TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD. RIGHT HONORable, I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen only if your honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your honor 2 to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world's hopeful expectation. 1 Your Honor's in all duty, WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 Ear, plough. 2 Honor. As a duke is now styled "your grace," so "your honor formerly the usual mode of address to noblemen in general. VENUS AND ADONIS. EVEN as the sun with purple-colored face “Thrice fairer than myself," thus she began, 1 The poem of "Hero and Leander," although Marlowe's portion of it was not published till 1598, was probably well known in the poetical circles. The following lines are in the first sestyad : "The men of wealthy Sestos every year, For his sake whom their goddess held so dear, "Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed, "And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety, With this she seizeth on his sweating palm, And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm, Over one arm the lusty courser's rein, She red and hot as coals of glowing fire, The studded bridle on a ragged bough Nimbly she fastens; (O, how quick is love !) To tie the rider she begins to prove : Backward she pushed him, as she would be thrust, And governed him in strength, though not in lust. |