Shakespeare's ambiguous lubricity in Venus is less disturbing than the bleakly moral emphasis of Lucrece$$$ where virtue is so low-spirited$$$ its exclamation so lachrymose and its justification the nasty realpolitik of Roman Republicanism. The sun has no

Shakespeare's ambiguous lubricity in Venus is less disturbing than the bleakly moral emphasis of Lucrece$$$ where virtue is so low-spirited$$$ its exclamation so lachrymose and its justification the nasty realpolitik of Roman Republicanism. The sun has not dried the dew on the grass in Venus$$$ but the ill-lit world of Livy's Rome darkens Lucrece. The first poem lives out of doors; the second is in a permanent chiaroscuro.