Thursday, January 26, 2017


Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait,
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;
Narrator
Venus and Adonis                                                           Line 530
This is a pretty cool line. He’s talking about the sun. The world’s comforter is the sun. The sun’s got a weary gait (well he travels a long way, doesn’t he?). And the sun’s hot task ends in the west. All he’s saying is that the day is over. But this sounds so much cooler than ‘the day is over,’ or ‘the sun has set’. Don’t you agree? ‘Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait, his day’s hot task hath ended in the west.’ There’s really no need to go into context, or explain why Adonis is saying this in the poem. We can simply enjoy this line. And you can certainly use it next time you need to say to someone that the day is drawing to a close.

Imagine that you’re working out in the yard on a summer’s late day or early evening and you notice that the sun is going down. You turn to the person with you – friend, spouse, kid, whatever- and you say ‘Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait, his day’s hot task hath ended in the west.’ And then point towards the setting sun as you say it. Oh my goodness wouldn’t that be great. The person with you will either look at you like you’re nuts, or they’ll look at you and appreciate the heck out of what you just said. Hopefully the latter.

Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, his day's hot task hath ended in the west.




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