🌹 Stanza 110 - Literary Analysis

Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis

📖 Original Stanza

‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring,      
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:

🔍 Line-by-Line Analysis

Line 1: ‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,

"sour informer": 'Sour' implies bitterness, unpleasantness, or malice in the one who brings news. An 'informer' is someone who relays information, often secretly and with negative intent. Shakespeare uses 'sour' to color the information provider with a malicious, unpleasant disposition.
"bate-breeding spy": 'Bate' refers to contention, strife, or discord. Thus, 'bate-breeding' means causing or instigating quarrels and disputes. A 'spy' suggests someone who secretly observes and gathers information, often with the intent to cause harm or sow discord. The phrase highlights Jealousy's role in creating conflict and suspicion through stealthy observation and revelation.
Meaning: "This unpleasant bringer of news, this secret observer who instigates quarrels,"

Line 2: This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring,

"canker": A destructive, spreading ulcer or disease, especially one that afflicts plants and causes decay; metaphorically, a corrupting influence. Shakespeare chose this word to convey a slow, insidious, and devastating form of destruction, likening Jealousy to a blight.
"eats up": Devours, consumes, or destroys gradually but completely. This verb emphasizes the relentless and thorough destruction caused by the 'canker'.
"Love’s tender spring": 'Spring' here refers to the early, fresh, and vulnerable stage of life, growth, or a relationship. It evokes newness, blossoming, and fragility. 'Tender' emphasizes its delicate and susceptible nature. This is a metaphor for the fresh, burgeoning, and easily harmed beginnings or delicate flourishing of love.
Meaning: "This destructive blight that consumes the delicate and burgeoning stage of love,"

Line 3: This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,

"carry-tale": A gossip or tattletale, someone who spreads stories or rumors, often maliciously or carelessly. Shakespeare uses this to describe Jealousy's tendency to whisper doubts and unfounded stories.
"dissentious": Causing or tending to cause dissent, discord, or disagreement. It emphasizes the divisive and quarrel-provoking nature of Jealousy.
"Jealousy": This is the explicit naming of the abstract emotion that has been personified and described in the preceding lines. Its placement here provides a clear identification of the antagonist Venus is describing.
Meaning: "This gossiping, divisive force, which is Jealousy itself,"

Line 4: That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

"sometime true news, sometime false doth bring": 'Sometime' means 'sometimes'. 'Doth bring' is an archaic form of 'brings'. This phrase highlights the insidious nature of jealousy: it isn't always entirely fabricated; it often mixes truth (or perceived truth) with falsehoods. This blend makes it harder to dismiss and more powerfully manipulative.
Meaning: "Which sometimes conveys accurate information, and at other times fabricates lies,"

Line 5: Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear

"Knocks at my heart": A vivid metaphor for emotional distress and anxiety. This suggests Jealousy's forceful, insistent, and unsettling presence within Venus's deepest feelings, creating fear and doubt. It's not merely an idea but an intrusive emotional assault.
"whispers in mine ear": Another potent metaphor, this represents insidious, quiet, and persuasive suggestion. The 'whisper' suggests a secret, intimate, and often unsettling message that bypasses rational thought, implying that jealousy works subtly and directly on one's private thoughts and fears. 'Mine ear' is an archaic form of 'my ear'.
Meaning: "Assaults my emotions with insistent presence and subtly instills ideas into my mind through quiet suggestions,"

Line 6: That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:

"if I love thee, I thy death should fear": 'Thee' and 'thy' are archaic forms of 'you' and 'your'. This is the specific, chilling premonition or warning that Jealousy imparts to Venus. It directly links Venus's profound love for Adonis to his potential demise, creating a powerful internal conflict and explicitly foreshadowing the tragic climax of the poem.
Meaning: "That if I truly love you, I ought to be afraid of your death."

🎭 Literary Devices

Device	Example	Effect
Personification	"This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy... This canker... This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy, / Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear"	Jealousy is given human attributes and actions (informing, spying, spreading tales, knocking, whispering). This makes the abstract concept of jealousy a tangible, active, and malevolent force, emphasizing its insidious and pervasive influence on Venus's emotional and psychological state. It also serves as a prophetic voice foreshadowing tragedy.
Metaphor	"This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring"	Compares Jealousy to a destructive disease or blight (canker) that consumes the delicate and nascent stage of love (tender spring). This highlights the corrosive and devastating nature of jealousy on budding affection.
Metaphor	"Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear"	Vividly portrays the invasive and intimate psychological impact of jealousy. "Knocks at my heart" signifies emotional distress and anxiety, while "whispers in mine ear" denotes the insidious and persuasive nature of doubt and fear entering one's private thoughts.
Anaphora	Repetition of "This" at the beginning of lines 1, 2, and 3: "This sour informer... / This canker... / This carry-tale..."	The repeated "This" creates a cumulative, emphatic description of Jealousy, building a sense of its oppressive and multifaceted presence. It reinforces the negative attributes and highlights the various ways this emotion manifests.
Antithesis	"That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring"	Juxtaposes opposing ideas (truth and falsehood) to underscore the deceptive and unreliable nature of jealousy. This makes it particularly insidious, as its mixture of truth with lies makes it harder to dismiss and more effectively manipulative.
Foreshadowing	"That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:"	The final line explicitly warns of Adonis's impending death, linking it directly to Venus's love. This creates dramatic irony for the reader, heightens tension, and reinforces the tragic trajectory of the poem, framing love as a potential source of sorrow and loss.

🎯 Overall Meaning & Significance in the Context of the Poem

This stanza represents a crucial turning point in Venus and Adonis, as Venus (the speaker) directly articulates her deepest fears and identifies the insidious force of Jealousy as their source. It moves beyond Venus's initial, almost purely physical, pursuit of Adonis to a more profound and unsettling psychological landscape.

Through the powerful personification of Jealousy as a "sour informer," "bate-breeding spy," "canker," and "carry-tale," Shakespeare effectively portrays its multifaceted, destructive, and invasive nature. The imagery of Jealousy "eating up Love’s tender spring" highlights its capacity to corrupt and destroy the nascent, delicate stage of affection, suggesting that even the purest beginnings of love are vulnerable to its insidious influence. The description of Jealousy's actions – "knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear" – vividly conveys the intense internal torment and the subtle, persuasive way in which it implants fear and doubt into Venus's mind.

The ultimate significance lies in the final line: "That if I love thee, I thy death should fear." This is a stark, prophetic warning that explicitly links Venus's intense, possessive love to Adonis's potential demise. It transforms love from a source of joy and beauty into a harbinger of sorrow and loss, aligning with the poem's broader themes of the dangerous, sometimes destructive aspects of passion, the transience of beauty, and the inevitability of death. This stanza establishes a sense of foreboding and tragic irony, as the reader knows Adonis's fate, underscoring the idea that even the most fervent love, especially when unreciprocated or obsessive, can lead to profound anxiety and ultimately, despair. It marks a shift in Venus's character from a purely desiring figure to one burdened by a dawning, fearful awareness of tragedy.