And thou treble-dated crow, Here the anthem doth commence : 20 Notes VENUS AND ADONIS 1-2. Sarrazin (Shaks. Lehrjahre, p. 135) compares 3 Henry VI, II. i. 21–22 :· See how the morning opes her golden gates And takes her farewell of the glorious sun! 3. Rose-cheek'd Adonis. Malone cites Marlowe's use of this phrase in Hero and Leander (I. v. 93). 5. Sick-thoughted. Filled with sick thoughts, with special reference to love-sickness, as in v. 584. Precisely like in its formation is the compound, "holy-thoughted" (L., 384). 9. Stain to all nymphs. beauty. The noun "stain Because he outshines them in comes from the verb "to stain," which is itself only a shortened form of "distain.” 11. with herself at strife. I.e., by outdoing herself; cf. v. 291. 12. Nature threatens to shut up shop in case of the death of Adonis. Pooler compares vv. 953–954. 13. to alight thy steed. No other instance of this verb in transitive construction occurs in Shakespeare. 66 24. Being wasted. Merely "spent," or 'consumed," not "squandered." Cf. v. 583. 25. sweating palm. Here merely a sign of youthful vigor. In the case of Adonis it certainly did not betoken an amorous disposition, which it was frequently taken to signify. Cf. note on v. 143. 143. Moist hand. For the supposed significance of the moist palm, cf. Othello, III. iv. 36–43, and J. C. Bucknell, Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare (1860), p. 273. 149, 150. Cf. Constable's Diana (1592), 1st Decade, Sonn. ii. the sermon, 105. Not gross to sink. The adjective was applied to liquids and to air in the sense of "dense," "thick." Cf. An Alarum from Heauen " : as palpable as the darkness of Egypt, the which as Moses sayth, was so grosse, that it might bee felte" (Sermons of Maister Henrie Smith, London, 1593, p. 1144). 161-162. LEE "According to the classical version of the tale in Ovid's Metam. (III. 407 seq.), Narcissus did not drown himself, but was turned into a flower. Marlowe's account of Narcissus in Hero and Leander (Sestiad I. 7476), doubtless suggests Shakespeare's allusion: [He] leapt into the water for a kiss Of his own shadow, and despising many, 204. but died unkind. Unkind often has its older meaning of "unnatural," but countless instances occur of unkinde " applied to an unrelenting maid. One will be found in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond (v. 105). 205. this. Here adverbial "thus." 66 = 215. of a man's complexion. The primary meaning of complexion is temperament," "natural disposition," with reference to the four humours blood, red bile, black bile, and phlegm - by which, it was supposed, a man's temperament was governed. In a derived sense complexion" was also used meaning shape," ex 66 |