Variable passions throng her constant woe,

As striving who should best become her grief.

All entertained, each passion labours so

That every present sorrow seemeth chief,

But none is best. Then join they all together,

Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.

By this, far off she hears some huntsman hollo;

A nurse’s song ne’er pleased her babe so well.

The dire imagination she did follow

This sound of hope doth labour to expel;

For now reviving joy bids her rejoice

And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,

Being prisoned in her eye like pearls in glass;

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 drowned.

O hard-believing love—how strange it seems

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.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought.

Adonis lives, and death is not to blame.

It was not she that called him all to naught.

Now she adds honours to his hateful name.

She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,

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.

Then, gentle shadow—truth I must confess—

I railed on thee, fearing my love’s decease.

“Tis not my fault; the boar provoked my tongue.

Be wreaked on him, invisible commander.

’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong.

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 suspect she doth extenuate,

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 Jove,’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I

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.

‘Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear

As one with treasure laden, hemmed with thieves.

Trifles unwitnessèd with eye or ear

Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.’

Even at this word she hears a merry horn,

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;

Which seen, her eyes, as murdered with the view,

Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew.

Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit

Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,

And there, all smothered up, in shade doth sit,

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,

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,

As when the wind, imprisoned 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,

And, being opened, threw unwilling light

Upon the wide wound that the boar had trenched

In his soft flank, whose wonted lily-white

With purple tears that his wound wept was drenched.

No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,

But stole his blood, and seemed 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.

Her voice is stopped, 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,

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!

My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,

Mine eyes are turned to fire, my heart to lead.

Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire!

So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

‘Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost,

What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?