THE CHAPTER IV SHAKESPEARE'S NARRATIVE POEMS "VENUS AND ADONIS" 'HE first sketches for Shakespeare's two narrative poems were probably written in Stratford before his move to London. Both, however, before they were printed (Venus and Adonis in 1593 and Lucretia in 1594), were thoroughly worked over, and both were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, the poet's patron and friend. The subject of Venus and Adonis is the myth of the love of the goddess Venus for the beautiful youth Adonis the son of Myrrha. The beloved of the goddess was killed during the chase by a boar, and afterwards turned by her into an anemone. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, of which the English translation was certainly the source whence Shakespeare drew this fable, it is simply related that Venus renounced the life of the blessed in Olympus for love of the beautiful mortal, wishing to dwell with him on earth, and that when he was seized with a passion for the chase, she warned him against the animals to whom Nature had given weapons. But the rash youth sought danger for its own sake, and, while hunting a boar, was slain by the beast, whereupon the mourning goddess turned him into an anemone. Out of this simple tale, devoid of psychological interest, Shakespeare has woven a passionate picture of the sufferings of an ardent unrequited love, which burns the more fiercely the more coldly it is met by the beloved 67 being. In Venus, as Shakespeare draws her, is manifested the power of uncontrolled desire. This picture, however lovely it may appear in the splendour of the verse the poet has woven around it, of logical necessity is in the end the representation of a degeneration of character, into which the goddess is helplessly drawn by her uncontrollable inclination towards the mortal youth. She has yielded completely to her passion for the boy. Her wooing is painted by the poet with an absolutely overpowering prodigality of tenderness, in which all the fascinating charms of the lovely goddess are fully described. She lavishes prayers, threats, tears on the cold creature, who will not respond to her glowing desires. The more resistance she finds, the more wild and ardent her longing grows, the fiercer her passion blazes, causing her to break through all bounds and forget all prudence :— Panting oblivion, beating reason back, Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack. And just as love at first fairly overpowers her, and robs her of all reason, of all self-command, so at the end, when she holds in her arms the bleeding body of the vainly loved boy, she forgets that she is the goddess of love, and that all the imprecations she utters are directed against herself. She curses love with the frightful curse we quoted (p. 60). This malediction has great poetic power; it is at once a picture of the pains and sufferings that attend on love, of the joys that cause us to forget those sufferings, of the emotions the poet has represented with such warmth and truth in his great song of songs, Romeo and Juliet. In reference to this poem Gervinus calls Shakespeare "a Croesus in poetical conception, thought, and description, a master and conqueror in dealings with love, a giant in passion and tender sentimental power." But he also stigmatises the work as one mighty dazzling error, such as writers so often commit, mistaking uncontrolled glow of passion for poetry. This judgment was not, however, shared by the poet's contemporaries; on the contrary, this early work won great admiration. Its success was so rapid as to recall that which Goethe obtained with his Werther. The poem passed through several editions, and was imitated by other poets. I must here defend Shakespeare against an accusation which has been brought against him, and which appears to have some foundation if we look at the matter superficially. He has been accused of losing his head over his delight in the subject of his poem, and of forgetting the enormous difference between the noble pure love he afterwards portrayed so beautifully, and the mere ardour of the senses felt by Venus. This reproach is not, however, founded on fact. However glowing the colours with which he invests the unrequited passion of the goddess, he knows quite well that he is not painting the love which ennobles and exalts both heart and mind, but only the desire of the senses. He shows this in the passage wherein he describes the horse of Adonis that has broken loose and woos in wild beastly fashion. Here he obviously does not contrast the scene with the wooing of Venus, but ranks it on the same level. He makes Adonis say reprovingly to the goddess that it is not love which "beats reason back, forgets shame's pure blush," and "wrecks honour," but unbridled desire. To be sure this purer note is only lightly touched in the poem. As a whole, sensual pictures and descriptions predominate. "LUCRETIA" Shakespeare's second narrative poem, Lucretia, has little of the poetic charm of Venus and Adonis, while its merits suffer by comparison with its classical source, the tale as given by the ancient Roman historian Livy, of whom Niebuhr said, "Who after Livy can tell the tale of the despair of Lucretia?" I quote the passage to prove the |