_, was printed in the spring
of 1593 when the {61} author was about twenty-nine years old. As far
as we have evidence, it was the first of all Shakespeare's works to
appear in print;[1] but it is possible that some early plays were
composed before it although printed after it.

Other poets of the day had been interested in retelling in their own
way old stories of Greek and Roman literature, and Shakespeare, in
_Venus and Adonis_, was engaged in the same task. The outline of the
poem is taken (either directly or through an imitation of previous
borrowers) from the Latin poet Ovid,[2] who lived in the time of
Christ. Venus, the goddess of love, is enamored of a beautiful boy,
called Adonis, and tries in vain by every device to win his affection.
He repulses all her advances, and finally runs away to go hunting, and
is killed by a wild boar. Venus mourns over his dead body, and causes
a flower (the anemone or wind flower) to spring from his blood.
Shakespeare's handling of the story shows both the virtues and the
defects of a young writer. It is more diffuse, more wordy, than his
later work, and written for the taste of another time than ours; but,
on the other hand, it is full of vivid, picturesque language of
melodious rhythm, and of charming little touches of country life.

Like most of Shakespeare's verse, it is written in iambic
pentameter.[3] The poem is divided into stanzas {62} of six lines
each, in which the first and third lines rime, the second and fourth,
and the fifth and sixth. We represent this arrangement of rimes by
saying that the rime scheme of the stanza is _a, b, a, b, c, c,_ where
the same letter represents the same riming sound at the ends of lines.
As a specimen stanza, the following, often quoted because of the vivid
picture it presents, is given. It describes a mettlesome horse.

"Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, (_a-)
Round breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide, (_b-)
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, (_a_)
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: (_b_)
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, (_c_)
Save a proud rider on so proud a back." (_c_)

+The Rape of Lucrece+.--A year later, in 1594, when Shakespeare was
thirty, he published another narrative poem, _The Rape of Lucrece_.
The story of Lucrece had also come down from Ovid.[4] This poem is
about 1