71. rank. Often applied to an overflowing river. Cf. King John, V. iv. 54.
82. Till he take truce with her contending tears. Till he cease to resist the assault of tears.
86. dive-dapper. A small water-fowl of the Grebe kind, also called dab-chick or dip-chick.
104. uncontrolled crest. The crest was properly the feathers on the top of a helmet, here used for the helmet itself. Shakespeare means that Mars had never bowed his head before a victorious enemy.
129–132. Make . . . time. Cf. Ovid, Ars Am., III, 59–80.
130. Beauty . . . wasted. Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, I–VI.
158. Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left. A way of saying that Adonis is in love with himself.
161. Narcissus. Shakespeare’s Adonis has several traits in common with Narcissus.
197, 198. And were . . . sun. If Venus were not immortal, she would be consumed between the heavenly fire (the sun) and the earthly fire (Adonis).
203, 204. O, had . . . unkind. An allusion to Myrrha, Adonis’s mother. Cf. Appendix A, p. 172.
231. deer. A play upon the words ‘deer’ and ‘dear.’
235. relief. Not ‘food,’ as is generally explained, but ‘relievo,’ said in topography of all prominence above the ground plan. Cf., further, ‘bottom-grass,’ ‘plain,’ ‘hillocks.’ It was a common-place metaphor in Shakespeare’s time.
240. rouse. I.e. ‘drive from cover.’ A term used in venery, generally applied to the hart or the deer. But Shakespeare loosely uses it for sundry sorts of animals, and even for the owl (cf. Twelfth Night, II. iii. 60).
247. Caves. I.e. the dimples on Adonis’s cheeks.
259–262. Shakespeare may have derived the idea of this passage from Ovid, Ars Am., II, 487–488: ‘In
