Venus and Adonis

"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!

O, never let their crimson liveries wear!

And as they last, their verdure still endure,

To drive infection from the dangerous year!

That the star-gazers, having writ on death,

May say, the plague is banish'd by thy breath."

This poem appears in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis epics.

It seems that it was written in the 16th century when there was pest, the plague which was an outbreak of serious infections as in the present world.

The story of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis derives from Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso, who is said to be the first poet of imperial Rome in BC. That story is a sad story about the blooming of Adonis-anemone flowers from his shed blood because Adonis went hunting and was torn by a boar horn and lost his life without accepting Venus's advice.

The flower language of red anemones is, '' I will love you''.

It's nice.