The conceit of this Idillion is very delicate. Wherein it is imagined how VENUS did send for the Boar who in hunting slew ADONIS, a dainty youth whom she loved: and how the Boar answering for himself that he slew him against his will, as being enamoured on him, and thinking only to kiss his naked thigh; she forgave him. The Poet's drift is to shew the power of Love, not only in men, but also in brute beasts: although in the last two verses, by the burning of the Boar's amorous teeth, he intimateth that extravagant and unorderly passions are to be restrained by reason. _ADONIS._ WHEN VENUS first did see ADONIS dead to be; With woeful tattered hair And cheeks so wan and sear, The wingèd Loves she bade, The Boar should straight be had. Forthwith like birds they fly, And through the wood they hie; The woeful beast they find, And him with cords they bind. One with a rope before Doth lead the captive Boar: Another on his back Doth make his bow to crack. The beast went wretchedly, For VENUS horribly He feared; who thus him curst: "Of all the beasts the worst, Didst thou this thigh so wound? Didst thou my Love confound?" The beast thus spake in fear "VENUS, to thee I swear! By thee, and husband thine, And by these bands of mine, And by these hunters all, Thy husband fair and tall, I mindèd not to kill! But, as an image still, I him beheld for love: Which made me forward shove His thigh, that naked was; Thinking to kiss, alas, And that hath hurt me thus. "Wherefore these teeth, VENUS! Or punish, or cut out: Why bear I in my snout These needless teeth about! If these may not suffice; Cut off my chaps likewise!" To ruth he VENUS moves, And she commands the Loves, His bands for to untie. After he came not nigh The wood; but at her will He followed VENUS still. And coming to the fire, He burnt up his desire. Emblem. _Raris forma viris, secula prospice, Impunita fuit._ FINIS. The Spoil of Antwerp. _Faithfully reported by a true Englishman, who was present at the same._ November 1576. _Seen and allowed._ Printed at London by RICHARD JONES. [The first thing here is to settle the authorship of this anonymous tract; which was also anonymously entered at Stationers' Hall, probably from political reasons. From internal evidence at pp. 149, 155, 161, it is clear that the Writer was _not_ one of the Fellowship of the English Merchant Adventurers in Antwerp; but was an Englishman who had arrived in that city on the 22nd October 1576. Who this Writer was would seem to be clearly settled by the following extracts from documents in the State Paper Office, London. S. P. _Foreign. Eliz._ Vols. 139-140. 915. _GEORGE GASCOIGNE to Lord BURGHLEY_. From Paris, 15 September 1576.