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The Rape Of Lucrece

  1. 1 From the besieged Ardea all in post,
  2. 2 Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
  3. 3 Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
  4. 4 And to Collatium bears the lightless fire,
  5. 5 Which in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
  6. 6 And girdle with embracing flames the waist
  7. 7 Of Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste.
  1. 8 Haply that name of “chaste” unhapp’ly set
  2. 9 This bateless edge on his keen appetite,
  3. 10 When Collatine unwisely did not let
  4. 11 To praise the clear unmatched red and white
  5. 12 Which triumphed in that sky of his delight;
  6. 13 Where mortal stars as bright as heaven’s beauties,
  7. 14 With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.
  1. 15 For he the night before, in Tarquin’s tent
  2. 16 Unlocked the treasure of his happy state,
  3. 17 What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
  4. 18 In the possession of his beauteous mate;
  5. 19 Reck’ning his fortune at such high proud rate
  6. 20 That kings might be espoused to more fame,
  7. 21 But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.
  1. 22 O happiness enjoyed but of a few,
  2. 23 And, if possessed, as soon decayed and done
  3. 24 As is the morning’s silver melting dew
  4. 25 Against the golden splendour of the sun!
  5. 26 An expired date, cancelled ere well begun.
  6. 27 Honour and beauty in the owner’s arms,
  7. 28 Are weakly fortressed from a world of harms.
  1. 29 Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
  2. 30 The eyes of men without an orator;
  3. 31 What needeth then apologies be made,
  4. 32 To set forth that which is so singular?
  5. 33 Or why is Collatine the publisher
  6. 34 Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
  7. 35 From thievish ears, because it is his own?
  1. 36 Perchance his boast of Lucrece’ sov’reignty
  2. 37 Suggested this proud issue of a king;
  3. 38 For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be.
  4. 39 Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
  5. 40 Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
  6. 41 His high-pitched thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
  7. 42 That golden hap which their superiors want.
  1. 43 But some untimely thought did instigate
  2. 44 His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those;
  3. 45 His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,
  4. 46 Neglected all, with swift intent he goes
  5. 47 To quench the coal which in his liver glows.
  6. 48 O rash false heat, wrapped in repentant cold,
  7. 49 Thy hasty spring still blasts and ne’er grows old!
  1. 50 When at Collatium this false lord arrived,
  2. 51 Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame,
  3. 52 Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
  4. 53 Which of them both should underprop her fame.
  5. 54 When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;
  6. 55 When beauty boasted blushes, in despite
  7. 56 Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white.
  1. 57 But beauty, in that white intituled
  2. 58 From Venus’ doves, doth challenge that fair field.
  3. 59 Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red,
  4. 60 Which virtue gave the golden age to gild
  5. 61 Their silver cheeks, and called it then their shield;
  6. 62 Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,
  7. 63 When shame assailed, the red should fence the white.
  1. 64 This heraldry in Lucrece’ face was seen,
  2. 65 Argued by beauty’s red and virtue’s white.
  3. 66 Of either’s colour was the other queen,
  4. 67 Proving from world’s minority their right.
  5. 68 Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;
  6. 69 The sovereignty of either being so great,
  7. 70 That oft they interchange each other’s seat.
  1. 71 Their silent war of lilies and of roses,
  2. 72 Which Tarquin viewed in her fair face’s field,
  3. 73 In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;
  4. 74 Where, lest between them both it should be killed,
  5. 75 The coward captive vanquished doth yield
  6. 76 To those two armies that would let him go
  7. 77 Rather than triumph in so false a foe.
  1. 78 Now thinks he that her husband’s shallow tongue,
  2. 79 The niggard prodigal that praised her so,
  3. 80 In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,
  4. 81 Which far exceeds his barren skill to show.
  5. 82 Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe
  6. 83 Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,
  7. 84 In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.
  1. 85 This earthly saint, adored by this devil,
  2. 86 Little suspecteth the false worshipper;
  3. 87 For unstained thoughts do seldom dream on evil;
  4. 88 Birds never limed no secret bushes fear.
  5. 89 So guiltless she securely gives good cheer
  6. 90 And reverend welcome to her princely guest,
  7. 91 Whose inward ill no outward harm expressed.
  1. 92 For that he coloured with his high estate,
  2. 93 Hiding base sin in pleats of majesty,
  3. 94 That nothing in him seemed inordinate,
  4. 95 Save sometime too much wonder of his eye,
  5. 96 Which, having all, all could not satisfy;
  6. 97 But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store
  7. 98 That, cloyed with much, he pineth still for more.
  1. 99 But she, that never coped with stranger eyes,
  2. 100 Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
  3. 101 Nor read the subtle shining secrecies
  4. 102 Writ in the glassy margents of such books;
  5. 103 She touched no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks,
  6. 104 Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
  7. 105 More than his eyes were opened to the light.
  1. 106 He stories to her ears her husband’s fame,
  2. 107 Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
  3. 108 And decks with praises Collatine’s high name,
  4. 109 Made glorious by his manly chivalry
  5. 110 With bruised arms and wreaths of victory.
  6. 111 Her joy with heaved-up hand she doth express,
  7. 112 And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.
  1. 113 Far from the purpose of his coming thither,
  2. 114 He makes excuses for his being there.
  3. 115 No cloudy show of stormy blust’ring weather
  4. 116 Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear,
  5. 117 Till sable Night, mother of dread and fear,
  6. 118 Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
  7. 119 And in her vaulty prison stows the day.
  1. 120 For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
  2. 121 Intending weariness with heavy sprite;
  3. 122 For after supper long he questioned
  4. 123 With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night.
  5. 124 Now leaden slumber with life’s strength doth fight,
  6. 125 And every one to rest themselves betake,
  7. 126 Save thieves and cares and troubled minds that wake.
  1. 127 As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
  2. 128 The sundry dangers of his will’s obtaining,
  3. 129 Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,
  4. 130 Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining.
  5. 131 Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining,
  6. 132 And when great treasure is the meed proposed,
  7. 133 Though death be adjunct, there’s no death supposed.
  1. 134 Those that much covet are with gain so fond
  2. 135 For what they have not, that which they possess
  3. 136 They scatter and unloose it from their bond;
  4. 137 And so, by hoping more, they have but less,
  5. 138 Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
  6. 139 Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
  7. 140 That they prove bankrout in this poor-rich gain.
  1. 141 The aim of all is but to nurse the life
  2. 142 With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
  3. 143 And in this aim there is such thwarting strife
  4. 144 That one for all or all for one we gage:
  5. 145 As life for honour in fell battle’s rage,
  6. 146 Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
  7. 147 The death of all, and all together lost.
  1. 148 So that in vent’ring ill we leave to be
  2. 149 The things we are, for that which we expect;
  3. 150 And this ambitious foul infirmity,
  4. 151 In having much, torments us with defect
  5. 152 Of that we have. So then we do neglect
  6. 153 The thing we have, and, all for want of wit,
  7. 154 Make something nothing by augmenting it.
  1. 155 Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
  2. 156 Pawning his honour to obtain his lust;
  3. 157 And for himself himself he must forsake.
  4. 158 Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?
  5. 159 When shall he think to find a stranger just,
  6. 160 When he himself himself confounds, betrays
  7. 161 To sland’rous tongues and wretched hateful days?
  1. 162 Now stole upon the time the dead of night,
  2. 163 When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes.
  3. 164 No comfortable star did lend his light,
  4. 165 No noise but owls’ and wolves’ death-boding cries;
  5. 166 Now serves the season that they may surprise
  6. 167 The silly lambs. Pure thoughts are dead and still,
  7. 168 While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.
  1. 169 And now this lustful lord leaped from his bed,
  2. 170 Throwing his mantle rudely o’er his arm;
  3. 171 Is madly tossed between desire and dread;
  4. 172 Th’ one sweetly flatters, th’ other feareth harm.
  5. 173 But honest fear, bewitched with lust’s foul charm,
  6. 174 Doth too too oft betake him to retire,
  7. 175 Beaten away by brain-sick rude desire.
  1. 176 His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
  2. 177 That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;
  3. 178 Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
  4. 179 Which must be lodestar to his lustful eye,
  5. 180 And to the flame thus speaks advisedly:
  6. 181 “As from this cold flint I enforced this fire,
  7. 182 So Lucrece must I force to my desire.”
  1. 183 Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
  2. 184 The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
  3. 185 And in his inward mind he doth debate
  4. 186 What following sorrow may on this arise.
  5. 187 Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
  6. 188 His naked armour of still-slaughtered lust,
  7. 189 And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:
  1. 190 “Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
  2. 191 To darken her whose light excelleth thine.
  3. 192 And die, unhallowed thoughts, before you blot
  4. 193 With your uncleanness that which is divine.
  5. 194 Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine.
  6. 195 Let fair humanity abhor the deed
  7. 196 That spots and stains love’s modest snow-white weed.
  1. 197 “O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
  2. 198 O foul dishonour to my household’s grave!
  3. 199 O impious act including all foul harms!
  4. 200 A martial man to be soft fancy’s slave!
  5. 201 True valour still a true respect should have.
  6. 202 Then my digression is so vile, so base,
  7. 203 That it will live engraven in my face.
  1. 204 “Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive
  2. 205 And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;
  3. 206 Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,
  4. 207 To cipher me how fondly I did dote,
  5. 208 That my posterity, shamed with the note,
  6. 209 Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
  7. 210 To wish that I their father had not been.
  1. 211 “What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
  2. 212 A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
  3. 213 Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week,
  4. 214 Or sells eternity to get a toy?
  5. 215 For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
  6. 216 Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
  7. 217 Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?
  1. 218 “If Collatinus dream of my intent,
  2. 219 Will he not wake, and in a desp’rate rage
  3. 220 Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?—
  4. 221 This siege that hath engirt his marriage,
  5. 222 This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,
  6. 223 This dying virtue, this surviving shame,
  7. 224 Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?
  1. 225 “O, what excuse can my invention make
  2. 226 When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
  3. 227 Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake,
  4. 228 Mine eyes forgo their light, my false heart bleed?
  5. 229 The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed;
  6. 230 And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,
  7. 231 But coward-like with trembling terror die.
  1. 232 “Had Collatinus killed my son or sire,
  2. 233 Or lain in ambush to betray my life,
  3. 234 Or were he not my dear friend, this desire
  4. 235 Might have excuse to work upon his wife,
  5. 236 As in revenge or quittal of such strife;
  6. 237 But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,
  7. 238 The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.
  1. 239 “Shameful it is; ay, if the fact be known.
  2. 240 Hateful it is, there is no hate in loving.
  3. 241 I’ll beg her love. But she is not her own.
  4. 242 The worst is but denial and reproving.
  5. 243 My will is strong, past reason’s weak removing.
  6. 244 Who fears a sentence or an old man’s saw
  7. 245 Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.”
  1. 246 Thus, graceless, holds he disputation
  2. 247 ’Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will,
  3. 248 And with good thoughts makes dispensation,
  4. 249 Urging the worser sense for vantage still;
  5. 250 Which in a moment doth confound and kill
  6. 251 All pure effects, and doth so far proceed
  7. 252 That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed.
  1. 253 Quoth he, “She took me kindly by the hand,
  2. 254 And gazed for tidings in my eager eyes,
  3. 255 Fearing some hard news from the warlike band
  4. 256 Where her beloved Collatinus lies.
  5. 257 O how her fear did make her colour rise!
  6. 258 First red as roses that on lawn we lay,
  7. 259 Then white as lawn, the roses took away.
  1. 260 “And how her hand, in my hand being locked,
  2. 261 Forced it to tremble with her loyal fear,
  3. 262 Which struck her sad, and then it faster rocked,
  4. 263 Until her husband’s welfare she did hear;
  5. 264 Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer
  6. 265 That had Narcissus seen her as she stood,
  7. 266 Self-love had never drowned him in the flood.
  1. 267 “Why hunt I then for colour or excuses?
  2. 268 All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth.
  3. 269 Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses;
  4. 270 Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth.
  5. 271 Affection is my captain, and he leadeth;
  6. 272 And when his gaudy banner is displayed,
  7. 273 The coward fights and will not be dismayed.
  1. 274 “Then, childish fear, avaunt! Debating, die!
  2. 275 Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!
  3. 276 My heart shall never countermand mine eye.
  4. 277 Sad pause and deep regard beseems the sage;
  5. 278 My part is youth, and beats these from the stage.
  6. 279 Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize;
  7. 280 Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?”
  1. 281 As corn o’ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
  2. 282 Is almost choked by unresisted lust.
  3. 283 Away he steals with opening, list’ning ear,
  4. 284 Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust;
  5. 285 Both which, as servitors to the unjust,
  6. 286 So cross him with their opposite persuasion
  7. 287 That now he vows a league, and now invasion.
  1. 288 Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
  2. 289 And in the self-same seat sits Collatine.
  3. 290 That eye which looks on her confounds his wits;
  4. 291 That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
  5. 292 Unto a view so false will not incline,
  6. 293 But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,
  7. 294 Which once corrupted takes the worser part;
  1. 295 And therein heartens up his servile powers,
  2. 296 Who, flattered by their leader’s jocund show,
  3. 297 Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;
  4. 298 And as their captain, so their pride doth grow,
  5. 299 Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
  6. 300 By reprobate desire thus madly led,
  7. 301 The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece’ bed.
  1. 302 The locks between her chamber and his will,
  2. 303 Each one by him enforced, retires his ward;
  3. 304 But, as they open, they all rate his ill,
  4. 305 Which drives the creeping thief to some regard.
  5. 306 The threshold grates the door to have him heard;
  6. 307 Night-wand’ring weasels shriek to see him there;
  7. 308 They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.
  1. 309 As each unwilling portal yields him way,
  2. 310 Through little vents and crannies of the place
  3. 311 The wind wars with his torch, to make him stay,
  4. 312 And blows the smoke of it into his face,
  5. 313 Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
  6. 314 But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
  7. 315 Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch.
  1. 316 And being lighted, by the light he spies
  2. 317 Lucretia’s glove, wherein her needle sticks;
  3. 318 He takes it from the rushes where it lies,
  4. 319 And griping it, the needle his finger pricks,
  5. 320 As who should say, “This glove to wanton tricks
  6. 321 Is not inured. Return again in haste;
  7. 322 Thou seest our mistress’ ornaments are chaste.”
  1. 323 But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;
  2. 324 He in the worst sense construes their denial.
  3. 325 The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him,
  4. 326 He takes for accidental things of trial;
  5. 327 Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,
  6. 328 Who with a ling’ring stay his course doth let,
  7. 329 Till every minute pays the hour his debt.
  1. 330 “So, so,” quoth he, “these lets attend the time,
  2. 331 Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring,
  3. 332 To add a more rejoicing to the prime,
  4. 333 And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.
  5. 334 Pain pays the income of each precious thing:
  6. 335 Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands
  7. 336 The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.”
  1. 337 Now is he come unto the chamber door
  2. 338 That shuts him from the heaven of his thought,
  3. 339 Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,
  4. 340 Hath barred him from the blessed thing he sought.
  5. 341 So from himself impiety hath wrought,
  6. 342 That for his prey to pray he doth begin,
  7. 343 As if the heavens should countenance his sin.
  1. 344 But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,
  2. 345 Having solicited th’ eternal power
  3. 346 That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,
  4. 347 And they would stand auspicious to the hour,
  5. 348 Even there he starts. Quoth he, “I must deflower.
  6. 349 The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,
  7. 350 How can they then assist me in the act?
  1. 351 “Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!
  2. 352 My will is backed with resolution.
  3. 353 Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried;
  4. 354 The blackest sin is cleared with absolution.
  5. 355 Against love’s fire fear’s frost hath dissolution.
  6. 356 The eye of heaven is out, and misty night
  7. 357 Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.”
  1. 358 This said, his guilty hand plucked up the latch,
  2. 359 And with his knee the door he opens wide.
  3. 360 The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch;
  4. 361 Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
  5. 362 Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
  6. 363 But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
  7. 364 Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.
  1. 365 Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
  2. 366 And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
  3. 367 The curtains being close, about he walks,
  4. 368 Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head.
  5. 369 By their high treason is his heart misled,
  6. 370 Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon
  7. 371 To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.
  1. 372 Look as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
  2. 373 Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;
  3. 374 Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun
  4. 375 To wink, being blinded with a greater light.
  5. 376 Whether it is that she reflects so bright,
  6. 377 That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;
  7. 378 But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.
  1. 379 O, had they in that darksome prison died,
  2. 380 Then had they seen the period of their ill!
  3. 381 Then Collatine again by Lucrece’ side
  4. 382 In his clear bed might have reposed still.
  5. 383 But they must ope, this blessed league to kill;
  6. 384 And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight
  7. 385 Must sell her joy, her life, her world’s delight.
  1. 386 Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
  2. 387 Coz’ning the pillow of a lawful kiss;
  3. 388 Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
  4. 389 Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
  5. 390 Between whose hills her head entombed is,
  6. 391 Where like a virtuous monument she lies,
  7. 392 To be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes.
  1. 393 Without the bed her other fair hand was,
  2. 394 On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
  3. 395 Showed like an April daisy on the grass,
  4. 396 With pearly sweat resembling dew of night.
  5. 397 Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light,
  6. 398 And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
  7. 399 Till they might open to adorn the day.
  1. 400 Her hair, like golden threads, played with her breath:
  2. 401 O modest wantons, wanton modesty!
  3. 402 Showing life’s triumph in the map of death,
  4. 403 And death’s dim look in life’s mortality.
  5. 404 Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,
  6. 405 As if between them twain there were no strife,
  7. 406 But that life lived in death and death in life.
  1. 407 Her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue,
  2. 408 A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,
  3. 409 Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,
  4. 410 And him by oath they truly honoured.
  5. 411 These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred;
  6. 412 Who, like a foul usurper, went about
  7. 413 From this fair throne to heave the owner out.
  1. 414 What could he see but mightily he noted?
  2. 415 What did he note but strongly he desired?
  3. 416 What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
  4. 417 And in his will his wilful eye he tired.
  5. 418 With more than admiration he admired
  6. 419 Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
  7. 420 Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.
  1. 421 As the grim lion fawneth o’er his prey,
  2. 422 Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
  3. 423 So o’er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
  4. 424 His rage of lust by grazing qualified—
  5. 425 Slaked, not suppressed; for standing by her side,
  6. 426 His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
  7. 427 Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins.
  1. 428 And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
  2. 429 Obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting,
  3. 430 In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
  4. 431 Nor children’s tears nor mothers’ groans respecting,
  5. 432 Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting.
  6. 433 Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,
  7. 434 Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.
  1. 435 His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
  2. 436 His eye commends the leading to his hand;
  3. 437 His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
  4. 438 Smoking with pride, marched on to make his stand
  5. 439 On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
  6. 440 Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,
  7. 441 Left their round turrets destitute and pale.
  1. 442 They, must’ring to the quiet cabinet
  2. 443 Where their dear governess and lady lies,
  3. 444 Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
  4. 445 And fright her with confusion of their cries.
  5. 446 She, much amazed, breaks ope her locked-up eyes,
  6. 447 Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
  7. 448 Are by his flaming torch dimmed and controlled.
  1. 449 Imagine her as one in dead of night
  2. 450 From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
  3. 451 That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
  4. 452 Whose grim aspect sets every joint a shaking.
  5. 453 What terror ’tis! but she, in worser taking,
  6. 454 From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
  7. 455 The sight which makes supposed terror true.
  1. 456 Wrapped and confounded in a thousand fears,
  2. 457 Like to a new-killed bird she trembling lies.
  3. 458 She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
  4. 459 Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes.
  5. 460 Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries;
  6. 461 Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
  7. 462 In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.
  1. 463 His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,
  2. 464 Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!
  3. 465 May feel her heart, poor citizen, distressed,
  4. 466 Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
  5. 467 Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
  6. 468 This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,
  7. 469 To make the breach and enter this sweet city.
  1. 470 First, like a trumpet doth his tongue begin
  2. 471 To sound a parley to his heartless foe,
  3. 472 Who o’er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
  4. 473 The reason of this rash alarm to know,
  5. 474 Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;
  6. 475 But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
  7. 476 Under what colour he commits this ill.
  1. 477 Thus he replies: “The colour in thy face,
  2. 478 That even for anger makes the lily pale,
  3. 479 And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,
  4. 480 Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale.
  5. 481 Under that colour am I come to scale
  6. 482 Thy never-conquered fort; the fault is thine,
  7. 483 For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.
  1. 484 “Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:
  2. 485 Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,
  3. 486 Where thou with patience must my will abide,
  4. 487 My will that marks thee for my earth’s delight,
  5. 488 Which I to conquer sought with all my might.
  6. 489 But as reproof and reason beat it dead,
  7. 490 By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.
  1. 491 “I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
  2. 492 I know what thorns the growing rose defends;
  3. 493 I think the honey guarded with a sting;
  4. 494 All this beforehand counsel comprehends.
  5. 495 But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends;
  6. 496 Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,
  7. 497 And dotes on what he looks, ’gainst law or duty.
  1. 498 “I have debated, even in my soul,
  2. 499 What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;
  3. 500 But nothing can affection’s course control,
  4. 501 Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.
  5. 502 I know repentant tears ensue the deed,
  6. 503 Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;
  7. 504 Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.”
  1. 505 This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
  2. 506 Which, like a falcon tow’ring in the skies,
  3. 507 Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade,
  4. 508 Whose crooked beak threats, if he mount he dies.
  5. 509 So under his insulting falchion lies
  6. 510 Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
  7. 511 With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon’s bells.
  1. 512 “Lucrece,” quoth he, “this night I must enjoy thee.
  2. 513 If thou deny, then force must work my way,
  3. 514 For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;
  4. 515 That done, some worthless slave of thine I’ll slay.
  5. 516 To kill thine honour with thy life’s decay;
  6. 517 And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,
  7. 518 Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.
  1. 519 “So thy surviving husband shall remain
  2. 520 The scornful mark of every open eye;
  3. 521 Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,
  4. 522 Thy issue blurred with nameless bastardy.
  5. 523 And thou, the author of their obloquy,
  6. 524 Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes
  7. 525 And sung by children in succeeding times.
  1. 526 “But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend.
  2. 527 The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
  3. 528 A little harm done to a great good end
  4. 529 For lawful policy remains enacted.
  5. 530 The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
  6. 531 In a pure compound; being so applied,
  7. 532 His venom in effect is purified.
  1. 533 “Then, for thy husband and thy children’s sake,
  2. 534 Tender my suit. Bequeath not to their lot
  3. 535 The shame that from them no device can take,
  4. 536 The blemish that will never be forgot,
  5. 537 Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour’s blot:
  6. 538 For marks descried in men’s nativity
  7. 539 Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy.”
  1. 540 Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eye
  2. 541 He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;
  3. 542 While she, the picture of pure piety,
  4. 543 Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws,
  5. 544 Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws,
  6. 545 To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
  7. 546 Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.
  1. 547 But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,
  2. 548 In his dim mist th’ aspiring mountains hiding,
  3. 549 From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
  4. 550 Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,
  5. 551 Hind’ring their present fall by this dividing;
  6. 552 So his unhallowed haste her words delays,
  7. 553 And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.
  1. 554 Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
  2. 555 While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth.
  3. 556 Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly,
  4. 557 A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth.
  5. 558 His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
  6. 559 No penetrable entrance to her plaining;
  7. 560 Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.
  1. 561 Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fixed
  2. 562 In the remorseless wrinkles of his face.
  3. 563 Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixed,
  4. 564 Which to her oratory adds more grace.
  5. 565 She puts the period often from his place,
  6. 566 And midst the sentence so her accent breaks
  7. 567 That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.
  1. 568 She conjures him by high almighty Jove,
  2. 569 By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship’s oath,
  3. 570 By her untimely tears, her husband’s love,
  4. 571 By holy human law, and common troth,
  5. 572 By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,
  6. 573 That to his borrowed bed he make retire,
  7. 574 And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.
  1. 575 Quoth she, “Reward not hospitality
  2. 576 With such black payment as thou hast pretended;
  3. 577 Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee,
  4. 578 Mar not the thing that cannot be amended.
  5. 579 End thy ill aim before the shoot be ended;
  6. 580 He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
  7. 581 To strike a poor unseasonable doe.
  1. 582 “My husband is thy friend; for his sake spare me.
  2. 583 Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me.
  3. 584 Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me;
  4. 585 Thou look’st not like deceit; do not deceive me.
  5. 586 My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee.
  6. 587 If ever man were moved with woman’s moans,
  7. 588 Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans.
  1. 589 “All which together, like a troubled ocean,
  2. 590 Beat at thy rocky and wrack-threat’ning heart,
  3. 591 To soften it with their continual motion;
  4. 592 For stones dissolved to water do convert.
  5. 593 O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
  6. 594 Melt at my tears and be compassionate!
  7. 595 Soft pity enters at an iron gate.
  1. 596 “In Tarquin’s likeness I did entertain thee.
  2. 597 Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame?
  3. 598 To all the host of heaven I complain me,
  4. 599 Thou wrong’st his honour, wound’st his princely name.
  5. 600 Thou art not what thou seem’st; and if the same,
  6. 601 Thou seem’st not what thou art, a god, a king;
  7. 602 For kings like gods should govern everything.
  1. 603 “How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,
  2. 604 When thus thy vices bud before thy spring?
  3. 605 If in thy hope thou dar’st do such outrage,
  4. 606 What dar’st thou not when once thou art a king?
  5. 607 O, be remembered, no outrageous thing
  6. 608 From vassal actors can be wiped away;
  7. 609 Then kings’ misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.
  1. 610 “This deed will make thee only loved for fear,
  2. 611 But happy monarchs still are feared for love.
  3. 612 With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
  4. 613 When they in thee the like offences prove.
  5. 614 If but for fear of this, thy will remove,
  6. 615 For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
  7. 616 Where subjects’ eyes do learn, do read, do look.
  1. 617 “And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
  2. 618 Must he in thee read lectures of such shame?
  3. 619 Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern
  4. 620 Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
  5. 621 To privilege dishonour in thy name?
  6. 622 Thou back’st reproach against long-living laud,
  7. 623 And mak’st fair reputation but a bawd.
  1. 624 “Hast thou command? By him that gave it thee,
  2. 625 From a pure heart command thy rebel will.
  3. 626 Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
  4. 627 For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
  5. 628 Thy princely office how canst thou fulfill,
  6. 629 When, patterned by thy fault, foul Sin may say
  7. 630 He learned to sin, and thou didst teach the way?
  1. 631 “Think but how vile a spectacle it were
  2. 632 To view thy present trespass in another.
  3. 633 Men’s faults do seldom to themselves appear;
  4. 634 Their own transgressions partially they smother.
  5. 635 This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
  6. 636 O how are they wrapped in with infamies
  7. 637 That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!
  1. 638 “To thee, to thee, my heaved-up hands appeal,
  2. 639 Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier.
  3. 640 I sue for exiled majesty’s repeal;
  4. 641 Let him return, and flatt’ring thoughts retire.
  5. 642 His true respect will prison false desire,
  6. 643 And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,
  7. 644 That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine.”
  1. 645 “Have done,” quoth he. “My uncontrolled tide
  2. 646 Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
  3. 647 Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
  4. 648 And with the wind in greater fury fret.
  5. 649 The petty streams that pay a daily debt
  6. 650 To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’ haste
  7. 651 Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.”
  1. 652 “Thou art,” quoth she, “a sea, a sovereign king,
  2. 653 And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
  3. 654 Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,
  4. 655 Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
  5. 656 If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
  6. 657 Thy sea within a puddle’s womb is hearsed,
  7. 658 And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.
  1. 659 “So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;
  2. 660 Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;
  3. 661 Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;
  4. 662 Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride.
  5. 663 The lesser thing should not the greater hide;
  6. 664 The cedar stoops not to the base shrub’s foot,
  7. 665 But low shrubs wither at the cedar’s root.
  1. 666 “So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state”—
  2. 667 “No more,” quoth he, “by heaven, I will not hear thee.
  3. 668 Yield to my love. If not, enforced hate,
  4. 669 Instead of love’s coy touch, shall rudely tear thee.
  5. 670 That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
  6. 671 Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
  7. 672 To be thy partner in this shameful doom.”
  1. 673 This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
  2. 674 For light and lust are deadly enemies.
  3. 675 Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
  4. 676 When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
  5. 677 The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries,
  6. 678 Till with her own white fleece her voice controlled
  7. 679 Entombs her outcry in her lips’ sweet fold.
  1. 680 For with the nightly linen that she wears
  2. 681 He pens her piteous clamours in her head,
  3. 682 Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
  4. 683 That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
  5. 684 O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!
  6. 685 The spots whereof could weeping purify,
  7. 686 Her tears should drop on them perpetually.
  1. 687 But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,
  2. 688 And he hath won what he would lose again.
  3. 689 This forced league doth force a further strife;
  4. 690 This momentary joy breeds months of pain;
  5. 691 This hot desire converts to cold disdain.
  6. 692 Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,
  7. 693 And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.
  1. 694 Look as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
  2. 695 Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
  3. 696 Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
  4. 697 The prey wherein by nature they delight;
  5. 698 So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night.
  6. 699 His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
  7. 700 Devours his will, that lived by foul devouring.
  1. 701 O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
  2. 702 Can comprehend in still imagination!
  3. 703 Drunken desire must vomit his receipt,
  4. 704 Ere he can see his own abomination.
  5. 705 While lust is in his pride no exclamation
  6. 706 Can curb his heat or rein his rash desire,
  7. 707 Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.
  1. 708 And then with lank and lean discoloured cheek,
  2. 709 With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
  3. 710 Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
  4. 711 Like to a bankrout beggar wails his case.
  5. 712 The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with Grace,
  6. 713 For there it revels; and when that decays,
  7. 714 The guilty rebel for remission prays.
  1. 715 So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
  2. 716 Who this accomplishment so hotly chased;
  3. 717 For now against himself he sounds this doom,
  4. 718 That through the length of times he stands disgraced.
  5. 719 Besides, his soul’s fair temple is defaced,
  6. 720 To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
  7. 721 To ask the spotted princess how she fares.
  1. 722 She says her subjects with foul insurrection
  2. 723 Have battered down her consecrated wall,
  3. 724 And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
  4. 725 Her immortality, and made her thrall
  5. 726 To living death and pain perpetual,
  6. 727 Which in her prescience she controlled still,
  7. 728 But her foresight could not forestall their will.
  1. 729 E’en in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
  2. 730 A captive victor that hath lost in gain,
  3. 731 Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
  4. 732 The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;
  5. 733 Leaving his spoil perplexed in greater pain.
  6. 734 She bears the load of lust he left behind,
  7. 735 And he the burden of a guilty mind.
  1. 736 He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;
  2. 737 She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;
  3. 738 He scowls, and hates himself for his offence;
  4. 739 She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear.
  5. 740 He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear;
  6. 741 She stays, exclaiming on the direful night;
  7. 742 He runs, and chides his vanished, loathed delight.
  1. 743 He thence departs a heavy convertite;
  2. 744 She there remains a hopeless castaway.
  3. 745 He in his speed looks for the morning light;
  4. 746 She prays she never may behold the day.
  5. 747 “For day,” quoth she, “night’s scapes doth open lay,
  6. 748 And my true eyes have never practised how
  7. 749 To cloak offences with a cunning brow.
  1. 750 “They think not but that every eye can see
  2. 751 The same disgrace which they themselves behold;
  3. 752 And therefore would they still in darkness be,
  4. 753 To have their unseen sin remain untold.
  5. 754 For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
  6. 755 And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
  7. 756 Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.”
  1. 757 Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
  2. 758 And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
  3. 759 She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,
  4. 760 And bids it leap from thence, where it may find
  5. 761 Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.
  6. 762 Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite
  7. 763 Against the unseen secrecy of night.
  1. 764 “O comfort-killing night, image of hell,
  2. 765 Dim register and notary of shame,
  3. 766 Black stage for tragedies and murders fell,
  4. 767 Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame,
  5. 768 Blind muffled bawd, dark harbour for defame,
  6. 769 Grim cave of death, whisp’ring conspirator
  7. 770 With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
  1. 771 “O hateful, vaporous, and foggy night,
  2. 772 Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
  3. 773 Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
  4. 774 Make war against proportioned course of time;
  5. 775 Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
  6. 776 His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
  7. 777 Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.
  1. 778 “With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
  2. 779 Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick
  3. 780 The life of purity, the supreme fair,
  4. 781 Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick.
  5. 782 And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
  6. 783 That in their smoky ranks his smothered light
  7. 784 May set at noon and make perpetual night.
  1. 785 “Were Tarquin night, as he is but night’s child,
  2. 786 The silver-shining queen he would distain;
  3. 787 Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled,
  4. 788 Through Night’s black bosom should not peep again.
  5. 789 So should I have co-partners in my pain;
  6. 790 And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
  7. 791 As palmers’ chat makes short their pilgrimage.
  1. 792 “Where now I have no one to blush with me,
  2. 793 To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,
  3. 794 To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
  4. 795 But I alone alone must sit and pine,
  5. 796 Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
  6. 797 Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
  7. 798 Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.
  1. 799 “O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke,
  2. 800 Let not the jealous day behold that face
  3. 801 Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
  4. 802 Immodesty lies martyred with disgrace!
  5. 803 Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
  6. 804 That all the faults which in thy reign are made
  7. 805 May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade.
  1. 806 “Make me not object to the tell-tale day.
  2. 807 The light will show charactered in my brow
  3. 808 The story of sweet chastity’s decay,
  4. 809 The impious breach of holy wedlock vow.
  5. 810 Yea, the illiterate, that know not how
  6. 811 To cipher what is writ in learned books,
  7. 812 Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.
  1. 813 “The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story
  2. 814 And fright her crying babe with Tarquin’s name.
  3. 815 The orator, to deck his oratory,
  4. 816 Will couple my reproach to Tarquin’s shame.
  5. 817 Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
  6. 818 Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
  7. 819 How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.
  1. 820 “Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
  2. 821 For Collatine’s dear love be kept unspotted.
  3. 822 If that be made a theme for disputation,
  4. 823 The branches of another root are rotted,
  5. 824 And undeserved reproach to him allotted
  6. 825 That is as clear from this attaint of mine
  7. 826 As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.
  1. 827 “O unseen shame, invisible disgrace!
  2. 828 O unfelt sore, crest-wounding, private scar!
  3. 829 Reproach is stamped in Collatinus’ face,
  4. 830 And Tarquin’s eye may read the mot afar,
  5. 831 How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
  6. 832 Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
  7. 833 Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!
  1. 834 “If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
  2. 835 From me by strong assault it is bereft.
  3. 836 My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
  4. 837 Have no perfection of my summer left,
  5. 838 But robbed and ransacked by injurious theft.
  6. 839 In thy weak hive a wand’ring wasp hath crept,
  7. 840 And sucked the honey which thy chaste bee kept.
  1. 841 “Yet am I guilty of thy honour’s wrack;
  2. 842 Yet for thy honour did I entertain him.
  3. 843 Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
  4. 844 For it had been dishonour to disdain him.
  5. 845 Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
  6. 846 And talked of virtue. O unlooked-for evil,
  7. 847 When virtue is profaned in such a devil!
  1. 848 “Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
  2. 849 Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests?
  3. 850 Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
  4. 851 Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
  5. 852 Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
  6. 853 But no perfection is so absolute
  7. 854 That some impurity doth not pollute.
  1. 855 “The aged man that coffers up his gold
  2. 856 Is plagued with cramps, and gouts and painful fits,
  3. 857 And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
  4. 858 But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
  5. 859 And useless barns the harvest of his wits,
  6. 860 Having no other pleasure of his gain
  7. 861 But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
  1. 862 “So then he hath it when he cannot use it,
  2. 863 And leaves it to be mastered by his young,
  3. 864 Who in their pride do presently abuse it.
  4. 865 Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
  5. 866 To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
  6. 867 The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
  7. 868 Even in the moment that we call them ours.
  1. 869 “Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
  2. 870 Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
  3. 871 The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
  4. 872 What virtue breeds iniquity devours.
  5. 873 We have no good that we can say is ours,
  6. 874 But ill-annexed Opportunity
  7. 875 Or kills his life or else his quality.
  1. 876 “O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
  2. 877 ’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason;
  3. 878 Thou sets the wolf where he the lamb may get;
  4. 879 Whoever plots the sin, thou ’point’st the season.
  5. 880 ’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason;
  6. 881 And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
  7. 882 Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.
  1. 883 “Thou mak’st the vestal violate her oath;
  2. 884 Thou blow’st the fire when temperance is thawed;
  3. 885 Thou smother’st honesty, thou murder’st troth,
  4. 886 Thou foul abettor, thou notorious bawd!
  5. 887 Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud.
  6. 888 Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
  7. 889 Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief.
  1. 890 “Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
  2. 891 Thy private feasting to a public fast,
  3. 892 Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
  4. 893 Thy sugared tongue to bitter wormwood taste.
  5. 894 Thy violent vanities can never last.
  6. 895 How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
  7. 896 Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?
  1. 897 “When wilt thou be the humble suppliant’s friend,
  2. 898 And bring him where his suit may be obtained?
  3. 899 When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end,
  4. 900 Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chained?
  5. 901 Give physic to the sick, ease to the pained?
  6. 902 The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
  7. 903 But they ne’er meet with Opportunity.
  1. 904 “The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
  2. 905 The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
  3. 906 Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
  4. 907 Advice is sporting while infection breeds.
  5. 908 Thou grant’st no time for charitable deeds.
  6. 909 Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder’s rages,
  7. 910 Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.
  1. 911 “When truth and virtue have to do with thee,
  2. 912 A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid;
  3. 913 They buy thy help; but Sin ne’er gives a fee;
  4. 914 He gratis comes, and thou art well appaid
  5. 915 As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
  6. 916 My Collatine would else have come to me
  7. 917 When Tarquin did, but he was stayed by thee.
  1. 918 “Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,
  2. 919 Guilty of perjury and subornation,
  3. 920 Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift,
  4. 921 Guilty of incest, that abomination:
  5. 922 An accessory by thine inclination
  6. 923 To all sins past and all that are to come,
  7. 924 From the creation to the general doom.
  1. 925 “Misshapen Time, copesmate of ugly night,
  2. 926 Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,
  3. 927 Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
  4. 928 Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare!
  5. 929 Thou nursest all and murd’rest all that are.
  6. 930 O hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
  7. 931 Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.
  1. 932 “Why hath thy servant, Opportunity
  2. 933 Betrayed the hours thou gav’st me to repose,
  3. 934 Cancelled my fortunes, and enchained me
  4. 935 To endless date of never-ending woes?
  5. 936 Time’s office is to fine the hate of foes,
  6. 937 To eat up errors by opinion bred,
  7. 938 Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.
  1. 939 “Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
  2. 940 To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
  3. 941 To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
  4. 942 To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
  5. 943 To wrong the wronger till he render right,
  6. 944 To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
  7. 945 And smear with dust their glitt’ring golden towers;
  1. 946 “To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
  2. 947 To feed oblivion with decay of things,
  3. 948 To blot old books and alter their contents,
  4. 949 To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,
  5. 950 To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs,
  6. 951 To spoil antiquities of hammered steel,
  7. 952 And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel;
  1. 953 “To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,
  2. 954 To make the child a man, the man a child,
  3. 955 To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
  4. 956 To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
  5. 957 To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,
  6. 958 To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
  7. 959 And waste huge stones with little water-drops.
  1. 960 “Why work’st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
  2. 961 Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
  3. 962 One poor retiring minute in an age
  4. 963 Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
  5. 964 Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends.
  6. 965 O, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
  7. 966 I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack!
  1. 967 “Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,
  2. 968 With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight.
  3. 969 Devise extremes beyond extremity,
  4. 970 To make him curse this cursed crimeful night.
  5. 971 Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright,
  6. 972 And the dire thought of his committed evil
  7. 973 Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.
  1. 974 “Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
  2. 975 Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
  3. 976 Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
  4. 977 To make him moan, but pity not his moans.
  5. 978 Stone him with hard’ned hearts harder than stones,
  6. 979 And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
  7. 980 Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.
  1. 981 “Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
  2. 982 Let him have time against himself to rave,
  3. 983 Let him have time of Time’s help to despair,
  4. 984 Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
  5. 985 Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave,
  6. 986 And time to see one that by alms doth live
  7. 987 Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
  1. 988 “Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
  2. 989 And merry fools to mock at him resort;
  3. 990 Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
  4. 991 In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
  5. 992 His time of folly and his time of sport;
  6. 993 And ever let his unrecalling crime
  7. 994 Have time to wail th’ abusing of his time.
  1. 995 “O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
  2. 996 Teach me to curse him that thou taught’st this ill!
  3. 997 At his own shadow let the thief run mad,
  4. 998 Himself himself seek every hour to kill.
  5. 999 Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill,
  6. 1000 For who so base would such an office have
  7. 1001 As sland’rous deathsman to so base a slave?
  1. 1002 “The baser is he, coming from a king,
  2. 1003 To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.
  3. 1004 The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
  4. 1005 That makes him honoured or begets him hate;
  5. 1006 For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
  6. 1007 The moon being clouded presently is missed,
  7. 1008 But little stars may hide them when they list.
  1. 1009 “The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
  2. 1010 And unperceived fly with the filth away;
  3. 1011 But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
  4. 1012 The stain upon his silver down will stay.
  5. 1013 Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day.
  6. 1014 Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly,
  7. 1015 But eagles gazed upon with every eye.
  1. 1016 “Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools,
  2. 1017 Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
  3. 1018 Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
  4. 1019 Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters;
  5. 1020 To trembling clients be you mediators.
  6. 1021 For me, I force not argument a straw,
  7. 1022 Since that my case is past the help of law.
  1. 1023 “In vain I rail at Opportunity,
  2. 1024 At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;
  3. 1025 In vain I cavil with mine infamy,
  4. 1026 In vain I spurn at my confirmed despite.
  5. 1027 This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.
  6. 1028 The remedy indeed to do me good
  7. 1029 Is to let forth my foul defiled blood.
  1. 1030 “Poor hand, why quiver’st thou at this decree?
  2. 1031 Honour thyself to rid me of this shame,
  3. 1032 For if I die, my honour lives in thee,
  4. 1033 But if I live, thou liv’st in my defame.
  5. 1034 Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,
  6. 1035 And wast afeared to scratch her wicked foe,
  7. 1036 Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.”
  1. 1037 This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth,
  2. 1038 To find some desp’rate instrument of death;
  3. 1039 But this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth
  4. 1040 To make more vent for passage of her breath,
  5. 1041 Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth
  6. 1042 As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes,
  7. 1043 Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.
  1. 1044 “In vain,” quoth she, “I live, and seek in vain
  2. 1045 Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
  3. 1046 I feared by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain,
  4. 1047 Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife.
  5. 1048 But when I feared I was a loyal wife;
  6. 1049 So am I now.—O no, that cannot be!
  7. 1050 Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.
  1. 1051 “O that is gone for which I sought to live,
  2. 1052 And therefore now I need not fear to die.
  3. 1053 To clear this spot by death, at least I give
  4. 1054 A badge of fame to slander’s livery,
  5. 1055 A dying life to living infamy.
  6. 1056 Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away,
  7. 1057 To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!
  1. 1058 “Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
  2. 1059 The stained taste of violated troth;
  3. 1060 I will not wrong thy true affection so,
  4. 1061 To flatter thee with an infringed oath.
  5. 1062 This bastard graff shall never come to growth;
  6. 1063 He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
  7. 1064 That thou art doting father of his fruit.
  1. 1065 “Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
  2. 1066 Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
  3. 1067 But thou shalt know thy int’rest was not bought
  4. 1068 Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate.
  5. 1069 For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
  6. 1070 And with my trespass never will dispense,
  7. 1071 Till life to death acquit my forced offence.
  1. 1072 “I will not poison thee with my attaint,
  2. 1073 Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coined excuses;
  3. 1074 My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
  4. 1075 To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses.
  5. 1076 My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,
  6. 1077 As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,
  7. 1078 Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.”
  1. 1079 By this, lamenting Philomel had ended
  2. 1080 The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow,
  3. 1081 And solemn night with slow sad gait descended
  4. 1082 To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow
  5. 1083 Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow.
  6. 1084 But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
  7. 1085 And therefore still in night would cloistered be.
  1. 1086 Revealing day through every cranny spies,
  2. 1087 And seems to point her out where she sits weeping,
  3. 1088 To whom she sobbing speaks: “O eye of eyes,
  4. 1089 Why pry’st thou through my window? Leave thy peeping,
  5. 1090 Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping.
  6. 1091 Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
  7. 1092 For day hath naught to do what’s done by night.”
  1. 1093 Thus cavils she with everything she sees.
  2. 1094 True grief is fond and testy as a child,
  3. 1095 Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees.
  4. 1096 Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild.
  5. 1097 Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
  6. 1098 Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still
  7. 1099 With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
  1. 1100 So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,
  2. 1101 Holds disputation with each thing she views,
  3. 1102 And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
  4. 1103 No object but her passion’s strength renews,
  5. 1104 And as one shifts, another straight ensues.
  6. 1105 Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;
  7. 1106 Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords.
  1. 1107 The little birds that tune their morning’s joy
  2. 1108 Make her moans mad with their sweet melody.
  3. 1109 For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
  4. 1110 Sad souls are slain in merry company.
  5. 1111 Grief best is pleased with grief’s society;
  6. 1112 True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed
  7. 1113 When with like semblance it is sympathized.
  1. 1114 ’Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
  2. 1115 He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
  3. 1116 To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
  4. 1117 Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
  5. 1118 Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
  6. 1119 Who, being stopped, the bounding banks o’erflows;
  7. 1120 Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.
  1. 1121 “You mocking birds,” quoth she, “your tunes entomb
  2. 1122 Within your hollow-swelling feathered breasts,
  3. 1123 And in my hearing be you mute and dumb;
  4. 1124 My restless discord loves no stops nor rests.
  5. 1125 A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests.
  6. 1126 Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
  7. 1127 Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.
  1. 1128 “Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment,
  2. 1129 Make thy sad grove in my disheveled hair.
  3. 1130 As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
  4. 1131 So I at each sad strain will strain a tear
  5. 1132 And with deep groans the diapason bear;
  6. 1133 For burden-wise I’ll hum on Tarquin still,
  7. 1134 While thou on Tereus descants better skill.
  1. 1135 “And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part
  2. 1136 To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,
  3. 1137 To imitate thee well, against my heart
  4. 1138 Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,
  5. 1139 Who if it wink shall thereon fall and die.
  6. 1140 These means, as frets upon an instrument,
  7. 1141 Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.
  1. 1142 “And for, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day,
  2. 1143 As shaming any eye should thee behold,
  3. 1144 Some dark deep desert seated from the way,
  4. 1145 That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,
  5. 1146 Will we find out; and there we will unfold
  6. 1147 To creatures stern sad tunes to change their kinds.
  7. 1148 Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.”
  1. 1149 As the poor frighted deer that stands at gaze,
  2. 1150 Wildly determining which way to fly,
  3. 1151 Or one encompassed with a winding maze,
  4. 1152 That cannot tread the way out readily;
  5. 1153 So with herself is she in mutiny,
  6. 1154 To live or die which of the twain were better,
  7. 1155 When life is shamed and Death reproach’s debtor.
  1. 1156 “To kill myself,” quoth she, “alack, what were it,
  2. 1157 But with my body my poor soul’s pollution?
  3. 1158 They that lose half with greater patience bear it
  4. 1159 Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion.
  5. 1160 That mother tries a merciless conclusion
  6. 1161 Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,
  7. 1162 Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.
  1. 1163 “My body or my soul, which was the dearer,
  2. 1164 When the one pure, the other made divine?
  3. 1165 Whose love of either to myself was nearer,
  4. 1166 When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
  5. 1167 Ay me, the bark pilled from the lofty pine,
  6. 1168 His leaves will wither and his sap decay;
  7. 1169 So must my soul, her bark being pilled away.
  1. 1170 “Her house is sacked, her quiet interrupted,
  2. 1171 Her mansion battered by the enemy,
  3. 1172 Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted,
  4. 1173 Grossly engirt with daring infamy.
  5. 1174 Then let it not be called impiety,
  6. 1175 If in this blemished fort I make some hole
  7. 1176 Through which I may convey this troubled soul.
  1. 1177 “Yet die I will not till my Collatine
  2. 1178 Have heard the cause of my untimely death,
  3. 1179 That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
  4. 1180 Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
  5. 1181 My stained blood to Tarquin I’ll bequeath,
  6. 1182 Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,
  7. 1183 And as his due writ in my testament.
  1. 1184 “My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife
  2. 1185 That wounds my body so dishonoured.
  3. 1186 ’Tis honour to deprive dishonoured life;
  4. 1187 The one will live, the other being dead.
  5. 1188 So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred,
  6. 1189 For in my death I murder shameful scorn;
  7. 1190 My shame so dead, mine honour is new born.
  1. 1191 “Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,
  2. 1192 What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
  3. 1193 My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,
  4. 1194 By whose example thou revenged mayst be.
  5. 1195 How Tarquin must be used, read it in me;
  6. 1196 Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
  7. 1197 And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.
  1. 1198 “This brief abridgement of my will I make:
  2. 1199 My soul and body to the skies and ground;
  3. 1200 My resolution, husband, do thou take;
  4. 1201 Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound;
  5. 1202 My shame be his that did my fame confound;
  6. 1203 And all my fame that lives disbursed be
  7. 1204 To those that live and think no shame of me.
  1. 1205 “Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;
  2. 1206 How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!
  3. 1207 My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;
  4. 1208 My life’s foul deed my life’s fair end shall free it.
  5. 1209 Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say, ‘So be it.’
  6. 1210 Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee.
  7. 1211 Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.”
  1. 1212 This plot of death when sadly she had laid,
  2. 1213 And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
  3. 1214 With untuned tongue she hoarsely called her maid,
  4. 1215 Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
  5. 1216 For fleet-winged duty with thought’s feathers flies.
  6. 1217 Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so
  7. 1218 As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.
  1. 1219 Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
  2. 1220 With soft slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
  3. 1221 And sorts a sad look to her lady’s sorrow,
  4. 1222 For why her face wore sorrow’s livery,
  5. 1223 But durst not ask of her audaciously
  6. 1224 Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
  7. 1225 Nor why her fair cheeks over-washed with woe.
  1. 1226 But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
  2. 1227 Each flower moistened like a melting eye,
  3. 1228 Even so the maid with swelling drops ’gan wet
  4. 1229 Her circled eyne, enforced by sympathy
  5. 1230 Of those fair suns set in her mistress’ sky,
  6. 1231 Who in a salt-waved ocean quench their light,
  7. 1232 Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.
  1. 1233 A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,
  2. 1234 Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling.
  3. 1235 One justly weeps; the other takes in hand
  4. 1236 No cause, but company, of her drops spilling.
  5. 1237 Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,
  6. 1238 Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts,
  7. 1239 And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.
  1. 1240 For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
  2. 1241 And therefore are they formed as marble will;
  3. 1242 The weak oppressed, th’ impression of strange kinds
  4. 1243 Is formed in them by force, by fraud, or skill.
  5. 1244 Then call them not the authors of their ill,
  6. 1245 No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
  7. 1246 Wherein is stamped the semblance of a devil.
  1. 1247 Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,
  2. 1248 Lays open all the little worms that creep;
  3. 1249 In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
  4. 1250 Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep.
  5. 1251 Through crystal walls each little mote will peep.
  6. 1252 Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
  7. 1253 Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.
  1. 1254 No man inveigh against the withered flower,
  2. 1255 But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed;
  3. 1256 Not that devoured, but that which doth devour,
  4. 1257 Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild
  5. 1258 Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfilled
  6. 1259 With men’s abuses! Those proud lords, to blame,
  7. 1260 Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.
  1. 1261 The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,
  2. 1262 Assailed by night with circumstances strong
  3. 1263 Of present death, and shame that might ensue
  4. 1264 By that her death, to do her husband wrong.
  5. 1265 Such danger to resistance did belong,
  6. 1266 The dying fear through all her body spread;
  7. 1267 And who cannot abuse a body dead?
  1. 1268 By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak
  2. 1269 To the poor counterfeit of her complaining:
  3. 1270 “My girl,” quoth she, “on what occasion break
  4. 1271 Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are raining?
  5. 1272 If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,
  6. 1273 Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood.
  7. 1274 If tears could help, mine own would do me good.
  1. 1275 “But tell me, girl, when went”—and there she stayed
  2. 1276 Till after a deep groan—“Tarquin from hence?”
  3. 1277 “Madam, ere I was up,” replied the maid,
  4. 1278 “The more to blame my sluggard negligence.
  5. 1279 Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense:
  6. 1280 Myself was stirring ere the break of day,
  7. 1281 And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.
  1. 1282 “But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,
  2. 1283 She would request to know your heaviness.”
  3. 1284 “O peace!” quoth Lucrece. “If it should be told,
  4. 1285 The repetition cannot make it less;
  5. 1286 For more it is than I can well express,
  6. 1287 And that deep torture may be called a hell,
  7. 1288 When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
  1. 1289 “Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen.
  2. 1290 Yet save that labour, for I have them here.
  3. 1291 What should I say?—One of my husband’s men
  4. 1292 Bid thou be ready by and by to bear
  5. 1293 A letter to my lord, my love, my dear.
  6. 1294 Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;
  7. 1295 The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.”
  1. 1296 Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,
  2. 1297 First hovering o’er the paper with her quill.
  3. 1298 Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;
  4. 1299 What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;
  5. 1300 This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill.
  6. 1301 Much like a press of people at a door,
  7. 1302 Throng her inventions, which shall go before.
  1. 1303 At last she thus begins: “Thou worthy lord
  2. 1304 Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
  3. 1305 Health to thy person! Next vouchsafe t’ afford,
  4. 1306 If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see,
  5. 1307 Some present speed to come and visit me.
  6. 1308 So I commend me from our house in grief.
  7. 1309 My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.”
  1. 1310 Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,
  2. 1311 Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.
  3. 1312 By this short schedule Collatine may know
  4. 1313 Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality;
  5. 1314 She dares not thereof make discovery,
  6. 1315 Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,
  7. 1316 Ere she with blood had stained her stained excuse.
  1. 1317 Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
  2. 1318 She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her;
  3. 1319 When sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion
  4. 1320 Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her
  5. 1321 From that suspicion which the world might bear her.
  6. 1322 To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter
  7. 1323 With words, till action might become them better.
  1. 1324 To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,
  2. 1325 For then the eye interprets to the ear
  3. 1326 The heavy motion that it doth behold,
  4. 1327 When every part a part of woe doth bear.
  5. 1328 ’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear.
  6. 1329 Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
  7. 1330 And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.
  1. 1331 Her letter now is sealed, and on it writ
  2. 1332 “At Ardea to my lord with more than haste.”
  3. 1333 The post attends, and she delivers it,
  4. 1334 Charging the sour-faced groom to hie as fast
  5. 1335 As lagging fowls before the northern blast.
  6. 1336 Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems;
  7. 1337 Extremely still urgeth such extremes.
  1. 1338 The homely villain curtsies to her low,
  2. 1339 And, blushing on her with a steadfast eye,
  3. 1340 Receives the scroll without or yea or no,
  4. 1341 And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.
  5. 1342 But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
  6. 1343 Imagine every eye beholds their blame,
  7. 1344 For Lucrece thought he blushed to see her shame,
  1. 1345 When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect
  2. 1346 Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.
  3. 1347 Such harmless creatures have a true respect
  4. 1348 To talk in deeds, while others saucily
  5. 1349 Promise more speed, but do it leisurely.
  6. 1350 Even so this pattern of the worn-out age
  7. 1351 Pawned honest looks, but laid no words to gage.
  1. 1352 His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
  2. 1353 That two red fires in both their faces blazed;
  3. 1354 She thought he blushed, as knowing Tarquin’s lust,
  4. 1355 And, blushing with him, wistly on him gazed.
  5. 1356 Her earnest eye did make him more amazed.
  6. 1357 The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
  7. 1358 The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.
  1. 1359 But long she thinks till he return again,
  2. 1360 And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.
  3. 1361 The weary time she cannot entertain,
  4. 1362 For now ’tis stale to sigh, to weep, to groan;
  5. 1363 So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,
  6. 1364 That she her plaints a little while doth stay,
  7. 1365 Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.
  1. 1366 At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
  2. 1367 Of skilful painting, made for Priam’s Troy,
  3. 1368 Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,
  4. 1369 For Helen’s rape the city to destroy,
  5. 1370 Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
  6. 1371 Which the conceited painter drew so proud,
  7. 1372 As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed.
  1. 1373 A thousand lamentable objects there,
  2. 1374 In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless life.
  3. 1375 Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear,
  4. 1376 Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife.
  5. 1377 The red blood reeked to show the painter’s strife,
  6. 1378 The dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights,
  7. 1379 Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.
  1. 1380 There might you see the labouring pioneer
  2. 1381 Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust;
  3. 1382 And from the towers of Troy there would appear
  4. 1383 The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,
  5. 1384 Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust.
  6. 1385 Such sweet observance in this work was had,
  7. 1386 That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.
  1. 1387 In great commanders grace and majesty
  2. 1388 You might behold, triumphing in their faces;
  3. 1389 In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;
  4. 1390 And here and there the painter interlaces
  5. 1391 Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces,
  6. 1392 Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,
  7. 1393 That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.
  1. 1394 In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art
  2. 1395 Of physiognomy might one behold!
  3. 1396 The face of either ciphered either’s heart;
  4. 1397 Their face their manners most expressly told.
  5. 1398 In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled,
  6. 1399 But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent
  7. 1400 Showed deep regard and smiling government.
  1. 1401 There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,
  2. 1402 As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight,
  3. 1403 Making such sober action with his hand
  4. 1404 That it beguiled attention, charmed the sight.
  5. 1405 In speech, it seemed, his beard, all silver white,
  6. 1406 Wagged up and down, and from his lips did fly
  7. 1407 Thin winding breath, which purled up to the sky.
  1. 1408 About him were a press of gaping faces,
  2. 1409 Which seemed to swallow up his sound advice,
  3. 1410 All jointly list’ning, but with several graces,
  4. 1411 As if some mermaid did their ears entice;
  5. 1412 Some high, some low, the painter was so nice.
  6. 1413 The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
  7. 1414 To jump up higher seemed to mock the mind.
  1. 1415 Here one man’s hand leaned on another’s head,
  2. 1416 His nose being shadowed by his neighbour’s ear;
  3. 1417 Here one being thronged bears back, all boll’n and red;
  4. 1418 Another smothered seems to pelt and swear;
  5. 1419 And in their rage such signs of rage they bear
  6. 1420 As, but for loss of Nestor’s golden words,
  7. 1421 It seemed they would debate with angry swords.
  1. 1422 For much imaginary work was there,
  2. 1423 Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
  3. 1424 That for Achilles’ image stood his spear
  4. 1425 Griped in an armed hand; himself, behind,
  5. 1426 Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.
  6. 1427 A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
  7. 1428 Stood for the whole to be imagined.
  1. 1429 And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy,
  2. 1430 When their brave hope, bold Hector, marched to field,
  3. 1431 Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
  4. 1432 To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
  5. 1433 And to their hope they such odd action yield
  6. 1434 That through their light joy seemed to appear,
  7. 1435 Like bright things stained, a kind of heavy fear.
  1. 1436 And from the strand of Dardan, where they fought,
  2. 1437 To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran,
  3. 1438 Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
  4. 1439 With swelling ridges, and their ranks began
  5. 1440 To break upon the galled shore, and then
  6. 1441 Retire again till, meeting greater ranks,
  7. 1442 They join, and shoot their foam at Simois’ banks.
  1. 1443 To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
  2. 1444 To find a face where all distress is stelled.
  3. 1445 Many she sees where cares have carved some,
  4. 1446 But none where all distress and dolour dwelled,
  5. 1447 Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,
  6. 1448 Staring on Priam’s wounds with her old eyes,
  7. 1449 Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies.
  1. 1450 In her the painter had anatomized
  2. 1451 Time’s ruin, beauty’s wrack, and grim care’s reign.
  3. 1452 Her cheeks with chops and wrinkles were disguised;
  4. 1453 Of what she was no semblance did remain.
  5. 1454 Her blue blood, changed to black in every vein,
  6. 1455 Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,
  7. 1456 Showed life imprisoned in a body dead.
  1. 1457 On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
  2. 1458 And shapes her sorrow to the beldam’s woes,
  3. 1459 Who nothing wants to answer her but cries
  4. 1460 And bitter words to ban her cruel foes.
  5. 1461 The painter was no god to lend her those,
  6. 1462 And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
  7. 1463 To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.
  1. 1464 “Poor instrument,” quoth she, “without a sound,
  2. 1465 I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue,
  3. 1466 And drop sweet balm in Priam’s painted wound,
  4. 1467 And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,
  5. 1468 And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long,
  6. 1469 And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
  7. 1470 Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.
  1. 1471 “Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
  2. 1472 That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
  3. 1473 Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
  4. 1474 This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;
  5. 1475 Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here,
  6. 1476 And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
  7. 1477 The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.
  1. 1478 “Why should the private pleasure of some one
  2. 1479 Become the public plague of many moe?
  3. 1480 Let sin, alone committed, light alone
  4. 1481 Upon his head that hath transgressed so;
  5. 1482 Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.
  6. 1483 For one’s offence why should so many fall,
  7. 1484 To plague a private sin in general?
  1. 1485 “Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
  2. 1486 Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;
  3. 1487 Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
  4. 1488 And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,
  5. 1489 And one man’s lust these many lives confounds.
  6. 1490 Had doting Priam checked his son’s desire,
  7. 1491 Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.”
  1. 1492 Here feelingly she weeps Troy’s painted woes,
  2. 1493 For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
  3. 1494 Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;
  4. 1495 Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.
  5. 1496 So Lucrece set a-work, sad tales doth tell
  6. 1497 To pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow;
  7. 1498 She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.
  1. 1499 She throws her eyes about the painting round,
  2. 1500 And who she finds forlorn she doth lament.
  3. 1501 At last she sees a wretched image bound,
  4. 1502 That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent.
  5. 1503 His face, though full of cares, yet showed content;
  6. 1504 Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,
  7. 1505 So mild, that patience seemed to scorn his woes.
  1. 1506 In him the painter laboured with his skill
  2. 1507 To hide deceit and give the harmless show
  3. 1508 An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
  4. 1509 A brow unbent that seemed to welcome woe,
  5. 1510 Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
  6. 1511 That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
  7. 1512 Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.
  1. 1513 But, like a constant and confirmed devil,
  2. 1514 He entertained a show so seeming just,
  3. 1515 And therein so ensconced his secret evil,
  4. 1516 That jealousy itself could not mistrust
  5. 1517 False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
  6. 1518 Into so bright a day such black-faced storms,
  7. 1519 Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.
  1. 1520 The well-skilled workman this mild image drew
  2. 1521 For perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story
  3. 1522 The credulous Old Priam after slew;
  4. 1523 Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory
  5. 1524 Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
  6. 1525 And little stars shot from their fixed places,
  7. 1526 When their glass fell wherein they viewed their faces.
  1. 1527 This picture she advisedly perused,
  2. 1528 And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,
  3. 1529 Saying some shape in Sinon’s was abused;
  4. 1530 So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill.
  5. 1531 And still on him she gazed, and gazing still,
  6. 1532 Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,
  7. 1533 That she concludes the picture was belied.
  1. 1534 “It cannot be,” quoth she, “that so much guile”—
  2. 1535 She would have said “can lurk in such a look.”
  3. 1536 But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while,
  4. 1537 And from her tongue “can lurk” from “cannot” took.
  5. 1538 “It cannot be” she in that sense forsook,
  6. 1539 And turned it thus: “It cannot be, I find,
  7. 1540 But such a face should bear a wicked mind.
  1. 1541 “For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,
  2. 1542 So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,
  3. 1543 As if with grief or travail he had fainted,
  4. 1544 To me came Tarquin armed too, beguiled
  5. 1545 With outward honesty, but yet defiled
  6. 1546 With inward vice. As Priam him did cherish,
  7. 1547 So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.
  1. 1548 “Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
  2. 1549 To see those borrowed tears that Sinon sheds!
  3. 1550 Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
  4. 1551 For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds.
  5. 1552 His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
  6. 1553 Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity,
  7. 1554 Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.
  1. 1555 “Such devils steal effects from lightless hell,
  2. 1556 For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,
  3. 1557 And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell.
  4. 1558 These contraries such unity do hold,
  5. 1559 Only to flatter fools and make them bold;
  6. 1560 So Priam’s trust false Sinon’s tears doth flatter,
  7. 1561 That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.”
  1. 1562 Here, all enraged, such passion her assails,
  2. 1563 That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
  3. 1564 She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
  4. 1565 Comparing him to that unhappy guest
  5. 1566 Whose deed hath made herself herself detest.
  6. 1567 At last she smilingly with this gives o’er;
  7. 1568 “Fool, fool!” quoth she, “his wounds will not be sore.”
  1. 1569 Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
  2. 1570 And time doth weary time with her complaining.
  3. 1571 She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,
  4. 1572 And both she thinks too long with her remaining.
  5. 1573 Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining.
  6. 1574 Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,
  7. 1575 And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.
  1. 1576 Which all this time hath overslipped her thought,
  2. 1577 That she with painted images hath spent,
  3. 1578 Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
  4. 1579 By deep surmise of others’ detriment,
  5. 1580 Losing her woes in shows of discontent.
  6. 1581 It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
  7. 1582 To think their dolour others have endured.
  1. 1583 But now the mindful messenger, come back,
  2. 1584 Brings home his lord and other company;
  3. 1585 Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black,
  4. 1586 And round about her tear-distained eye
  5. 1587 Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky.
  6. 1588 These water-galls in her dim element
  7. 1589 Foretell new storms to those already spent.
  1. 1590 Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
  2. 1591 Amazedly in her sad face he stares.
  3. 1592 Her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw,
  4. 1593 Her lively colour killed with deadly cares.
  5. 1594 He hath no power to ask her how she fares;
  6. 1595 Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance,
  7. 1596 Met far from home, wond’ring each other’s chance.
  1. 1597 At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
  2. 1598 And thus begins: “What uncouth ill event
  3. 1599 Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand?
  4. 1600 Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?
  5. 1601 Why art thou thus attired in discontent?
  6. 1602 Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,
  7. 1603 And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.”
  1. 1604 Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,
  2. 1605 Ere once she can discharge one word of woe.
  3. 1606 At length addressed to answer his desire,
  4. 1607 She modestly prepares to let them know
  5. 1608 Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe;
  6. 1609 While Collatine and his consorted lords
  7. 1610 With sad attention long to hear her words.
  1. 1611 And now this pale swan in her wat’ry nest
  2. 1612 Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending:
  3. 1613 “Few words,” quoth she, “shall fit the trespass best,
  4. 1614 Where no excuse can give the fault amending.
  5. 1615 In me more woes than words are now depending;
  6. 1616 And my laments would be drawn out too long,
  7. 1617 To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.
  1. 1618 “Then be this all the task it hath to say:
  2. 1619 Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
  3. 1620 A stranger came, and on that pillow lay
  4. 1621 Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;
  5. 1622 And what wrong else may be imagined
  6. 1623 By foul enforcement might be done to me,
  7. 1624 From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.
  1. 1625 “For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
  2. 1626 With shining falchion in my chamber came
  3. 1627 A creeping creature with a flaming light,
  4. 1628 And softly cried ‘Awake, thou Roman dame,
  5. 1629 And entertain my love; else lasting shame
  6. 1630 On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
  7. 1631 If thou my love’s desire do contradict.
  1. 1632 “‘For some hard-favoured groom of thine,’ quoth he,
  2. 1633 ‘Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
  3. 1634 I’ll murder straight, and then I’ll slaughter thee
  4. 1635 And swear I found you where you did fulfil
  5. 1636 The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill
  6. 1637 The lechers in their deed. This act will be
  7. 1638 My fame and thy perpetual infamy.’
  1. 1639 “With this, I did begin to start and cry,
  2. 1640 And then against my heart he sets his sword,
  3. 1641 Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
  4. 1642 I should not live to speak another word;
  5. 1643 So should my shame still rest upon record,
  6. 1644 And never be forgot in mighty Rome
  7. 1645 The adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.
  1. 1646 “Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
  2. 1647 And far the weaker with so strong a fear.
  3. 1648 My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
  4. 1649 No rightful plea might plead for justice there.
  5. 1650 His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
  6. 1651 That my poor beauty had purloined his eyes;
  7. 1652 And when the judge is robbed, the prisoner dies.
  1. 1653 “O, teach me how to make mine own excuse,
  2. 1654 Or at the least, this refuge let me find:
  3. 1655 Though my gross blood be stained with this abuse,
  4. 1656 Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
  5. 1657 That was not forced; that never was inclined
  6. 1658 To accessary yieldings, but still pure
  7. 1659 Doth in her poisoned closet yet endure.”
  1. 1660 Lo, here the hopeless merchant of this loss,
  2. 1661 With head declined and voice dammed up with woe,
  3. 1662 With sad set eyes and wretched arms across,
  4. 1663 From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
  5. 1664 The grief away that stops his answer so.
  6. 1665 But wretched as he is, he strives in vain;
  7. 1666 What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.
  1. 1667 As through an arch the violent roaring tide
  2. 1668 Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,
  3. 1669 Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
  4. 1670 Back to the strait that forced him on so fast,
  5. 1671 In rage sent out, recalled in rage, being past:
  6. 1672 Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw,
  7. 1673 To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.
  1. 1674 Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,
  2. 1675 And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:
  3. 1676 “Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
  4. 1677 Another power; no flood by raining slaketh.
  5. 1678 My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
  6. 1679 More feeling-painful. Let it then suffice
  7. 1680 To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.
  1. 1681 “And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
  2. 1682 For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me:
  3. 1683 Be suddenly revenged on my foe,
  4. 1684 Thine, mine, his own. Suppose thou dost defend me
  5. 1685 From what is past. The help that thou shalt lend me
  6. 1686 Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die,
  7. 1687 For sparing justice feeds iniquity.
  1. 1688 “But ere I name him, you fair lords,” quoth she,
  2. 1689 Speaking to those that came with Collatine,
  3. 1690 “Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,
  4. 1691 With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;
  5. 1692 For ’tis a meritorious fair design
  6. 1693 To chase injustice with revengeful arms.
  7. 1694 Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies’ harms.”
  1. 1695 At this request, with noble disposition
  2. 1696 Each present lord began to promise aid,
  3. 1697 As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
  4. 1698 Longing to hear the hateful foe bewrayed.
  5. 1699 But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
  6. 1700 The protestation stops. “O, speak,” quoth she,
  7. 1701 “How may this forced stain be wiped from me?
  1. 1702 “What is the quality of my offence,
  2. 1703 Being constrained with dreadful circumstance?
  3. 1704 May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
  4. 1705 My low-declined honour to advance?
  5. 1706 May any terms acquit me from this chance?
  6. 1707 The poisoned fountain clears itself again,
  7. 1708 And why not I from this compelled stain?
  1. 1709 With this, they all at once began to say,
  2. 1710 Her body’s stain her mind untainted clears,
  3. 1711 While with a joyless smile she turns away
  4. 1712 The face, that map which deep impression bears
  5. 1713 Of hard misfortune, carved in it with tears.
  6. 1714 “No, no,” quoth she, “no dame, hereafter living
  7. 1715 By my excuse shall claim excuse’s giving.”
  1. 1716 Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,
  2. 1717 She throws forth Tarquin’s name: “He, he,” she says,
  3. 1718 But more than “he” her poor tongue could not speak;
  4. 1719 Till after many accents and delays,
  5. 1720 Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
  6. 1721 She utters this: “He, he, fair lords, ’tis he,
  7. 1722 That guides this hand to give this wound to me.”
  1. 1723 Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
  2. 1724 A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed.
  3. 1725 That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
  4. 1726 Of that polluted prison where it breathed.
  5. 1727 Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
  6. 1728 Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly
  7. 1729 Life’s lasting date from cancelled destiny.
  1. 1730 Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed,
  2. 1731 Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew,
  3. 1732 Till Lucrece’ father that beholds her bleed,
  4. 1733 Himself on her self-slaughtered body threw,
  5. 1734 And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
  6. 1735 The murd’rous knife, and, as it left the place,
  7. 1736 Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;
  1. 1737 And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
  2. 1738 In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
  3. 1739 Circles her body in on every side,
  4. 1740 Who, like a late-sacked island, vastly stood
  5. 1741 Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.
  6. 1742 Some of her blood still pure and red remained,
  7. 1743 And some looked black, and that false Tarquin stained.
  1. 1744 About the mourning and congealed face
  2. 1745 Of that black blood a wat’ry rigol goes,
  3. 1746 Which seems to weep upon the tainted place;
  4. 1747 And ever since, as pitying Lucrece’ woes,
  5. 1748 Corrupted blood some watery token shows,
  6. 1749 And blood untainted still doth red abide,
  7. 1750 Blushing at that which is so putrified.
  1. 1751 “Daughter, dear daughter,” old Lucretius cries,
  2. 1752 “That life was mine which thou hast here deprived.
  3. 1753 If in the child the father’s image lies,
  4. 1754 Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?
  5. 1755 Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
  6. 1756 If children predecease progenitors,
  7. 1757 We are their offspring, and they none of ours.
  1. 1758 “Poor broken glass, I often did behold
  2. 1759 In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
  3. 1760 But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
  4. 1761 Shows me a bare-boned death by time outworn.
  5. 1762 O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,
  6. 1763 And shivered all the beauty of my glass,
  7. 1764 That I no more can see what once I was!
  1. 1765 “O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,
  2. 1766 If they surcease to be that should survive!
  3. 1767 Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
  4. 1768 And leave the falt’ring feeble souls alive?
  5. 1769 The old bees die, the young possess their hive.
  6. 1770 Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see
  7. 1771 Thy father die, and not thy father thee!”
  1. 1772 By this starts Collatine as from a dream,
  2. 1773 And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
  3. 1774 And then in key-cold Lucrece’ bleeding stream
  4. 1775 He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
  5. 1776 And counterfeits to die with her a space;
  6. 1777 Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
  7. 1778 And live to be revenged on her death.
  1. 1779 The deep vexation of his inward soul
  2. 1780 Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
  3. 1781 Who, mad that sorrow should his use control
  4. 1782 Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
  5. 1783 Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
  6. 1784 Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart’s aid
  7. 1785 That no man could distinguish what he said.
  1. 1786 Yet sometime “Tarquin” was pronounced plain,
  2. 1787 But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
  3. 1788 This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
  4. 1789 Held back his sorrow’s tide, to make it more.
  5. 1790 At last it rains, and busy winds give o’er.
  6. 1791 Then son and father weep with equal strife
  7. 1792 Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife.
  1. 1793 The one doth call her his, the other his,
  2. 1794 Yet neither may possess the claim they lay,
  3. 1795 The father says “She’s mine.” “O, mine she is,”
  4. 1796 Replies her husband. “Do not take away
  5. 1797 My sorrow’s interest; let no mourner say
  6. 1798 He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
  7. 1799 And only must be wailed by Collatine.”
  1. 1800 “O,” quoth Lucretius, “I did give that life
  2. 1801 Which she too early and too late hath spilled.”
  3. 1802 “Woe, woe,” quoth Collatine, “she was my wife,
  4. 1803 I owed her, and ’tis mine that she hath killed.”
  5. 1804 “My daughter” and “my wife” with clamours filled
  6. 1805 The dispersed air, who, holding Lucrece’ life,
  7. 1806 Answered their cries, “my daughter” and “my wife”.
  1. 1807 Brutus, who plucked the knife from Lucrece’ side,
  2. 1808 Seeing such emulation in their woe,
  3. 1809 Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
  4. 1810 Burying in Lucrece’ wound his folly’s show.
  5. 1811 He with the Romans was esteemed so
  6. 1812 As silly jeering idiots are with kings,
  7. 1813 For sportive words and utt’ring foolish things.
  1. 1814 But now he throws that shallow habit by,
  2. 1815 Wherein deep policy did him disguise,
  3. 1816 And armed his long-hid wits advisedly,
  4. 1817 To check the tears in Collatinus’ eyes.
  5. 1818 “Thou wronged lord of Rome,” quoth he, “arise!
  6. 1819 Let my unsounded self, supposed a fool,
  7. 1820 Now set thy long-experienced wit to school.
  1. 1821 “Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
  2. 1822 Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
  3. 1823 Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
  4. 1824 For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
  5. 1825 Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds.
  6. 1826 Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
  7. 1827 To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.
  1. 1828 “Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
  2. 1829 In such relenting dew of lamentations,
  3. 1830 But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part
  4. 1831 To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,
  5. 1832 That they will suffer these abominations,—
  6. 1833 Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced,—
  7. 1834 By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.
  1. 1835 “Now, by the Capitol that we adore,
  2. 1836 And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained,
  3. 1837 By heaven’s fair sun that breeds the fat earth’s store,
  4. 1838 By all our country rights in Rome maintained,
  5. 1839 And by chaste Lucrece’ soul that late complained
  6. 1840 Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,
  7. 1841 We will revenge the death of this true wife.”
  1. 1842 This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,
  2. 1843 And kissed the fatal knife, to end his vow;
  3. 1844 And to his protestation urged the rest,
  4. 1845 Who, wond’ring at him, did his words allow.
  5. 1846 Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow,
  6. 1847 And that deep vow which Brutus made before,
  7. 1848 He doth again repeat, and that they swore.
  1. 1849 When they had sworn to this advised doom,
  2. 1850 They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence,
  3. 1851 To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,
  4. 1852 And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offence;
  5. 1853 Which being done with speedy diligence,
  6. 1854 The Romans plausibly did give consent
  7. 1855 To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment.