Note to The Taming of the Shrew, I.2.51: "Cytherea all in sedges hid"


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The Taming of the Shrew,
Induction, Scene 2, line 51.

Cytherea all in sedges hid: —"Cytherea" is another name for Venus. Here Shakespeare seems to imagine that there is a painting of Venus hiding in the sedges of a pool, so that she can see Adonis bathe. In Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis there is no such incident, but he could have picked up the idea from the story that Ovid tells of the pursuit of Hermaphroditus by the water nymph Salmacis (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Bk IV:317-345 Salmacis falls for Hermaphroditus).



The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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