Summary
Venus awakens after Adonis kisses her, and immediately begins asking for more affection from him.
He once again tells her that he is too young, and begs her to let him go. He tells her if she lets him leave, he will kiss her again.
Venus agrees, but when Adonis leans down to kiss her, she leaps onto him and tackles him to the ground once more. When she realizes that Adonis is once again frowning and looking at her with contempt, she resolves to stop trying to detain him.
Venus asks Adonis if they can meet again tomorrow, and he says no because he and his friends are planning to hunt the wild boar.
Venus has a visible reaction, going pale and beginning to shudder. She tells Adonis that she cannot let him go to hunt the boar, because she knows the boar is very dangerous and will likely kill him. Venus has had a premonition of Adonis's blood being spilled over the flowers in the woods, and she entreats Adonis not to go.
She goes on to describe the cunning way the boar isolates hunters from their hounds and kills them. She begs Adonis to hunt something else instead, and tells him not to leave his hounds.
Venus attempts to detain Adonis longer to share more about the horrors of the boar, but Adonis announces that his friends are waiting for him.
Analysis
This section of the poem features a slight shift in the behaviors of both Venus and Adonis. Rather than continue to argue and fight with one another, they begin to understand the desires of the other, if only temporarily.
Though Adonis still maintains that he is too young for Venus's advances, he realizes that he can use her obsession with him to his advantage and baits her with another kiss if she will let him go. He is true to his word, and this moment suggests that he has begun to acknowledge Venus's desire as legitimate and all-encompassing.
Venus, similarly, comes to recognize Adonis's disinterest as truthful. When she embraces him once more, the narrator says, "For pity now she can no more detain him; / The poor fool prays her that he may depart. / She is resolved no longer to restrain him, / Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart" (577-580). This moment is significant because it is the first time that Venus has willingly let Adonis go; she has finally disposed with her seduction plot and forceful restraint and instead asks Adonis if they can meet again the next day.
While these behaviors on the part of each character are only temporary shifts in their perspectives – they return to their argumentation shortly after – they still suggest how both Venus and Adonis come to understand and respect the other's desires.
One could even argue that this shift is not temporary at all, for when they resume their argumentation it is through an entirely new lens. It is only when Venus finds out that Adonis has plans to hunt the boar that she restrains him once again, pleading with him not to go on the hunt. While it may seem that Venus has returned to her reliance on force and coercion, her new need to detain Adonis stems not from her desire for him but instead from her desire to keep him safe. She spends 21 stanzas describing the grotesque image of the boar and explaining in great detail how he tricks hunters and makes them vulnerable to attack. Rather than spend time trying to convince Adonis to kiss her, then, Venus is instead focused on simply keeping him from going on the hunt that she is sure will kill him.
The narrative introduces the concept of Adonis's vulnerability in order to show how Venus's feelings for Adonis are so far-reaching that she cannot bear to leave him unprotected. Her reaction to his announcement that he is going to hunt the boar showcases, once again, Venus's desire to control and manipulate the mortal world – something she is ultimately unable to do, revealing the limitations of her power.
