Description
A youthful inhabitant of the woodlands of mythical Arcadia in ancient Greece has dozed off after the exertions of the hunt. At his feet are his hunting dog and his catch, a dead boar. This lyrical piece is of a type inspired by the pastoral poetry of Greek and Roman antiquity revived during the Renaissance that described an idyllic existence in an idealized landscape inhabited by nymphs and shepherds. In "The Metamorphoses" by the Roman writer Ovid (43 BC-AD 17), Adonis was a handsome, mortal youth, renowned for his courage as a hunter of wild boar and beloved by Venus. Venus urged her lover not to hunt such a ferocious animal, but he dismissed her concerns, only to be killed by one shortly thereafter.
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