The heraldic emblem of the Earls of Oxford for centuries was a Blue Boar, standing proudly atop their Coat of Arms. Henry Peacham in Minerva Britanna of 1612 included the image of a Boar with accompanying verse that pointed to the story of Venus and Adonis in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and — given Peacham’s demonstrated knowledge of both Edward de Vere and Shakespeare — also to both the Poem and the Poet of Venus and Adonis of 1593:
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