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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 2: Lines 217-408.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Adonis planning to do when he is accosted by Venus?
(a) Pick flowers.
(b) Nap.
(c) Eat lunch.
(d) Hunt.

2. Which of the poem's motifs is most clearly illustrated by line 41, "Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust"?
(a) Adonis's unnatural lack of desire.
(b) The contrast between passion and virtue.
(c) The reversal of expected gender roles.
(d) The difference between lust and love.

3. Which is the best interpretation of "sick-thoughted Venus" in line 5?
(a) Venus is sick with love for Adonis.
(b) Venus's thoughts are unnatural.
(c) Venus cannot think clearly because she is ill.
(d) Venus's thoughts are evil.

4. To whom is Venus referring when she brags about being courted by the god of war?
(a) Jupiter.
(b) Apollo.
(c) Mercury.
(d) Mars.

5. What is Venus referring to when she tells Adonis that "The tender spring upon thy tempting lip/ Shows thee unripe" (lines 127-128)?
(a) The residue of her own tears.
(b) The sickly green shade of his skin.
(c) Beads of sweat.
(d) The beginnings of a mustache.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Venus mean when she says that the stallion stood "like a jade" when he was tied to the tree (line 391)?

2. Which technique is used in line 219, "Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong"?

3. Which techniques are used in lines 267-268, "The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds/ Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder"?

4. What techniques are used in lines 25 and 26, "With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,/ The precedent of pith and livelihood"?

5. What motif recurs throughout the description of the horse's courage and desire?

(see the answer key)

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