SOURCE: Miller, Robert P. “The Myth of Mars's Hot Minion in Venus and Adonis.” ELH 26, no. 4 (December 1959): 470-81.

In the following essay, Miller comments on Shakespeare's ironic use of Ovidian moral themes associated with the mythological love affair of Venus and Mars recounted in Venus and Adonis.

I

An interesting departure from the source of Venus and Adonis (Metamorphoses X, 503-559, 705-739) is Shakespeare's “reference,” as it has been called,¹ to the fable of Venus and Mars in a passage (sts. 17-19) which has received surprisingly little attention from critics of this “first heire” of Shakespeare's “inuention.” Although Venus' exemplum is clearly introduced “by way of contrast to her present experience with Adonis,”² the function of her argument, much less its total effect, is inadequately described simply by calling it a contrast. Rather, Shakespeare ingeniously develops Venus' persuasive autobiographical excursion as a piece of delightful dramatic self-revelation. The...