‘But
if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;
Uncouple
at the timorous flying hare,
Or
at the fox which lives by subtlety,
Or
at the roe which no encounter dare:
Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,
And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy
hounds.
-Venus
Venus and Adonis Lines
673 - 678
There are all sorts of things to talk about here, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a little bit of context.
Venus is talking to Adonis. She’s been trying unsuccessfully to seduce him throughout this poem, and now he’s told her that he’s going to go boar hunting tomorrow. Venus is fearful that he’s going to get himself killed by a boar, so she’s trying to talk him out of it. In this stanza she’s suggesting that he hunt rabbits, or foxes, or roes (fish eggs?) instead, and to stay on his horse with his dogs around him. It turns out that her fears are well based since Adonis does indeed manage to get himself killed in the boar hunt. Bummer.
Anyway, I’ve been
reading a book lately titled Shakespeare
Of London. I don’t know, I just like reading about Will and about the world
he lived in. This particular book’s got a 1949 copyright, so it’s not a
recently written biography (the oldest Shakespeare biography that I’ve read so far is
by J.Q. Adams with a 1923 copyright). I picked it up last weekend in a little
used book shop in Stroudsburg PA called Carroll and Carroll Booksellers. A
wonderful little shop, if you like books ( I don’t think they have a website,
so you’re just going to have to make a trip to Stroudsburg if you want to check
them out). I was doing a little reading of the book this morning whilst having my
first cup of coffee, and I was on a section about the London playhouses being closed
in 1593 due to the plague (and by the way, the steps that London took in
response to the plague had a lot in common with the steps taken in 2020-21; go figure). So, since he couldn’t write plays, what do you think Will wrote in 1593-4? Yup, you
guessed it: Venus and Adonis. And then I come down here to my office and what
line do I randomly come up with? Venus and Adonis. Amazing.
Well, now that I’ve given you that little spiel, what else should we talk about? The fact that for two days in a row our random line ends with hound(s)? Yesterday’s hound was an insult (calling a man a dog) and today’s hounds are literal (talking about the hunting dogs). That’s a little bit random. Should we talk about the salacious language of the poem? Nah. In fact, I think I may have used up my ten minutes of fame for this morning, so we’ll just leave you to your own devices from here on in.
But please, no boar hunting today. Or tomorrow.
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