Other poets of the day had been interested in retelling in their own way old stories of Greek and Roman literature, and Shakespeare, in _Venus and Adonis_, was engaged in the same task. The outline of the poem is taken (either directly or through an imitation of previous borrowers) from the Latin poet Ovid,[2] who lived in the time of Christ. Venus, the goddess of love, is enamored of a beautiful boy, called Adonis, and tries in vain by every device to win his affection. He repulses all her advances, and finally runs away to go hunting, and is killed by a wild boar. Venus mourns over his dead body, and causes a flower (the anemone or wind flower) to spring from his blood. Shakespeare's handling of the story shows both the virtues and the defects of a young writer. It is more diffuse, more wordy, than his later work, and written for the taste of another time than ours; but, on the other hand, it is full of vivid, picturesque language of melodious rhythm, and of charming little touches of country life. Like most of Shakespeare's verse, it is written in iambic pentameter.[3] The poem is divided into stanzas {62} of six lines each, in which the first and third lines rime, the second and fourth, and the fifth and sixth. We represent this arrangement of rimes by saying that the rime scheme of the stanza is _a, b, a, b, c, c,_ where the same letter represents the same riming sound at the ends of lines. As a specimen stanza, the following, often quoted because of the vivid picture it presents, is given. It describes a mettlesome horse. "Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, (_a-) Round breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide, (_b-) High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, (_a_) Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: (_b_) Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, (_c_) Save a proud rider on so proud a back." (_c_) +The Rape of Lucrece+.--A year later, in 1594, when Shakespeare was thirty, he published another narrative poem, _The Rape of Lucrece_. The story of Lucrece had also come down from Ovid.[4] This poem is about 1800 lines in length. It tells the old legend, found at the beginning of all Roman histories, how Sextus Tarquin ravished Lucrece, the pure and beautiful wife of Collatine, one of the Roman nobles; how she killed herself rather than survive her shame; and how her husband and friends swore in revenge to dethrone the whole Tarquin family. This poem, as compared with _Venus and Adonis_, shows some traces of increasing maturity. The author does more serious and concentrated thinking as he writes. Whether or not it is a better poem is a question which every man must settle for himself. Its best passages are probably more impressive, its poorest ones more dull. {63}