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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Venus compared to when she hears the sound of the hunting dogs baying?
(a) A soldier deserting the battlefield.
(b) Someone who sees a poisonous snake.
(c) A lamp brighter than the sun himself.
(d) A doe rushing to feed her fawn.

2. In line 1043, what is the speaker comparing to "a king perplexed in his throne"?
(a) Adonis's stallion.
(b) Venus's brain.
(c) The boar.
(d) Death.

3. To what does Venus compare the fear of a person in love?
(a) The fear of a monarch whose castle is besieged by enemies.
(b) The fear of a person carrying treasure who is surrounded by thieves.
(c) The fear of a mother holding a newborn during a rising flood.
(d) The fear of a shepherd seeing his flock beset by wolves.

4. What does Venus tell Adonis is usually unlike her?
(a) Physically restraining someone.
(b) Lecturing someone.
(c) Fainting from fear.
(d) Making a pass at a stranger.

5. Which is the most reasonable interpretation of Venus's motives as she describes hunting a rabbit?
(a) She intends to make it sound as exciting as hunting a boar.
(b) She intends to illustrate how knowledgeable she is about hunting.
(c) She intends to show Adonis how sympathetic she is toward prey animals.
(d) She intends to shame Adonis into choosing to hunt rabbit instead of boar.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does line 972 compare to "many clouds consulting for foul weather"?

2. To whose dismayed surprise does the speaker compare Venus's astonishment when Adonis leaves her?

3. In lines 896 and 897, "Till cheering up her senses sore dismay’d,/ She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy," what is the antecedent of "them"?

4. What are the various forms of repetition in lines 833 and 834, "'Ay me!' she cries, and twenty times, 'Woe, woe!'/ And twenty echoes twenty times cry so," meant to convey?

5. In line 1032, whose eyes does the speaker compare to "stars asham’d of day"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the pun in lines 827 and 828, when after Adonis leaves, the speaker says of Venus, "Even so confounded in the dark she lay,/ Having lost the fair discovery of her way."

2. Describe the details of Venus's vision of Adonis and the boar.

3. What is conveyed by the personification and the simile in the passage where Venus runs through the brush toward the sounds of Adonis's hunting party?

4. What criticism does the speaker make of lovers' stories?

5. What is ironic about the description of the colors around the boar's mouth?

6. How does Venus contrast the behavior of fish and birds with the behavior of the boar?

7. What does Venus suggest Adonis do if he insists on hunting on the following day?

8. What does Venus tell Adonis about the relationship between jealousy and her foreboding?

9. Why does Venus say that nature should be convicted of treason, and what is Cynthia's plan to thwart what nature has done?

10. What happens to Venus's eyes when she first sees Adonis's dead body?

(see the answer keys)

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