who seems to have been Shakespeare's favorite classical author, is the Roman poet whose name in full was Publius Ovidius Naso. About a.d. 1 he was writing his most famous work-a version, in Latin verse, of those Greek myths that involved the transformation ("metamorphosis") of one living thing into another.
Ovid's book is therefore called Metamorphoses, and the myth of Adonis is included, since his mother had been turned into a myrrh tree.
Sick-tkoughted Venus...
In the final couplet of the first stanza, Shakespeare introduces the other member of the mythical duo:
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him And like a bold-fac'd suitor gins to woo him.
- lines 5-6
This is not Aphrodite, notice, as it would be if Shakespeare were following the work of the Greek poet Apollodorus. Shakespeare is using the name of a Roman goddess instead, the name used by Ovid.
The Romans in the early centuries of their history had a primitive religion, with numerous gods and goddesses of a rather arid nature who were not to be compared with the sophisticated deities of the much more cultivated Greeks. From the third century b.c. onward, the Romans fell more and more under the spell of Greek culture and were impelled to adopt the beautiful and intricate Greek mythology. They could not very well drop their own deities; instead they compromised by identifying their own gods with the roughly corresponding gods of the Greeks and retold the Greek myths using the Roman names.
Here is a list of the chief gods and goddesses in their Roman and Greek versions:
Roman Greek
Jupiter Zeus chief of the gods
Juno Hera his wife
Minerva Athena goddess of wisdom and practical arts
Diana Artemis goddess of the moon and the hunt
Mercury Hermes messenger of the gods
Mars Ares god of war
Vulcan Hephaestus god of fire and the forge
Venus Aphrodite goddess of love and beauty
Neptune Poseidon god of the sea
Vesta Hestia goddess of the hearth and home
Dis Hades god of the underworld
Ceres Demeter goddess of grain and agriculture
Proserpina Persephone goddess of the underworld
One major god had, apparently, no Roman equivalent at all, which is not strange, for he was the most Greek of all the Greek gods. He was Apollo, the god of youth and the fine arts (and in later poetry, of the sun as well). The Romans used the Greek name, therefore. They also used Hades or, its equivalent, Pluto, in preference to their own Dis, since Dis (a fearsome underground deity) was not popular with them and they avoided naming him.
Two of the mortal heroes that people the Greek legends, and who play a prominent part in Shakespearean allusions, have altered names given them by the Romans. Thus, the greatest and strongest of all the Greek heroes was Heracles, but the Romans called him Hercules. Again, the wiliest of the Greeks at the siege of Troy was Odysseus, whom the Romans called Ulysses.
In medieval Europe the Greek myths reached the west only through such Roman filters as Ovid and therefore the names used were all Roman. Shakespeare uses the Roman names of the gods invariably.
I will conform to Shakespearean usage, though it goes against the grain to do so, since it is far more appropriate to use the Greek names in dealing with Greek myths. I will ease my conscience, therefore, by occasionally placing the Greek name in parentheses, just to remind the reader of its existence.
Shakespeare departs from his source material in one important way. He makes Adonis reluctant to respond to Venus. "Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn" and Venus, out of sheer necessity, must reverse the role of the sexes and "like a bold-fac'd suitor" be the aggressor.
There is precedent for this in Greek mythology. There was, for instance, Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. He was beloved by a fountain nymph, Salmacis, but he repulsed her coldly. Once, however, when he was bathing in her spring, she was able to unite with bun hi love, and fearing that she might never be able to repeat the act, prayed the gods that she might remain united with him physically forever.
Her prayer was granted and thereafter Hermaphroditus had the genital equipment of both sexes. The word "hermaphrodite" has, in consequence, entered the English language to represent that pathological bisexual condition.
A much better known example is mentioned by Venus herself in this poem. She complains of Adonis' coldness and accuses him of loving only himself. She warns him he runs risks in consequence, saying:
Narcissus so himself himself forsook, And died to kiss his shadow in the