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+	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
+
+TO THE
+RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
+Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.
+
+
+The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof
+this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety.
+The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth
+of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I
+have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in
+all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would
+show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship,
+to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.
+
+Your lordship's in all duty,
+WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
+
+
+	THE ARGUMENT
+
+
+Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus,
+after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be
+cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs,
+not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had
+possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons
+and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege
+the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of
+Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after
+supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among
+whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife
+Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they posted to Rome; and
+intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of
+that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds
+his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her
+maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or
+in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus
+the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus
+Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering
+his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the
+camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and
+was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by
+Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth
+into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the
+morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight,
+hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father,
+another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one
+accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius;
+and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause
+of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her
+revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and
+withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent
+they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
+Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted
+the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a
+bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the
+people were so moved, that with one consent and a general
+acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state
+government changed from kings to consuls.
+
+
+
+	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
+
+
+
+FROM the besieged Ardea all in post,
+Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
+Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
+And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
+Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
+And girdle with embracing flames the waist
+Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.
+
+Haply that name of 'chaste' unhappily set
+This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
+When Collatine unwisely did not let
+To praise the clear unmatched red and white
+Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
+Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
+With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.
+
+For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
+Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
+What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
+In the possession of his beauteous mate;
+Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
+That kings might be espoused to more fame,
+But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.
+
+O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
+And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
+As is the morning's silver-melting dew
+Against the golden splendor of the sun!
+An expired date, cancell'd ere well begun:
+Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
+Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.
+
+Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
+The eyes of men without an orator;
+What needeth then apologies be made,
+To set forth that which is so singular?
+Or why is Collatine the publisher
+Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
+From thievish ears, because it is his own?
+
+Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty
+Suggested this proud issue of a king;
+For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:
+Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
+Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
+His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
+That golden hap which their superiors want.
+
+But some untimely thought did instigate
+His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those:
+His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,
+Neglected all, with swift intent he goes
+To quench the coal which in his liver glows.
+O rash false heat, wrapp'd in repentant cold,
+Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old!
+
+When at Collatium this false lord arrived,
+Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame,
+Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
+Which of them both should underprop her fame:
+When virtue bragg'd, beauty would blush for shame;
+When beauty boasted blushes, in despite
+Virtue would stain that o'er with silver white.
+
+But beauty, in that white intituled,
+From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:
+Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,
+Which virtue gave the golden age to gild
+Their silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;
+Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,
+When shame assail'd, the red should fence the white.
+
+This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,
+Argued by beauty's red and virtue's white
+Of either's colour was the other queen,
+Proving from world's minority their right:
+Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;
+The sovereignty of either being so great,
+That oft they interchange each other's seat.
+
+Their silent war of lilies and of roses,
+Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,
+In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;
+Where, lest between them both it should be kill'd,
+The coward captive vanquished doth yield
+To those two armies that would let him go,
+Rather than triumph in so false a foe.
+
+Now thinks he that her husband's shallow tongue,--
+The niggard prodigal that praised her so,--
+In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,
+Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:
+Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe
+Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,
+In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.
+
+This earthly saint, adored by this devil,
+Little suspecteth the false worshipper;
+For unstain'd thoughts do seldom dream on evil;
+Birds never limed no secret bushes fear:
+So guiltless she securely gives good cheer
+And reverend welcome to her princely guest,
+Whose inward ill no outward harm express'd:
+
+For that he colour'd with his high estate,
+Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;
+That nothing in him seem'd inordinate,
+Save something too much wonder of his eye,
+Which, having all, all could not satisfy;
+But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,
+That, cloy'd with much, he pineth still for more.
+
+But she, that never coped with stranger eyes,
+Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
+Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies
+Writ in the glassy margents of such books:
+She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks;
+Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
+More than his eyes were open'd to the light.
+
+He stories to her ears her husband's fame,
+Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
+And decks with praises Collatine's high name,
+Made glorious by his manly chivalry
+With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:
+Her joy with heaved-up hand she doth express,
+And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.
+
+Far from the purpose of his coming hither,
+He makes excuses for his being there:
+No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
+Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear;
+Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
+Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
+And in her vaulty prison stows the Day.
+
+For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
+Intending weariness with heavy spright;
+For, after supper, long he questioned
+With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:
+Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;
+And every one to rest themselves betake,
+Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.
+
+As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
+The sundry dangers of his will's obtaining;
+Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,
+Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:
+Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;
+And when great treasure is the meed proposed,
+Though death be adjunct, there's no death supposed.
+
+Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
+For what they have not, that which they possess
+They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
+And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
+Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
+Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
+That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.
+
+The aim of all is but to nurse the life
+With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
+And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
+That one for all, or all for one we gage;
+As life for honour in fell battle's rage;
+Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
+The death of all, and all together lost.
+
+So that in venturing ill we leave to be
+The things we are for that which we expect;
+And this ambitious foul infirmity,
+In having much, torments us with defect
+Of that we have: so then we do neglect
+The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
+Make something nothing by augmenting it.
+
+Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
+Pawning his honour to obtain his lust;
+And for himself himself be must forsake:
+Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?
+When shall he think to find a stranger just,
+When he himself himself confounds, betrays
+To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days?
+
+Now stole upon the time the dead of night,
+When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes:
+No comfortable star did lend his light,
+No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries;
+Now serves the season that they may surprise
+The silly lambs: pure thoughts are dead and still,
+While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.
+
+And now this lustful lord leap'd from his bed,
+Throwing his mantle rudely o'er his arm;
+Is madly toss'd between desire and dread;
+Th' one sweetly flatters, th' other feareth harm;
+But honest fear, bewitch'd with lust's foul charm,
+Doth too too oft betake him to retire,
+Beaten away by brain-sick rude desire.
+
+His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
+That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;
+Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
+Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;
+And to the flame thus speaks advisedly,
+'As from this cold flint I enforced this fire,
+So Lucrece must I force to my desire.'
+
+Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
+The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
+And in his inward mind he doth debate
+What following sorrow may on this arise:
+Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
+His naked armour of still-slaughter'd lust,
+And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:
+
+'Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
+To darken her whose light excelleth thine:
+And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot
+With your uncleanness that which is divine;
+Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:
+Let fair humanity abhor the deed
+That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.
+
+'O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
+O foul dishonour to my household's grave!
+O impious act, including all foul harms!
+A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!
+True valour still a true respect should have;
+Then my digression is so vile, so base,
+That it will live engraven in my face.
+
+'Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive,
+And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;
+Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,
+To cipher me how fondly I did dote;
+That my posterity, shamed with the note
+Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
+To wish that I their father had not bin.
+
+'What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
+A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
+Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
+Or sells eternity to get a toy?
+For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
+Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
+Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?
+
+'If Collatinus dream of my intent,
+Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage
+Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?
+This siege that hath engirt his marriage,
+This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,
+This dying virtue, this surviving shame,
+Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?
+
+'O, what excuse can my invention make,
+When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
+Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake,
+Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed?
+The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed;
+And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,
+But coward-like with trembling terror die.
+
+
+'Had Collatinus kill'd my son or sire,
+Or lain in ambush to betray my life,
+Or were he not my dear friend, this desire
+Might have excuse to work upon his wife,
+As in revenge or quittal of such strife:
+But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,
+The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.
+
+'Shameful it is; ay, if the fact be known:
+Hateful it is; there is no hate in loving:
+I'll beg her love; but she is own:
+The worst is but denial and reproving:
+My will is strong, past reason's weak removing.
+Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw
+Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.'
+
+Thus, graceless, holds he disputation
+'Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will,
+And with good thoughts make dispensation,
+Urging the worser sense for vantage still;
+Which in a moment doth confound and kill
+All pure effects, and doth so far proceed,
+That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed.
+
+Quoth he, 'She took me kindly by the hand,
+And gazed for tidings in my eager eyes,
+Fearing some hard news from the warlike band,
+Where her beloved Collatinus lies.
+O, how her fear did make her colour rise!
+First red as roses that on lawn we lay,
+Then white as lawn, the roses took away.
+
+'And how her hand, in my hand being lock'd
+Forced it to tremble with her loyal fear!
+Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock'd,
+Until her husband's welfare she did hear;
+Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer,
+That had Narcissus seen her as she stood,
+Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood.
+
+'Why hunt I then for colour or excuses?
+All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth;
+Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses;
+Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth:
+Affection is my captain, and he leadeth;
+And when his gaudy banner is display'd,
+The coward fights and will not be dismay'd.
+
+'Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating, die!
+Respect and reason, wait on wrinkled age!
+My heart shall never countermand mine eye:
+Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage;
+My part is youth, and beats these from the stage:
+Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize;
+Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?'
+
+As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
+Is almost choked by unresisted lust.
+Away he steals with open listening ear,
+Full of foul hope and full of fond mistrust;
+Both which, as servitors to the unjust,
+So cross him with their opposite persuasion,
+That now he vows a league, and now invasion.
+
+Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
+And in the self-same seat sits Collatine:
+That eye which looks on her confounds his wits;
+That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
+Unto a view so false will not incline;
+But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,
+Which once corrupted takes the worser part;
+
+And therein heartens up his servile powers,
+Who, flatter'd by their leader's jocund show,
+Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;
+And as their captain, so their pride doth grow,
+Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
+By reprobate desire thus madly led,
+The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.
+
+The locks between her chamber and his will,
+Each one by him enforced, retires his ward;
+But, as they open, they all rate his ill,
+Which drives the creeping thief to some regard:
+The threshold grates the door to have him heard;
+Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;
+They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.
+
+As each unwilling portal yields him way,
+Through little vents and crannies of the place
+The wind wars with his torch to make him stay,
+And blows the smoke of it into his face,
+Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
+But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
+Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch:
+
+And being lighted, by the light he spies
+Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks:
+He takes it from the rushes where it lies,
+And griping it, the needle his finger pricks;
+As who should say 'This glove to wanton tricks
+Is not inured; return again in haste;
+Thou see'st our mistress' ornaments are chaste.'
+
+But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;
+He in the worst sense construes their denial:
+The doors, the wind, the glove, that did delay him,
+He takes for accidental things of trial;
+Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,
+Who with a lingering slay his course doth let,
+Till every minute pays the hour his debt.
+
+'So, so,' quoth he, 'these lets attend the time,
+Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring,
+To add a more rejoicing to the prime,
+And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.
+Pain pays the income of each precious thing;
+Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands,
+The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.'
+
+Now is he come unto the chamber-door,
+That shuts him from the heaven of his thought,
+Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,
+Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing be sought.
+So from himself impiety hath wrought,
+That for his prey to pray he doth begin,
+As if the heavens should countenance his sin.
+
+But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,
+Having solicited th' eternal power
+That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,
+And they would stand auspicious to the hour,
+Even there he starts: quoth he, 'I must deflower:
+The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,
+How can they then assist me in the act?
+
+'Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!
+My will is back'd with resolution:
+Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried;
+The blackest sin is clear'd with absolution;
+Against love's fire fear's frost hath dissolution.
+The eye of heaven is out, and misty night
+Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.'
+
+This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch,
+And with his knee the door he opens wide.
+The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch:
+Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
+Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
+But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
+Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.
+
+Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
+And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
+The curtains being close, about he walks,
+Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:
+By their high treason is his heart misled;
+Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon
+To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.
+
+Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
+Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;
+Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun
+To wink, being blinded with a greater light:
+Whether it is that she reflects so bright,
+That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;
+But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.
+
+O, had they in that darksome prison died!
+Then had they seen the period of their ill;
+Then Collatine again, by Lucrece' side,
+In his clear bed might have reposed still:
+But they must ope, this blessed league to kill;
+And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight
+Must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight.
+
+Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
+Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
+Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
+Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
+Between whose hills her head entombed is:
+Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
+To be admired of lewd unhallow'd eyes.
+
+Without the bed her other fair hand was,
+On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
+Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,
+With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.
+Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light,
+And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
+Till they might open to adorn the day.
+
+Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath;
+O modest wantons! wanton modesty!
+Showing life's triumph in the map of death,
+And death's dim look in life's mortality:
+Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,
+As if between them twain there were no strife,
+But that life lived in death, and death in life.
+
+Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,
+A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,
+Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,
+And him by oath they truly honoured.
+These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred;
+Who, like a foul ursurper, went about
+From this fair throne to heave the owner out.
+
+What could he see but mightily he noted?
+What did he note but strongly he desired?
+What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
+And in his will his wilful eye he tired.
+With more than admiration he admired
+Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
+Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.
+
+As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,
+Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
+So o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
+His rage of lust by gazing qualified;
+Slack'd, not suppress'd; for standing by her side,
+His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
+Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins:
+
+And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
+Obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting,
+In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
+Nor children's tears nor mothers' groans respecting,
+Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting:
+Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,
+Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.
+
+His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
+His eye commends the leading to his hand;
+His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
+Smoking with pride, march'd on to make his stand
+On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
+Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,
+Left there round turrets destitute and pale.
+
+They, mustering to the quiet cabinet
+Where their dear governess and lady lies,
+Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
+And fright her with confusion of their cries:
+She, much amazed, breaks ope her lock'd-up eyes,
+Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
+Are by his flaming torch dimm'd and controll'd.
+
+Imagine her as one in dead of night
+From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
+That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
+Whose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking;
+What terror or 'tis! but she, in worser taking,
+From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
+The sight which makes supposed terror true.
+
+Wrapp'd and confounded in a thousand fears,
+Like to a new-kill'd bird she trembling lies;
+She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
+Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:
+Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries;
+Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
+In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.
+
+His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,--
+Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!--
+May feel her heart-poor citizen!--distress'd,
+Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
+Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
+This moves in him more rage and lesser pity,
+To make the breach and enter this sweet city.
+
+First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin
+To sound a parley to his heartless foe;
+Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
+The reason of this rash alarm to know,
+Which he by dumb demeanor seeks to show;
+But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
+Under what colour he commits this ill.
+
+Thus he replies: 'The colour in thy face,
+That even for anger makes the lily pale,
+And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,
+Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale:
+Under that colour am I come to scale
+Thy never-conquer'd fort: the fault is thine,
+For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.
+
+'Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:
+Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,
+Where thou with patience must my will abide;
+My will that marks thee for my earth's delight,
+Which I to conquer sought with all my might;
+But as reproof and reason beat it dead,
+By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.
+
+'I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
+I know what thorns the growing rose defends;
+I think the honey guarded with a sting;
+All this beforehand counsel comprehends:
+But will is deaf and hears no heedful friends;
+Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,
+And dotes on what he looks, 'gainst law or duty.
+
+'I have debated, even in my soul,
+What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;
+But nothing can affection's course control,
+Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.
+I know repentant tears ensue the deed,
+Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;
+Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy.'
+
+This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
+Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,
+Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,
+Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:
+So under his insulting falchion lies
+Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
+With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.
+
+'Lucrece,' quoth he,'this night I must enjoy thee:
+If thou deny, then force must work my way,
+For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee:
+That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay,
+To kill thine honour with thy life's decay;
+And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,
+Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.
+
+'So thy surviving husband shall remain
+The scornful mark of every open eye;
+Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,
+Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:
+And thou, the author of their obloquy,
+Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,
+And sung by children in succeeding times.
+
+'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:
+The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
+A little harm done to a great good end
+For lawful policy remains enacted.
+The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
+In a pure compound; being so applied,
+His venom in effect is purified.
+
+'Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,
+Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot
+The shame that from them no device can take,
+The blemish that will never be forgot;
+Worse than a slavish wipe or birth-hour's blot:
+For marks descried in men's nativity
+Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'
+
+Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye
+He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;
+While she, the picture of pure piety,
+Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws,
+Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws,
+To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
+Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.
+
+But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,
+In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,
+From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
+Which blows these pitchy vapours from their bidding,
+Hindering their present fall by this dividing;
+So his unhallow'd haste her words delays,
+And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.
+
+Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
+While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth:
+Her sad behavior feeds his vulture folly,
+A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:
+His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
+No penetrable entrance to her plaining:
+Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.
+
+Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd
+In the remorseless wrinkles of his face;
+Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix'd,
+Which to her oratory adds more grace.
+She puts the period often from his place;
+And midst the sentence so her accent breaks,
+That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.
+
+She conjures him by high almighty Jove,
+By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath,
+By her untimely tears, her husband's love,
+By holy human law, and common troth,
+By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,
+That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
+And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.
+
+Quoth she, 'Reward not hospitality
+With such black payment as thou hast pretended;
+Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
+Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
+End thy ill aim before thy shoot be ended;
+He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
+To strike a poor unseasonable doe.
+
+'My husband is thy friend; for his sake spare me:
+Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me:
+Myself a weakling; do not then ensnare me:
+Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me.
+My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee:
+If ever man were moved with woman moans,
+Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans:
+
+'All which together, like a troubled ocean,
+Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart,
+To soften it with their continual motion;
+For stones dissolved to water do convert.
+O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
+Melt at my tears, and be compassionate!
+Soft pity enters at an iron gate.
+
+'In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee:
+Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame?
+To all the host of heaven I complain me,
+Thou wrong'st his honour, wound'st his princely name.
+Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same,
+Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king;
+For kings like gods should govern everything.
+
+'How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,
+When thus thy vices bud before thy spring!
+If in thy hope thou darest do such outrage,
+What darest thou not when once thou art a king?
+O, be remember'd, no outrageous thing
+From vassal actors can be wiped away;
+Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.
+
+'This deed will make thee only loved for fear;
+But happy monarchs still are fear'd for love:
+With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
+When they in thee the like offences prove:
+If but for fear of this, thy will remove;
+For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
+Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.
+
+'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
+Must he in thee read lectures of such shame?
+Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern
+Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
+To privilege dishonour in thy name?
+Thou black'st reproach against long-living laud,
+And makest fair reputation but a bawd.
+
+'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,
+From a pure heart command thy rebel will:
+Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
+For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
+Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil,
+When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul sin may say,
+He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?
+
+'Think but how vile a spectacle it were,
+To view thy present trespass in another.
+Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear;
+Their own transgressions partially they smother:
+This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
+O, how are they wrapp'd in with infamies
+That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!
+
+'To thee, to thee, my heaved-up hands appeal,
+Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier:
+I sue for exiled majesty's repeal;
+Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire:
+His true respect will prison false desire,
+And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,
+That thou shalt see thy state and pity mine.'
+
+'Have done,' quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide
+Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
+Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
+And with the wind in greater fury fret:
+The petty streams that pay a daily debt
+To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste
+Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'
+
+'Thou art,' quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;
+And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
+Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,
+Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
+If all these pretty ills shall change thy good,
+Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hearsed,
+And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.
+
+'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;
+Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;
+Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave:
+Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:
+The lesser thing should not the greater hide;
+The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
+But low shrubs wither at the cedar's root.
+
+'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'--
+No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee:
+Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,
+Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;
+That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
+Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
+To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'
+
+This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
+For light and lust are deadly enemies:
+Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
+When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
+The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries;
+Till with her own white fleece her voice controll'd
+Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:
+
+For with the nightly linen that she wears
+He pens her piteous clamours in her head;
+Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
+That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
+O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!
+The spots whereof could weeping purify,
+Her tears should drop on them perpetually.
+
+But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,
+And he hath won what he would lose again:
+This forced league doth force a further strife;
+This momentary joy breeds months of pain;
+This hot desire converts to cold disdain:
+Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,
+And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.
+
+Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
+Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
+Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
+The prey wherein by nature they delight;
+So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
+His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
+Devours his will, that lived by foul devouring.
+
+O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit
+Can comprehend in still imagination!
+Drunken Desire must vomit his receipt,
+Ere he can see his own abomination.
+While Lust is in his pride, no exclamation
+Can curb his heat or rein his rash desire,
+Till like a jade Self-will himself doth tire.
+
+And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,
+With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
+Feeble Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
+Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:
+The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace,
+For there it revels; and when that decays,
+The guilty rebel for remission prays.
+
+So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
+Who this accomplishment so hotly chased;
+For now against himself he sounds this doom,
+That through the length of times he stands disgraced:
+Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced;
+To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
+To ask the spotted princess how she fares.
+
+She says, her subjects with foul insurrection
+Have batter'd down her consecrated wall,
+And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
+Her immortality, and made her thrall
+To living death and pain perpetual:
+Which in her prescience she controlled still,
+But her foresight could not forestall their will.
+
+Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
+A captive victor that hath lost in gain;
+Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
+The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;
+Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.
+She bears the load of lust he left behind,
+And he the burden of a guilty mind.
+
+He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;
+She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;
+He scowls and hates himself for his offence;
+She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;
+He faintly flies, sneaking with guilty fear;
+She stays, exclaiming on the direful night;
+He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loathed delight.
+
+He thence departs a heavy convertite;
+She there remains a hopeless castaway;
+He in his speed looks for the morning light;
+She prays she never may behold the day,
+'For day,' quoth she, 'nights scapes doth open lay,
+And my true eyes have never practised how
+To cloak offences with a cunning brow.
+
+'They think not but that every eye can see
+The same disgrace which they themselves behold;
+And therefore would they still in darkness be,
+To have their unseen sin remain untold;
+For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
+And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
+Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'
+
+Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
+And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
+She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,
+And bids it leap from thence, where it may find
+Some purer chest to close so pure a mind.
+Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite
+Against the unseen secrecy of night:
+
+'O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!
+Dim register and notary of shame!
+Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
+Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
+Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
+Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator
+With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
+
+'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night!
+Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
+Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
+Make war against proportion'd course of time;
+Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
+His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
+Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.
+
+'With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
+Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick
+The life of purity, the supreme fair,
+Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;
+And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
+That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light
+May set at noon and make perpetual night.
+
+'Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night's child,
+The silver-shining queen he would distain;
+Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled,
+Through Night's black bosom should not peep again:
+So should I have co-partners in my pain;
+And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
+As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.
+
+'Where now I have no one to blush with me,
+To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,
+To mask their brows and hide their infamy;
+But I alone alone must sit and pine,
+Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
+Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
+Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.
+
+'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
+Let not the jealous Day behold that face
+Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
+Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace!
+Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
+That all the faults which in thy reign are made
+May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!
+
+'Make me not object to the tell-tale Day!
+The light will show, character'd in my brow,
+The story of sweet chastity's decay,
+The impious breach of holy wedlock vow:
+Yea the illiterate, that know not how
+To cipher what is writ in learned books,
+Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.
+
+'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,
+And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
+The orator, to deck his oratory,
+Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame;
+Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
+Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
+How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.
+
+'Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
+For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:
+If that be made a theme for disputation,
+The branches of another root are rotted,
+And undeserved reproach to him allotted
+That is as clear from this attaint of mine
+As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.
+
+'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
+O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
+Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,
+And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
+How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
+Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
+Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!
+
+'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
+From me by strong assault it is bereft.
+My honour lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
+Have no perfection of my summer left,
+But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
+In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
+And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.
+
+'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack;
+Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
+Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
+For it had been dishonour to disdain him:
+Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
+And talk'd of virtue: O unlook'd-for evil,
+When virtue is profaned in such a devil!
+
+'Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
+Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
+Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
+Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
+Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
+But no perfection is so absolute,
+That some impurity doth not pollute.
+
+'The aged man that coffers-up his gold
+Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits;
+And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
+But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
+And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
+Having no other pleasure of his gain
+But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
+
+'So then he hath it when he cannot use it,
+And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
+Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
+Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
+To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
+The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
+Even in the moment that we call them ours.
+
+'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
+Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
+The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
+What virtue breeds iniquity devours:
+We have no good that we can say is ours,
+But ill-annexed Opportunity
+Or kills his life or else his quality.
+
+'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
+'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason:
+Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
+Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
+'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
+And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
+Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.
+
+'Thou makest the vestal violate her oath;
+Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
+Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;
+Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
+Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:
+Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
+Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!
+
+'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
+Thy private feasting to a public fast,
+Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
+Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
+Thy violent vanities can never last.
+How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
+Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?
+
+'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
+And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
+When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
+Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
+Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?
+The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
+But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.
+
+'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
+The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
+Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
+Advice is sporting while infection breeds:
+Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:
+Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
+Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.
+
+'When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
+A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:
+They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
+He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid
+As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
+My Collatine would else have come to me
+When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.
+
+Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,
+Guilty of perjury and subornation,
+Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift,
+Guilty of incest, that abomination;
+An accessary by thine inclination
+To all sins past, and all that are to come,
+From the creation to the general doom.
+
+'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly Night,
+Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,
+Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
+Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;
+Thou nursest all and murder'st all that are:
+O, hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
+Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.
+
+'Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
+Betray'd the hours thou gavest me to repose,
+Cancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me
+To endless date of never-ending woes?
+Time's office is to fine the hate of foes;
+To eat up errors by opinion bred,
+Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.
+
+'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
+To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
+To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
+To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
+To wrong the wronger till he render right,
+To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
+And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;
+
+'To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
+To feed oblivion with decay of things,
+To blot old books and alter their contents,
+To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
+To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs,
+To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
+And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;
+
+'To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,
+To make the child a man, the man a child,
+To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
+To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
+To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,
+To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
+And waste huge stones with little water drops.
+
+'Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
+Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
+One poor retiring minute in an age
+Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
+Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:
+O, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
+I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack!
+
+'Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,
+With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:
+Devise extremes beyond extremity,
+To make him curse this cursed crimeful night:
+Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright;
+And the dire thought of his committed evil
+Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.
+
+'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
+Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
+Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
+To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
+Stone him with harden'd hearts harder than stones;
+And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
+Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.
+
+'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
+Let him have time against himself to rave,
+Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
+Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
+Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave,
+And time to see one that by alms doth live
+Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
+
+'Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
+And merry fools to mock at him resort;
+Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
+In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
+His time of folly and his time of sport;
+And ever let his unrecalling crime
+Have time to wail th' abusing of his time.
+
+'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
+Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!
+At his own shadow let the thief run mad,
+Himself himself seek every hour to kill!
+Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill;
+For who so base would such an office have
+As slanderous death's-man to so base a slave?
+
+'The baser is he, coming from a king,
+To shame his hope with deeds degenerate:
+The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
+That makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
+For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
+The moon being clouded presently is miss'd,
+But little stars may hide them when they list.
+
+'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
+And unperceived fly with the filth away;
+But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
+The stain upon his silver down will stay.
+Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day:
+Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
+But eagles gazed upon with every eye.
+
+'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!
+Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
+Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
+Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters;
+To trembling clients be you mediators:
+For me, I force not argument a straw,
+Since that my case is past the help of law.
+
+'In vain I rail at Opportunity,
+At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night;
+In vain I cavil with mine infamy,
+In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite:
+This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.
+The remedy indeed to do me good
+Is to let forth my foul-defiled blood.
+
+'Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree?
+Honour thyself to rid me of this shame:
+For if I die, my honour lives in thee;
+But if I live, thou livest in my defame:
+Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,
+And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe,
+Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'
+
+This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,
+To find some desperate instrument of death:
+But this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth
+To make more vent for passage of her breath;
+Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth
+As smoke from AEtna, that in air consumes,
+Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.
+
+'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain
+Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
+I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,
+Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:
+But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife:
+So am I now: O no, that cannot be;
+Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.
+
+'O, that is gone for which I sought to live,
+And therefore now I need not fear to die.
+To clear this spot by death, at least I give
+A badge of fame to slander's livery;
+A dying life to living infamy:
+Poor helpless help, the treasure stol'n away,
+To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!
+
+'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
+The stained taste of violated troth;
+I will not wrong thy true affection so,
+To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
+This bastard graff shall never come to growth:
+He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
+That thou art doting father of his fruit.
+
+'Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
+Nor laugh with his companions at thy state:
+But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
+Basely with gold, but stol'n from forth thy gate.
+For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
+And with my trespass never will dispense,
+Till life to death acquit my forced offence.
+
+'I will not poison thee with my attaint,
+Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
+My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
+To hide the truth of this false night's abuses:
+My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,
+As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,
+Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'
+
+By this, lamenting Philomel had ended
+The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow,
+And solemn night with slow sad gait descended
+To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow
+Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
+But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
+And therefore still in night would cloister'd be.
+
+Revealing day through every cranny spies,
+And seems to point her out where she sits weeping;
+To whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,
+Why pry'st thou through my window? leave thy peeping:
+Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:
+Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
+For day hath nought to do what's done by night.'
+
+Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
+True grief is fond and testy as a child,
+Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees:
+Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
+Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
+Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,
+With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
+
+So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,
+Holds disputation with each thing she views,
+And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
+No object but her passion's strength renews;
+And as one shifts, another straight ensues:
+Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;
+Sometime 'tis mad and too much talk affords.
+
+The little birds that tune their morning's joy
+Make her moans mad with their sweet melody:
+For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
+Sad souls are slain in merry company;
+Grief best is pleased with grief's society:
+True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed
+When with like semblance it is sympathized.
+
+'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
+He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
+To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
+Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
+Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
+Who being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
+Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.
+
+'You mocking-birds,' quoth she, 'your tunes entomb
+Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,
+And in my hearing be you mute and dumb:
+My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;
+A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:
+Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
+Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.
+
+'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
+Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
+As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
+So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,
+And with deep groans the diapason bear;
+For burden-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,
+While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.
+
+'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,
+To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,
+To imitate thee well, against my heart
+Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye;
+Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.
+These means, as frets upon an instrument,
+Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.
+
+'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,
+As shaming any eye should thee behold,
+Some dark deep desert, seated from the way,
+That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,
+Will we find out; and there we will unfold
+To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:
+Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'
+
+As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,
+Wildly determining which way to fly,
+Or one encompass'd with a winding maze,
+That cannot tread the way out readily;
+So with herself is she in mutiny,
+To live or die which of the twain were better,
+When life is shamed, and death reproach's debtor.
+
+'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack, what were it,
+But with my body my poor soul's pollution?
+They that lose half with greater patience bear it
+Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion.
+That mother tries a merciless conclusion
+Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,
+Will slay the other and be nurse to none.
+
+'My body or my soul, which was the dearer,
+When the one pure, the other made divine?
+Whose love of either to myself was nearer,
+When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
+Ay me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,
+His leaves will wither and his sap decay;
+So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.
+
+'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,
+Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
+Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
+Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
+Then let it not be call'd impiety,
+If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole
+Through which I may convey this troubled soul.
+
+'Yet die I will not till my Collatine
+Have heard the cause of my untimely death;
+That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
+Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
+My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,
+Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,
+And as his due writ in my testament.
+
+'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
+That wounds my body so dishonoured.
+'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;
+The one will live, the other being dead:
+So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;
+For in my death I murder shameful scorn:
+My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.
+
+'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,
+What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
+My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,
+By whose example thou revenged mayest be.
+How Tarquin must be used, read it in me:
+Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
+And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.
+
+'This brief abridgement of my will I make:
+My soul and body to the skies and ground;
+My resolution, husband, do thou take;
+Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound;
+My shame be his that did my fame confound;
+And all my fame that lives disbursed be
+To those that live, and think no shame of me.
+
+'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;
+How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!
+My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;
+My life's foul deed, my life's fair end shall free it.
+Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say 'So be it:'
+Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee:
+Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.'
+
+This Plot of death when sadly she had laid,
+And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
+With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,
+Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
+For fleet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies.
+Poor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so
+As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.
+
+Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
+With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
+And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,
+For why her face wore sorrow's livery;
+But durst not ask of her audaciously
+Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
+Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.
+
+But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
+Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;
+Even so the maid with swelling drops gan wet
+Her circled eyne, enforced by sympathy
+Of those fair suns set in her mistress' sky,
+Who in a salt-waved ocean quench their light,
+Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.
+
+A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,
+Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling:
+One justly weeps; the other takes in hand
+No cause, but company, of her drops spilling:
+Their gentle sex to weep are often willing;
+Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts,
+And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.
+
+For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
+And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
+The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
+Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
+Then call them not the authors of their ill,
+No more than wax shall be accounted evil
+Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
+
+Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,
+Lays open all the little worms that creep;
+In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
+Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:
+Through crystal walls each little mote will peep:
+Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
+Poor women's faces are their own fault's books.
+
+No man inveigh against the wither'd flower,
+But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd:
+Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
+Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild
+Poor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd
+With men's abuses: those proud lords, to blame,
+Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.
+
+The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,
+Assail'd by night with circumstances strong
+Of present death, and shame that might ensue
+By that her death, to do her husband wrong:
+Such danger to resistance did belong,
+That dying fear through all her body spread;
+And who cannot abuse a body dead?
+
+By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak
+To the poor counterfeit of her complaining:
+'My girl,' quoth she, 'on what occasion break
+Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are
+raining?
+If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,
+Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:
+If tears could help, mine own would do me good.
+
+'But tell me, girl, when went'--and there she stay'd
+Till after a deep groan--'Tarquin from hence?'
+'Madam, ere I was up,' replied the maid,
+'The more to blame my sluggard negligence:
+Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense;
+Myself was stirring ere the break of day,
+And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.
+
+'But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,
+She would request to know your heaviness.'
+'O, peace!' quoth Lucrece: 'if it should be told,
+The repetition cannot make it less;
+For more it is than I can well express:
+And that deep torture may be call'd a hell
+When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
+
+'Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen:
+Yet save that labour, for I have them here.
+What should I say? One of my husband's men
+Bid thou be ready, by and by, to bear
+A letter to my lord, my love, my dear;
+Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;
+The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.'
+
+Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,
+First hovering o'er the paper with her quill:
+Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;
+What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;
+This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill:
+Much like a press of people at a door,
+Throng her inventions, which shall go before.
+
+At last she thus begins: 'Thou worthy lord
+Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
+Health to thy person! next vouchsafe t' afford--
+If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see--
+Some present speed to come and visit me.
+So, I commend me from our house in grief:
+My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.'
+
+Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,
+Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.
+By this short schedule Collatine may know
+Her grief, but not her grief's true quality:
+She dares not thereof make discovery,
+Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,
+Ere she with blood had stain'd her stain'd excuse.
+
+Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
+She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her:
+When sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion
+Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her
+From that suspicion which the world might bear her.
+To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter
+With words, till action might become them better.
+
+To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;
+For then eye interprets to the ear
+The heavy motion that it doth behold,
+When every part a part of woe doth bear.
+'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
+Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
+And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.
+
+Her letter now is seal'd, and on it writ
+'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste.'
+The post attends, and she delivers it,
+Charging the sour-faced groom to hie as fast
+As lagging fowls before the northern blast:
+Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:
+Extremity still urgeth such extremes.
+
+The homely villain court'sies to her low;
+And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye
+Receives the scroll without or yea or no,
+And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.
+But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
+Imagine every eye beholds their blame;
+For Lucrece thought he blush'd to her see shame:
+
+When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect
+Of spirit, Life, and bold audacity.
+Such harmless creatures have a true respect
+To talk in deeds, while others saucily
+Promise more speed, but do it leisurely:
+Even so this pattern of the worn-out age
+Pawn'd honest looks, but laid no words to gage.
+
+His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
+That two red fires in both their faces blazed;
+She thought he blush'd, as knowing Tarquin's lust,
+And, blushing with him, wistly on him gazed;
+Her earnest eye did make him more amazed:
+The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
+The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.
+
+But long she thinks till he return again,
+And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.
+The weary time she cannot entertain,
+For now 'tis stale to sigh, to weep, and groan:
+So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,
+That she her plaints a little while doth stay,
+Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.
+
+At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
+Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy:
+Before the which is drawn the power of Greece.
+For Helen's rape the city to destroy,
+Threatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
+Which the conceited painter drew so proud,
+As heaven, it seem'd, to kiss the turrets bow'd.
+
+A thousand lamentable objects there,
+In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life:
+Many a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear,
+Shed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife:
+The red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife;
+And dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights,
+Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.
+
+There might you see the labouring pioner
+Begrimed with sweat, and smeared all with dust;
+And from the towers of Troy there would appear
+The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,
+Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust:
+Such sweet observance in this work was had,
+That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.
+
+In great commanders grace and majesty
+You might behold, triumphing in their faces;
+In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;
+Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces;
+Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,
+That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.
+
+In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art
+Of physiognomy might one behold!
+The face of either cipher'd either's heart;
+Their face their manners most expressly told:
+In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigor roll'd;
+But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent
+Show'd deep regard and smiling government.
+
+There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,
+As 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight;
+Making such sober action with his hand,
+That it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight:
+In speech, it seem'd, his beard, all silver white,
+Wagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly
+Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky.
+
+About him were a press of gaping faces,
+Which seem'd to swallow up his sound advice;
+All jointly listening, but with several graces,
+As if some mermaid did their ears entice,
+Some high, some low, the painter was so nice;
+The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
+To jump up higher seem'd, to mock the mind.
+
+Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,
+His nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;
+Here one being throng'd bears back, all boll'n and
+red;
+Another smother'd seems to pelt and swear;
+And in their rage such signs of rage they bear,
+As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,
+It seem'd they would debate with angry swords.
+
+For much imaginary work was there;
+Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
+That for Achilles' image stood his spear,
+Griped in an armed hand; himself, behind,
+Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
+A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
+Stood for the whole to be imagined.
+
+And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy
+When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to
+field,
+Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
+To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
+And to their hope they such odd action yield,
+That through their light joy seemed to appear,
+Like bright things stain'd, a kind of heavy fear.
+
+And from the strand of Dardan, where they fought,
+To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran,
+Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
+With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
+To break upon the galled shore, and than
+Retire again, till, meeting greater ranks,
+They join and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.
+
+To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
+To find a face where all distress is stell'd.
+Many she sees where cares have carved some,
+But none where all distress and dolour dwell'd,
+Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,
+Staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes,
+Which bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies.
+
+In her the painter had anatomized
+Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign:
+Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised;
+Of what she was no semblance did remain:
+Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,
+Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,
+Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.
+
+On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
+And shapes her sorrow to the beldam's woes,
+Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
+And bitter words to ban her cruel foes:
+The painter was no god to lend her those;
+And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
+To give her so much grief and not a tongue.
+
+'Poor instrument,' quoth she,'without a sound,
+I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue;
+And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,
+And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong;
+And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long;
+And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
+Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.
+
+'Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
+That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
+Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
+This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear:
+Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here;
+And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
+The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.
+
+'Why should the private pleasure of some one
+Become the public plague of many moe?
+Let sin, alone committed, light alone
+Upon his head that hath transgressed so;
+Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
+For one's offence why should so many fall,
+To plague a private sin in general?
+
+'Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
+Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds,
+Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
+And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,
+And one man's lust these many lives confounds:
+Had doting Priam cheque'd his son's desire,
+Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.'
+
+Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes:
+For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
+Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;
+Then little strength rings out the doleful knell:
+So Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell
+To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;
+She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.
+
+She throws her eyes about the painting round,
+And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament.
+At last she sees a wretched image bound,
+That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent:
+His face, though full of cares, yet show'd content;
+Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,
+So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.
+
+In him the painter labour'd with his skill
+To hide deceit, and give the harmless show
+An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
+A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;
+Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
+That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
+Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.
+
+But, like a constant and confirmed devil,
+He entertain'd a show so seeming just,
+And therein so ensconced his secret evil,
+That jealousy itself could not mistrust
+False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
+Into so bright a day such black-faced storms,
+Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.
+
+The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew
+For perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story
+The credulous old Priam after slew;
+Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory
+Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
+And little stars shot from their fixed places,
+When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.
+
+This picture she advisedly perused,
+And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,
+Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abused;
+So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:
+And still on him she gazed; and gazing still,
+Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,
+That she concludes the picture was belied.
+
+'It cannot be,' quoth she,'that so much guile'--
+She would have said 'can lurk in such a look;'
+But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while,
+And from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot' took:
+'It cannot be' she in that sense forsook,
+And turn'd it thus,' It cannot be, I find,
+But such a face should bear a wicked mind.
+
+'For even as subtle Sinon here is painted.
+So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,
+As if with grief or travail he had fainted,
+To me came Tarquin armed; so beguiled
+With outward honesty, but yet defiled
+With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
+So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.
+
+'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
+To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds!
+Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
+For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds:
+His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
+Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy pity,
+Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.
+
+'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell;
+For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,
+And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell;
+These contraries such unity do hold,
+Only to flatter fools and make them bold:
+So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter,
+That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.'
+
+Here, all enraged, such passion her assails,
+That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
+She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
+Comparing him to that unhappy guest
+Whose deed hath made herself herself detest:
+At last she smilingly with this gives o'er;
+'Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not be sore.'
+
+Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
+And time doth weary time with her complaining.
+She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,
+And both she thinks too long with her remaining:
+Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining:
+Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,
+And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.
+
+Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
+That she with painted images hath spent;
+Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
+By deep surmise of others' detriment;
+Losing her woes in shows of discontent.
+It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
+To think their dolour others have endured.
+
+But now the mindful messenger, come back,
+Brings home his lord and other company;
+Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black:
+And round about her tear-stained eye
+Blue circles stream'd; like rainbows in the sky:
+These water-galls in her dim element
+Foretell new storms to those already spent.
+
+Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
+Amazedly in her sad face he stares:
+Her eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and raw,
+Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
+He hath no power to ask her how she fares:
+Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,
+Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.
+
+At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
+And thus begins: 'What uncouth ill event
+Hath thee befall'n, that thou dost trembling stand?
+Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?
+Why art thou thus attired in discontent?
+Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,
+And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.'
+
+Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,
+Ere once she can discharge one word of woe:
+At length address'd to answer his desire,
+She modestly prepares to let them know
+Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe;
+While Collatine and his consorted lords
+With sad attention long to hear her words.
+
+And now this pale swan in her watery nest
+Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending;
+'Few words,' quoth she, 'Shall fit the trespass best,
+Where no excuse can give the fault amending:
+In me moe woes than words are now depending;
+And my laments would be drawn out too long,
+To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.
+
+'Then be this all the task it hath to say
+Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
+A stranger came, and on that pillow lay
+Where thou was wont to rest thy weary head;
+And what wrong else may be imagined
+By foul enforcement might be done to me,
+From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.
+
+'For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
+With shining falchion in my chamber came
+A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
+And softly cried 'Awake, thou Roman dame,
+And entertain my love; else lasting shame
+On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
+If thou my love's desire do contradict.
+
+' 'For some hard-favour'd groom of thine,' quoth he,
+'Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
+I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee
+And swear I found you where you did fulfil
+The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill
+The lechers in their deed: this act will be
+My fame and thy perpetual infamy.'
+
+'With this, I did begin to start and cry;
+And then against my heart he sets his sword,
+Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
+I should not live to speak another word;
+So should my shame still rest upon record,
+And never be forgot in mighty Rome
+Th' adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.
+
+'Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
+And far the weaker with so strong a fear:
+My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
+No rightful plea might plead for justice there:
+His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
+That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;
+And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.
+
+'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!
+Or at the least this refuge let me find;
+Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,
+Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
+That was not forced; that never was inclined
+To accessary yieldings, but still pure
+Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'
+
+Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,
+With head declined, and voice damm'd up with woe,
+With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,
+From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
+The grief away that stops his answer so:
+But, wretched as he is, he strives in vain;
+What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.
+
+As through an arch the violent roaring tide
+Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,
+Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
+Back to the strait that forced him on so fast;
+In rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past:
+Even so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw,
+To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.
+
+Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,
+And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:
+'Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
+Another power; no flood by raining slaketh.
+My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
+More feeling-painful: let it then suffice
+To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.
+
+'And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
+For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me:
+Be suddenly revenged on my foe,
+Thine, mine, his own: suppose thou dost defend me
+From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me
+Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die;
+For sparing justice feeds iniquity.
+
+'But ere I name him, you fair lords,' quoth she,
+Speaking to those that came with Collatine,
+'Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,
+With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;
+For 'tis a meritorious fair design
+To chase injustice with revengeful arms:
+Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'
+
+At this request, with noble disposition
+Each present lord began to promise aid,
+As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
+Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.
+But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
+The protestation stops. 'O, speak, ' quoth she,
+'How may this forced stain be wiped from me?
+
+'What is the quality of mine offence,
+Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?
+May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
+My low-declined honour to advance?
+May any terms acquit me from this chance?
+The poison'd fountain clears itself again;
+And why not I from this compelled stain?'
+
+With this, they all at once began to say,
+Her body's stain her mind untainted clears;
+While with a joyless smile she turns away
+The face, that map which deep impression bears
+Of hard misfortune, carved in it with tears.
+'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,
+By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.'
+
+Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,
+She throws forth Tarquin's name; 'He, he,' she says,
+But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;
+Till after many accents and delays,
+Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
+She utters this, 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,
+That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'
+
+Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
+A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed:
+That blow did that it from the deep unrest
+Of that polluted prison where it breathed:
+Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd
+Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly
+Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.
+
+Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,
+Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew;
+Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed,
+Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;
+And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
+The murderous knife, and, as it left the place,
+Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;
+
+And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
+In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
+Circles her body in on every side,
+Who, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood
+Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.
+Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
+And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.
+
+About the mourning and congealed face
+Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,
+Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:
+And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
+Corrupted blood some watery token shows;
+And blood untainted still doth red abide,
+Blushing at that which is so putrified.
+
+'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius cries,
+'That life was mine which thou hast here deprived.
+If in the child the father's image lies,
+Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?
+Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
+If children predecease progenitors,
+We are their offspring, and they none of ours.
+
+'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
+In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
+But now that fresh fair mirror, dim and old,
+Shows me a bare-boned death by time out-worn:
+O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,
+And shivered all the beauty of my glass,
+That I no more can see what once I was!
+
+'O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,
+If they surcease to be that should survive.
+Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger
+And leave the faltering feeble souls alive?
+The old bees die, the young possess their hive:
+Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see
+Thy father die, and not thy father thee!
+
+By this, starts Collatine as from a dream,
+And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
+And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
+He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
+And counterfeits to die with her a space;
+Till manly shame bids him possess his breath
+And live to be revenged on her death.
+
+The deep vexation of his inward soul
+Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
+Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
+Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
+Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
+Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
+That no man could distinguish what he said.
+
+Yet sometime 'Tarquin' was pronounced plain,
+But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
+This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
+Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;
+At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er:
+Then son and father weep with equal strife
+Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife.
+
+The one doth call her his, the other his,
+Yet neither may possess the claim they lay.
+The father says 'She's mine.' 'O, mine she is,'
+Replies her husband: 'do not take away
+My sorrow's interest; let no mourner say
+He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
+And only must be wail'd by Collatine.'
+
+'O,' quoth Lucretius,' I did give that life
+Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.'
+'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife,
+I owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.'
+'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours fill'd
+The dispersed air, who, holding Lucrece' life,
+Answer'd their cries, 'my daughter' and 'my wife.'
+
+Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
+Seeing such emulation in their woe,
+Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
+Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.
+He with the Romans was esteemed so
+As silly-jeering idiots are with kings,
+For sportive words and uttering foolish things:
+
+But now he throws that shallow habit by,
+Wherein deep policy did him disguise;
+And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,
+To cheque the tears in Collatinus' eyes.
+'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth be, 'arise:
+Let my unsounded self, supposed a fool,
+Now set thy long-experienced wit to school.
+
+'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
+Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
+Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
+For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
+Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds:
+Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
+To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.
+
+'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
+In such relenting dew of lamentations;
+But kneel with me and help to bear thy part,
+To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,
+That they will suffer these abominations,
+Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced,
+By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.
+
+'Now, by the Capitol that we adore,
+And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd,
+By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's
+store,
+By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd,
+And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd
+Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,
+We will revenge the death of this true wife.'
+
+This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,
+And kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow;
+And to his protestation urged the rest,
+Who, wondering at him, did his words allow:
+Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;
+And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,
+He doth again repeat, and that they swore.
+
+When they had sworn to this advised doom,
+They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence;
+To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,
+And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:
+Which being done with speedy diligence,
+The Romans plausibly did give consent
+To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.
+
+
+
+