Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
When as himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both, as poets feign;

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

IX

Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,

Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds:

14 One knight loves both] The reference is to Sir George Carey, who in 1596 succeeded his father as second Baron Hunsdon. To Sir George, Dowland dedicated his "First Book of Ayres" in 1597, and to Sir George's wife, Spenser dedicated his Muiopotmos, 1590, while he addressed to Sir George's father a sonnet before the Faerie Queene, 1590.

IX This Sonnet, like Nos. IV, VI, and XI, treats of Venus' wooing of Adonis, and of her entreaty to him to abstain from the boar hunt, which Shakespeare expands in his Venus and Adonis, lines 612 seq. 2...... .] This hiatus is unmarked in the early editions. An early MS. copy formerly in Halliwell-Phillipps's possession supplies a tame second line, "Hoping to meet Adonis in that place," and substitutes for lines 3 and 4 of Jaggard's text, "Addrest her early to a certain grooue, Where he was wont ye savage Beast to chase."

5 steep-up] an intensitive of "steep." Cf. Sonnet vii, 5: "the steep-up heavenly hill."

"Once," quoth she, "did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See, in my thigh," quoth she, "here was the sore.
She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one,
And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

X

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded, Pluck'd in the bud and vaded in the spring!

Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded!

Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!
Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,

I

And falls through wind before the fall should be.

weep for thee and yet no cause I have;

For why thou left'st me nothing in thy will:

And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why I craved nothing of thee still:

yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee, Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

X See note on VII, supra.

1-2 vaded. . . vaded] The word is repeated thrice in No. XIII, lines 2, 6, and 8. It seems a dialect form of "faded" with a slightly different significance which applies especially to drooping flowers. Cf. Brathwaite's Strappado for the Devil (1615), p. 53: “The forms divine not fading, vading flowers" (Craig). In Rich. II, I, ii, 20, the Folio reads "his summer leafes all vaded" where the Quartos read "all faded."

XI

Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her

Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.

"Even thus," quoth she, "the warlike god embraced me,' And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;

"Even thus," quoth she, “the warlike god unlaced me,"
As if the boy should use like loving charms;
"Even thus," quoth she, "he seized on my lips,"
And with her lips on his did act the seizure:
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,

10

And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.

XI This sonnet repeats with very slight change in ten of its lines Sonnet iii of B. Griffin's sonnet-sequence entitled Fidessa, 1596. The four lines, 9-12 ("Even thus," quoth she, "he seized . . . her pleasure), are completely altered. In Venus and Adonis Shakespeare makes Venus refer to her wooing by "the stern and direful god of war" (lines 98 seq.). Griffin, doubtless, developed Shakespeare's hint and is probably responsible for both the extant versions of this sonnet. 5 warlike] Griffin gives wanton.

12 her meaning] Cf. Mids. N. Dr., II, ii, 46: "Love takes the meaning

in love's conference."

Ah, that I had my lady at this bay,
To kiss and clip me till I run away !

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XII

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.

Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young!

13 at this bay] at such an extremity, within my power Cf. Tit. Andr., IV, ii, 41–42: "I would we had a thousand Roman dames At such a bay." The expression is from the metaphor of a hunted dog, baying or barking at his pursuers.

XII This piece appears with a worthless continuation of some ninety lines in Deloney's poetical miscellany called Garland of good will, which was first published in 1595, though the earliest extant edition is dated 1604. "Crabbed age and youth cannot live together" is noticed as a popular song by the Elizabethan dramatists. Cf. Fletcher's Woman's Prize, IV, i, 37: "Hast thou forgot the ballad Crabbed age?"; so William Rowley's Match at Midnight, 1633, Act V, Sc. i, and John Ford's Fancies, Act IV, Sc. i. Percy prints the piece as given in the present text in his Reliques. The early music is lost. Stevens, Bishop, and Horn have composed modern settings.

4 Youth like summer brave.

bare] This line is omitted by Deloney.

6 nimble] Deloney reads wild, as in line 8.

10 my love is young] Deloney reads “my lord is young.”

Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.

XIII

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass that 's broken presently:

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,

So beauty blemish'd once 's for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

XIII Numerous Elizabethan poems in the six-line stanza are in sentiment and phrase hardly distinguishable from this piece; but none seems quite identical. Cf. Greene's Alcida, 1588: "Beauty is vain, accounted but a flower, Whose painted hue fades with the summer sun" (Greene's Works, ed. Grosart, ix, 87). A somewhat improved version of the present piece appears in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1750, xx, p. 521, under the title "Beauty's value by Wm. Shakespeare: from a corrected MS." This was again printed in the same periodical in 1760, xxx, p. 39. The emendations seem due to eighteenth century ingenuity, and have no historic interest. 2-6-8 vadeth . . . vaded. . . vaded] See note on X, 1-2, supra.

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