Character guide

Adonis

major

Also known as young Adonis, Anon Adonis, Anon, Adon

A rose-cheeked young hunter who loves the chase but laughs love to scorn, until the goddess of desire decides he will be her quarry instead.

Venus

major

Also known as XI Venus

The goddess of love, sick-thoughted and bold-faced, who plucks a blushing boy from his horse and pleads, kisses, and lectures him toward a passion he refuses to feel.

Lucrece

major

Also known as Poor Lucrece, sweet Lucrece, Lucretia, Harmless Lucretia

A Roman wife whose beauty and virtue are praised so recklessly by her husband that a prince rides to Collatium to test the treasure for himself.

Tarquin

major

Also known as Lust - breathed Tarquin, Lust, Enchanted Tarquin, Sextus Tarquinius, Lucius Tarquinius

The king's son who leaves the siege of Ardea bearing a lightless fire, inflamed by another man's praise of a chaste wife he means to make unchaste.

Collatine

supporting

Also known as quoth Collatine

Lucrece's husband, whose proud tongue unlocks the treasure of his happy state in Tarquin's tent and sets a bateless edge on his guest's keen appetite.

Collatinus

supporting

The Roman nobleman whose wager on his wife's incomparable chastity wins him the victory at supper and, unknowingly, invites the ruin of everything he boasts.

Junius Brutus

supporting

Also known as Brutus

Brutus moves through the poem's world as a Roman lord whose name carries the weight of future history, present at the deathbed oath where Lucrece's body becomes a rallying cry. His defining tension is between the restraint expected of a nobleman and the volcanic anger he unleashes when he exposes the crime to the Roman people. He matters because he converts one woman's tragedy into a political uprising, giving the poem its turn from intimate lament toward the overthrow of kings.

Lucretius

supporting

Also known as old Lucretius, quoth Lucretius

Lucretius arrives at Collatium as the grieving patriarch, the man whose paternal love makes Lucrece's violation a wound to his own blood and name. His tension lies in the unbearable position of a father who can neither prevent nor avenge his daughter's death, only witness it and clutch at her body. He matters to the poem's middle arc because his lament amplifies the private cost of Tarquin's crime, turning Lucrece's fall into a family's devastation before Brutus channels it into revolt.

Sinon

minor

A Greek who tricked Troy with the wooden horse, used as a metaphor by Lucrece.

Priam

minor

The slain king of Troy, referenced in Lucrece's lament.

Philomela

minor

Also known as Philomel

A mythological figure who was raped and transformed into a nightingale, invoked by Lucrece.

Cupid

minor

The god of love, appearing in Venus and Adonis.

Jove

minor

Also known as O Jove

The king of the gods, invoked by characters in distress.

Fortune

minor

Also known as frowning Fortune, fickle Fortune

The personified goddess of luck, blamed for misfortunes.

Death

minor

Personified figure of mortality, addressed by Lucrece.

Time

minor

Personified force of change and decay, referenced in the sonnets.

Muse

minor

The poetic muse, invoked in the sonnets.

Love

minor

Personified love, a central theme in the sonnets.

Youth

minor

Personified youth, addressed in the sonnets as a fleeting beauty.

William Shakespeare

minor

Also known as Shakespeare

The author, mentioned in the endnotes or dedication.

King Pandion

minor

Father of Philomela and Procne in Greek myth, mentioned briefly.

Poor Corydon

minor

A shepherd figure from pastoral poetry, referenced in The Passionate Pilgrim.

Pyrrhus

minor

A Greek warrior who killed Priam, depicted in Lucrece's painting.

Nestor

minor

A wise Greek elder from the Trojan War, mentioned in passing.

Narcissus

minor

A youth who fell in love with his own reflection, referenced in the poem.

Tereus

minor

Also known as Tereus descant'st

A mythological king who raped Philomela, referenced in the poem.

Hector

minor

Also known as bold Hector, manly Hector

A Trojan prince and warrior, mentioned in Lucrece's tapestry.

Ulysses

minor

A Greek hero of the Trojan War, referenced in the poem.

Cynthia

minor

A name for the moon goddess Diana, referenced in the sonnets.