🌹 Stanza 193 - Literary Analysis

Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis

📖 Original Stanza

'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just;        
Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,
Put fear to velour, courage to the coward.

🔍 Line-by-Line Analysis

Line 1: "'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;"

"It shall suspect": Love will be suspicious, love will be distrustful. Love will create paranoia and doubt.
"where is no cause of fear": In situations where there's no reason for worry. Love will create unfounded suspicion.
Meaning: "Love will be suspicious when there's no reason to fear;"

Line 2: "It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;"

"It shall not fear": Love will not be afraid, love will be recklessly confident. It will lack proper caution.
"where it should most mistrust": In situations where suspicion is justified and necessary. When wariness is actually needed.
Meaning: "Love will not be afraid when it should be most suspicious;"

Line 3: "It shall be merciful, and too severe,"

"It shall be merciful": Love will be forgiving, compassionate, lenient. It will show excessive kindness.
"and too severe": And also excessively harsh, extremely strict. The same love will be cruel.
Meaning: "Love will be both merciful and excessively harsh,"

Line 4: "And most deceiving when it seems most just;"

"And most deceiving": And most dishonest, most fraudulent. Love will be at its most treacherous.
"when it seems most just": When it appears most fair and righteous. When love looks most honest and proper.
Meaning: "And most deceptive when it appears most righteous;"

Line 5: "Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,"

"Perverse it shall be": Love will be contrary, stubborn, wrongheaded. It will act against reason and nature.
"where it shows most toward": Where it appears most compliant and agreeable. When love seems most cooperative.
Meaning: "Love will be most perverse when it seems most agreeable,"

Line 6: "Put fear to velour, courage to the coward."

"Put fear to velour": Give fear to the brave, make courageous people afraid. Love will terrify the bold.
"courage to the coward": Give bravery to the timid. Love will make cowards bold.
Meaning: "Give fear to the brave, and courage to cowards."

🎭 Literary Devices

Device	Example	Effect
Paradox	"suspect where is no cause" vs. "not fear where it should"	Shows love's irrational judgment
Oxymoron	"merciful, and too severe"	Presents love as containing contradictory qualities
Dramatic Irony	"most deceiving when it seems most just"	Shows love's deceptive appearance
Chiasmus	Fear to brave, courage to coward	Creates balanced reversal of natural order
Perversity Theme	Love acting opposite to logic	Emphasizes love's contrary nature
Alliteration	"fear to velour"	Creates rhythmic emphasis
Absolute Language	"most deceiving," "most just"	Emphasizes extremes of love's contradictions
Behavioral Inversion	Every quality paired with its opposite	Shows comprehensive disruption of natural order

🎯 Overall Meaning & Significance in the Context of the Poem

This stanza continues Venus's curse by detailing love's capacity for misjudgment and perversity, showing how it will make people act contrary to wisdom and their own natures.

The Failure of Judgment: Love will make people "suspect where is no cause of fear" while failing to "fear where it should most mistrust." This shows love destroying practical wisdom and sound judgment.

The Paradox of Justice: Love will be "most deceiving when it seems most just," suggesting that love's apparent righteousness is actually its most dangerous deception. When love appears most moral, it's actually most corrupt.

Simultaneous Contradictions: Love will be both "merciful, and too severe," showing that it won't alternate between extremes but will somehow embody contradictory qualities simultaneously.

The Perversity Principle: "Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward" indicates that love will be most contrary precisely when it appears most cooperative, making it impossible to predict or trust.

Courage and Cowardice Reversal: Love will "put fear to velour, courage to the coward," completely inverting natural bravery. Those who should be bold will become timid, while the naturally timid will become recklessly brave.

The Impossibility of Wisdom in Love: Venus's curse makes it impossible to navigate love wisely because love will invert all normal rules of prudence and judgment.

Universal Misjudgment: This stanza suggests that love will make accurate assessment impossible—people will fear the wrong things and trust what they should fear.

The End of Reliable Character: By making the brave fearful and cowards brave, love eliminates the reliability of character traits, making human nature unpredictable.

Love as Cosmic Confusion: Venus presents love as a force that will make universal confusion by ensuring that people's responses are always inappropriate to their situations.

The Curse of Inappropriate Response: Love will ensure that emotional and behavioral responses are always mismatched to circumstances, creating universal social and personal chaos.

This stanza shows Venus cursing humanity with a love that makes sound judgment impossible, ensuring that lovers will always respond inappropriately to their circumstances and be most deceived when they feel most certain.