Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Venus Verticordia

VENUS VERTICORDIA
SHE hath the apple in her hand for thee,
Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
She muses, with her eyes upon the track
Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
Haply, "Behold, he is at peace," saith she;

apple and dart

Venus offers the apple of desire, but it comes with Cupid's dart—the pain that follows pleasure. The fruit is foreplay for the wound.

"Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart
That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—
The wandering of his feet perpetually!"
A little space her glance is still and coy,
But if she give the fruit that works her spell,
Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.

Phrygian boy

Anchises, the Trojan prince Venus seduced. When she gives the apple, her eyes will burn with that same destructive passion that led to Troy's fall.

bird's strained throat

The dove, Venus's sacred bird. Its strained cry prophesies the suffering that follows her gift—love as catastrophe.

Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell,
And her far seas moan as a single shell,
And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.

light of Troy

Troy burning. Venus's seduction of Anchises set in motion the war—her love literally brings fire and destruction.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Venus Verticordia: The Turner of Hearts

Verticordia means "turner of hearts"—the Roman cult title for Venus as the goddess who turns hearts from lust to chastity. Rossetti inverts this completely. His Venus doesn't cure desire; she *is* desire, and she's hesitating because she knows what her gift will cost.

The poem describes Rossetti's 1868 painting of the same name, where Venus holds an apple (symbol of temptation, Paris's judgment, the Fall) and an arrow (Cupid's weapon). The painting shows her at the moment of decision—she "almost in her heart would hold it back" because she can see the future in the viewer's spirit. She knows the apple brings "brief sweetness" followed by "the dart" and "wandering...perpetually."

CONTEXT Rossetti painted this after his wife Elizabeth Siddal's suicide and during his affair with Jane Morris, wife of his friend William. The poem reads like a meditation on destructive desire—Venus hesitates not from mercy but from knowledge. She's done this before with her "Phrygian boy" Anchises, and that affair led to Aeneas, the Trojan War, and the burning of Troy. Her love doesn't redeem; it destroys civilizations.

The Machinery of Catastrophe

The sestet (final six lines) moves from hesitation to cosmic disaster in three precise steps. First, her "glance is still and coy"—the moment before decision. Then "if she give the fruit" triggers the catastrophe: her eyes "flame" with the same passion that seduced Anchises, her dove's "strained throat" cries out the prophecy, her seas "moan as a single shell" (all of nature lamenting as one voice), and finally "the light of Troy"—the burning city, love as literal fire.

Notice Rossetti's word choice: the light doesn't *illuminate* Troy, it "strike[s]" through her grove like a weapon. Even the landscape is violent. The "dark grove" (Venus's sacred space) becomes the site of destruction. The poem ends not with union but with war.

The sonnet form itself enacts the trap. The octave (first eight lines) circles around Venus's hesitation, her knowledge, his peace. Then the sestet springs shut—six lines of inevitable doom once she makes her choice. The form mirrors the content: desire as a beautiful trap that snaps closed.