cabins of her head.
Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain,
1040
Who bids them still consort with ugly night
And never wound the heart with looks again;
Who like a king perplexed in his throne
By their suggestion, gives a deadly groan.
Whereat each tributary subject quakes,
1045
As when the wind imprison’d in the ground,
Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes;
Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.
This mutiny each part doth so surprise
That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes:
1050
And being open’d threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d
In his soft flank, whose wonted lily-white
With purple tears that his wound wept, was drench’d.
No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf or weed,
1055
But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.
This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth;
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head.
Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth:
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead.
1060
Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,
Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now.
Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;
And then she reprehends her mangling eye,
1065
That makes more gashes, where no breach should be.
His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled,
For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.
‘My tongue cannot express my grief for one,
And yet,’ quoth she, ‘behold two Adons dead!
1070
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone;
Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead.
Heavy heart’s lead melt at mine eyes’ red fire!
So I shall die by drops of hot desire.
‘Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!
1075
What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?
What tongue is music now? what canst thou boast
Of things long since, or any thing ensuing?
The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim,
But true sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.
1080
‘Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear:
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you.
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear:
The sun doth scorn you and the wind doth hiss you.
But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air
1085
Lurk’d like two thieves to rob him of his fair.
‘And therefore would he put his bonnet on,
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep:
The wind would blow it off, and being gone,
Play with his locks; then would Adonis weep,
1090
And straight, in pity of his tender years,
They both would strive who first should dry his tears.
‘To see his face the lion walk’d along,
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him.
To recreate himself, when he hath sung,
1095
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him.
If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,
And never fright the silly lamb that day.
‘When he beheld his shadow in the brook,
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;
1100
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took
That some would sing, some other in their bills
Would bring him mulberries and ripe red cherries:
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.
But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,
1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertainment that he gave.
If he did see his face, why then I know
He thought
to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.
1110
’Tis true, ’tis true, 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
1115
Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.
‘Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill’d him first.
But he is dead, and never did he bless
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.’
1120
With this she falleth in the place she stood,
And stains her face with his congealed blood.
She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold.
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,
1125
As if they heard the woeful words she told.
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,
Where lo, two lamps burnt out in darkness lies.
Two glasses where herself herself beheld
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;
1130
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,
And every beauty robb’d of his effect.
‘Wonder of time,’ quoth she, ‘this is my spite,
That thou being dead, the day should yet be light.
‘Since thou art dead, lo here I prophesy,
1135
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;
Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,
That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.
1140
‘It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud;
Bud, and be blasted, in a breathing while;
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile;
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
1145
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.
‘It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
1150
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.
‘It shall suspect where is no cause of fear,
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
1155
And most deceiving when it seems most just;
Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward;
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.
‘It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire;
1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire.
Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,
They that love best, their loves shall not enjoy.’
By this the boy that by her side lay kill’d
1165
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,
A purple flower sprung up, checker’d with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
1170
She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath,
And says within her bosom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death.
She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears
1175
Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.
‘Poor flower,’ quoth she, ‘this was thy father’s guise, –
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire, –
For every little grief to wet his eyes;
To grow unto himself was his desire,
1180
And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good
To wither in my breast as in his blood.
‘Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;
Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right.
Lo in this hollow cradle take thy rest;
1185
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:
There shall not be one minute in an hour
Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.’
Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves, by whose swift aid
1190
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies,
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d,
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 20
