🌹 Stanza 52 - Literary Analysis

Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis

📖 Original Stanza

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind;    
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

🔍 Line-by-Line Analysis

Line 1: "He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;"

"He": Refers to the male horse, the stallion, driven by strong instinctual desire.
"his love": The object of his desire, the mare he wishes to mate with. This use of "love" personifies the animal interaction, giving it human emotional depth and suggesting a passionate connection.
"neighs unto her": The stallion's vocalization, a loud, high-pitched call, serving as a passionate courtship display directed towards ("unto") the mare. Shakespeare uses "unto" to emphasize the directness and purposeful nature of the call.
Meaning: The stallion gazes intently at the mare he desires and emits a loud, passionate neigh directed towards her.

Line 2: "She answers him as if she knew his mind;"

"She answers him": The mare responds to the stallion's call, indicating an acknowledgment of his presence and intentions.
"as if she knew his mind": This simile suggests an intuitive, almost telepathic understanding between the animals regarding the sexual advances. It implies that the mare is fully aware of his intentions, even without explicit communication, setting up her subsequent coy behavior as deliberate rather than ignorant.
Meaning: The mare responds to the stallion's call as if she perfectly understands his passionate intentions.

Line 3: "Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,"

"Being proud": The mare experiences a feeling of satisfaction, self-importance, or even vanity. It's an instinctive reaction to being desired and pursued.
"as females are": This is a significant generalization by the narrator, directly linking the mare's animal behavior to what is presented as a universal trait of human females. It frames the mare's coyness as typical female behavior, adding a layer of social commentary to the animal allegory.
"to see him woo her": To observe the stallion's efforts to court, persuade, or gain her affection. "Woo" emphasizes the persuasive, almost romantic aspect of the animal's courtship, drawing a direct parallel to Venus's attempts with Adonis.
Meaning: Feeling a sense of pride, as is characteristic of females, upon witnessing the stallion's earnest attempts to court her,

Line 4: "She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,"

"She puts on outward strangeness": The mare deliberately adopts an appearance of being unfamiliar, aloof, or disengaged. This is a feigned attitude, a pretense of indifference.
"seems unkind": She appears to be ungracious, harsh, or uncaring in her demeanor. This is part of the "playing hard to get" strategy, designed to test the suitor's resolve and increase her perceived value.
Meaning: She pretends to be aloof and distant, adopting an ungracious and uncaring demeanor.

Line 5: "Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,"

"Spurns at his love": She rejects his affection and advances contemptuously or with disdain, often by kicking or turning away sharply. "Spurns" implies a forceful, disdainful rejection.
"scorns the heat he feels": She treats with contempt or mocks the intense sexual passion and ardor he expresses. "Heat" is a common metaphorical term for strong desire or sexual arousal. Her "scorn" further emphasizes her feigned indifference and control.
Meaning: She contemptuously rejects his amorous advances and treats his intense sexual desire with disdain.

Line 6: "Beating his kind embracements with her heels."

"Beating": Refers to kicking or striking.
"his kind embracements": The stallion's gentle attempts to approach her for mating, to "embrace" her physically. "Kind" here denotes gentle, natural, or affectionate advances, highlighting the mare's active rejection of even gentle overtures.
"with her heels": She uses her hind legs to kick or ward off the stallion, a typical defensive or resistant action for a horse. This vivid physical detail underscores her active rejection and assertion of boundaries.
Meaning: She repels his gentle attempts to physically approach her by kicking him with her hind legs.

🎭 Literary Devices

Device	Example	Effect
Personification	"She answers him as if she knew his mind;" "Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,"	Attributes human understanding, emotions (pride), and intentional courtship behaviors (wooing, feigned unkindness) to the mare, deepening the parallel between the animal world and human interactions.
Simile	"as if she knew his mind;" "as females are"	Compares the mare's intuitive response to human intellectual comprehension and generalizes her behavior to a common human female trait. This explicitly connects the animal allegory to human societal observations.
Metaphor	"the heat he feels"	"Heat" serves as a vivid metaphor for intense sexual desire or passion, succinctly conveying the stallion's ardent state.
Allegory/Parallelism	The entire stanza's depiction of the mare's coy and resistant behavior	This detailed animal interaction serves as a direct allegorical parallel to Venus's attempts to woo Adonis, foreshadowing her struggle and highlighting the poem's themes of desire, rejection, and courtship strategies within both nature and human society.
Imagery	"neighs unto her," "puts on outward strangeness," "Beating his kind embracements with her heels."	Creates vivid sensory details (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) that bring the scene to life and make the animals' actions palpable and dynamic.
Irony (Dramatic)	"seems unkind" vs. "Being proud"	The mare's apparent unkindness and resistance are ironic because they mask an underlying pride and awareness of the stallion's intentions, which the reader understands. This highlights the performative nature of her courtship tactics.

🎯 Overall Meaning & Significance in the Context of the Poem

This stanza is pivotal in Venus and Adonis as it vividly portrays the mare's coy and resistant behavior in response to the stallion's passionate advances. This animal courtship serves as a powerful and explicit allegory for the central dynamic between Venus and Adonis. The narrator's direct commentary, "as females are," explicitly links the mare's tactics of "outward strangeness" and appearing "unkind" to common human female courtship rituals, where feigned disinterest is used to increase perceived value or test a suitor's dedication.

In the broader context of the poem, this stanza highlights several key themes:

The Nature of Desire and Courtship: It presents a natural, instinctual portrayal of sexual desire and the "game" of courtship. The mare's actions, while seemingly rejecting, are part of a natural process that ultimately leads to procreation. This stands in stark contrast to Adonis's "unnatural," unyielding chastity.
Gender Dynamics: The stanza reflects and reinforces prevailing Elizabethan notions of gender dynamics in courtship, where the female often employs strategies of resistance to assert control or enhance desirability. This mirrors Venus's own relentless, yet ultimately unsuccessful, pursuit of Adonis, despite her divine status.
Foreshadowing and Parallelism: The mare's initial resistance directly parallels Adonis's steadfast rejection of Venus. However, the crucial difference lies in the outcome: the mare's resistance is temporary and part of a natural, successful mating ritual (as implied by the stallion's eventual success later in the poem), whereas Adonis's rejection of Venus (and thus of procreative love) is absolute and leads to his demise, emphasizing the poem's celebration of natural desire and procreation over asceticism.
Nature vs. Unnaturalness: The natural, albeit performative, behavior of the animals is implicitly contrasted with Adonis's "unnatural" aversion to love and procreation. This stanza, with its depiction of complex but ultimately fulfilling animal instinct, serves as a didactic example that Adonis fails to heed, contributing to the poem's underlying message about the necessity of embracing natural desires for the continuation of life.

Ultimately, stanza 52 deepens the poem's exploration of love, desire, and rejection, using the animal world as a mirror to illuminate the complexities and consequences of human behavior within these powerful themes, subtly critiquing artificial societal norms that might hinder natural inclinations.