# Poetry — Character guide

> Key figures in Poetry by William Shakespeare.

- [Adonis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/adonis.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/venus.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/lucrece.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/tarquin.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/collatine.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/collatinus.md): 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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/brutus.md): 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 restrai
- [Lucretius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/lucretius.md): 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 p
- [Sinon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/sinon.md): A Greek who tricked Troy with the wooden horse, used as a metaphor by Lucrece.
- [Priam](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/priam.md): The slain king of Troy, referenced in Lucrece's lament.
- [Philomela](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/philomela.md): A mythological figure who was raped and transformed into a nightingale, invoked by Lucrece.
- [Cupid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/cupid.md): The god of love, appearing in Venus and Adonis.
- [Jove](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/jove.md): The king of the gods, invoked by characters in distress.
- [Fortune](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/fortune.md): The personified goddess of luck, blamed for misfortunes.
- [Death](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/death.md): Personified figure of mortality, addressed by Lucrece.
- [Time](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/time.md): Personified force of change and decay, referenced in the sonnets.
- [Muse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/muse.md): The poetic muse, invoked in the sonnets.
- [Love](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/love.md): Personified love, a central theme in the sonnets.
- [Youth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/youth.md): Personified youth, addressed in the sonnets as a fleeting beauty.
- [William Shakespeare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/william_shakespeare.md): The author, mentioned in the endnotes or dedication.
- [King Pandion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/pandion.md): Father of Philomela and Procne in Greek myth, mentioned briefly.
- [Poor Corydon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/corydon.md): A shepherd figure from pastoral poetry, referenced in The Passionate Pilgrim.
- [Pyrrhus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/pyrrhus.md): A Greek warrior who killed Priam, depicted in Lucrece's painting.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters