In William Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis, the Roman goddess who falls in love with Adonis is Venus.
Shakespeare based the narrative poem on the classical myth of Venus and Adonis, especially the version in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Venus, the goddess of love, becomes infatuated with the beautiful young hunter Adonis. Unlike many traditional love stories, Shakespeare reverses the expected pursuit: Venus actively courts Adonis, while he resists her advances.
Adonis prefers hunting to romance and dismisses Venus’s warnings about dangerous animals. He eventually hunts a wild boar and is killed. Venus mourns him, and from his blood grows the anemone flower, an image associated with grief and brief beauty.
The poem was first published in 1593 and dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. It was Shakespeare’s first published poem and became highly popular in his lifetime. It is distinct from Shakespeare’s later poem The Rape of Lucrece, which also draws on classical Roman material.