PART FIRST

Achilles.-LLL 5. 2. 635; Lucr. 1424; H6B 5. 1. 100; Troil. passim.

Outside of Troil. Achilles is mentioned only three times. In LLL he is the antagonist of Hector. In Lucr. he is one of the figures in the painting of Troy, and his spear is mentioned. In H6B the spear is mentioned in more detail:

That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,
Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,

Is able with the change to kill and cure.

King Telephus was wounded by Achilles' spear and learned from the oracle that he could only be cured by him who had inflicted the wound. This Achilles accomplished by some of the rust from his spear. The primary authority for this story is Dictys Cretensis 2. 10; but it is alluded to several times by Ovid: Met. 12. 112; Trist. 5. 2. 15; Pont. 2. 2. 26. In Met. 13. 171-72 we read ‘Ego Telephon hasta Pugnantem domui, victum orantemque refeci.' This Golding renders (p. 162b):

I did wound

King Teleph with his speare, and when he lay uppon the ground,
I was intreated with the speare too heale him safe and sound.

In Troil. he is a brave and mighty warrior, but excessively proud. Agamemnon says that he is 'in self-assumption greater than in. the note of judgment,' 2. 3. 133. He is called 'broad Achilles' in 1. 3. 190. Caxton says of him, P. 541, 'Achilles was of right grete beaulte/ blonke heeris & cryspe graye eyen and grete/ of Amyable sighte/ large brestes & brode sholdres grete Armes/ his raynes hyghe

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Aynowh/an hyghe man of grete stature/ and had no pareyll ne like to hym amonge alle the grekes/ desiryng to fighte/ large in yeftes and outerageous in dispense.' His pride could have been learned from Chapman's Homer. From the same source would come the fact several times mentioned in the play that he is son of Thetis. The phrase 'great Thetis' son,' 3. 3. 94, is to be found verbatim in Chapman II. 7 (p. 98). The main features of his action in Troil. are taken from Caxton.

The Myrmidons are mentioned in the nonsense of the clown, Feste, in Tw. 2. 3. 29. The name occurs in Caxton and Homer.

Acteon.-Wiv. 2. 1. 122; 3. 2. 44; Tw. I. 1. 22; Tit. 2. 3. 63, 70-71.

The story of Acteon is told at length in Met. 3. 138-252. That Shakespeare had read this passage in Golding's translation is proved by Pistol's comparing Master Ford to 'Sir Acteon, with Ringwood at his heels' (Wiv. 2. 1. 122). Ovid gives the names of all Acteon's hounds. The last in the list is Hylactor (1. 224). Golding substitutes English dog-names throughout, and 'Hylactor' is represented by 'Ringwood.' As the last in a long list, it would have the best chance of sticking in the reader's memory.

In the first two and the last of the passages cited above, the myth becomes a variation of the ever-recurring horn joke.

A more pleasing adaptation is that of Tw. 1. 1. 22, where
Duke Orsino says:

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence.
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.

The conceit may have been borrowed from the fifth sonnet
of Daniel's Delia (1592).

Adoms-Ven; Pass Pig. 4; 6; 9; Shr. Ind. 2. 52; Sonn. 53. 5; Het Laa

The sources of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis have been wei demonstrated by Thomas Baynes in an article aled at Shakespeare learned at School, Fraser's Mag. New Series) 21. 629-632. After carefully examining the ground. I am able to add only one or two additional proofs at the correctness of his conclusions.

Shakespeare's story combines two of Ovid's fables: that of Venus and Adonis, Met. 10. 519-559, 705-739, and that of Samacts and Hermaphrodite, Met. 4. 285-388. In the first at these tables only the outline of the story is given. Venus, accently wounded by Cupid's arrow, falls in love with me do Adonis, and, in her pursuit of him, adopts the garb

Diana and hunts the less dangerous beasts. She counsels Azons to avoid boars, wolves, bears, and lions. She especally detests the boar. Adonis asks why. They recline sue by side under the shade of a poplar, while she tells him the story of Atalanta (II. 560-704). After the warning she departs Adonis hunts the boar and is killed. Venus, recurning, mourns over him, and has him metamorphosed nto the anemone. Of the bashfulness and persistent coldyess of Adonis there is no hint. For this the story of Salmacis is unquestionably the source.

That Shakespeare had before him the passage in Met. 10 is proved by the following cases of imitation:

Sic ait, ac mediis interserit oscula verbis.

with which of. Ven. 47, 54, 59.

Met. 10. 559.

Non movet ætas

Nec facies nec quæ Venerem movere, leones

Frogerosque sues, oculosque animosque ferarum.

wh which cf. Ven. 631-632.

Met. 10. 547-549

Tutaque animalia prædæ,

Aat pronos lepores, aut celsum in cornua cervum,

Aat agitat dammas.

Met. 10. 537-539