“No, no,” quoth she, “sweet death, I did but jest; Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast, Which knows no pity, but is still severe; 1000 Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess— I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease. “’Tis not my fault, the boar provok’d my tongue; Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander; 1004 ’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong; I did but act, he’s author of my slander. Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet, Could rule them both, without ten women’s wit.” Thus hoping that Adonis is alive, 1009 Her rash suspect she doth extenuate; And that his beauty may the better thrive, With death she humbly doth insinuate; 1012 Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs and stories His victories, his triumphs and his glories. “O love!” quoth she, “how much a fool was I, To be of such a weak and silly mind, 1016 To wail his death who lives, and must not die Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind; For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, And beauty dead, black Chaos comes again. 1020 “Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves, Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear, Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.” 1024 Even at this word she hears a merry horn, Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn. As falcon to the lure, away she flies; The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light, 1028 And in her haste unfortunately spies The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight; Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view, Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew. Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit, 1033 Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain, And there all smother’d up, in shade doth sit, Long after fearing to creep forth again: 1036 So at his bloody view her eyes are fled Into the deep dark cabins of her head. Where they resign their office and their light To the disposing of her troubled brain, 1040 Who bids them still consort with ugly night, And never wound the heart with looks again; Who like a king perplexed in his throne, By their suggestion gives a deadly groan. 1044 Whereat each tributary subject quakes, As when the wind imprison’d in the ground, Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes, Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound. This mutiny each part doth so surprise 1049 That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes. And being open’d, threw unwilling light Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d In his soft flank, whose wonted lily white 1053 With purple tears that his wound wept, was drench’d. No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf or weed, But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.