1. Henry Willobie, Willobie his Avisa (London, 1594), sig. A4. Canto XLIIII of Willobie his Avisa refers to Willobie’s ‘familiar friend W. S.’, described as an ’old player’ in the ’loving Comedy’ of desire: while C. M. Ingleby conjectures that Willobie refers here to Shakespeare this cannot be confirmed with any certainty (Shakspere Allusion-Book, vol. 1, p. 13);
2. Mark Rasmussen, ‘Shakespeare My Godfather: William Davenant and the “Pre-Queer” Bard’, unpubl. paper. All references to Lucrece are to Shakespeare, The Poems, ed. John Roe (New Cambridge Shakespeare; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992 ).
3. John Weever, ‘Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare’, in Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion (London, 1599 );
4. Richard Barnfield, ‘A Remembrance of some English Poets’, Poems in Divers Humors (London, 1598), sig. E2v;
5. Thomas Freeman, ‘To Master W. Shakespeare’, epigram 92 in Runne, and a Great Cast. The Second Bowle (London, 1614), sig. K2v (cited in Shakspere Allusion-Book, vol. 1, pp. 24, 51 and 245). Another possible allusion to Shakespeare’s Lucrece - again paired with a reference to Venus and Adonis — clearly points the finger of blame at Tarquin: ‘Tarquine laid a balte,/With foule incest [Lucrece’s] bodie to defile’ (John Lane, Tom Tel-Troths Message, and his Pens Complaint, 1600, p. 43; cited in Shakspere Allusion-Book, vol. 1, p. 71 )