Chapter CCXXIII: Act V (3)

“If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me, From me by strong assault it is bereft. My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee, Have no perfection of my summer left, But robbed and ransacked by injurious theft. In thy weak hive a wand’ring wasp hath crept, And sucked 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 talked of virtue. O unlooked-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 mastered 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 execut’st the traitor’s treason; Thou sets 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 mak’st the vestal violate her oath; Thou blow’st the fire when temperance is thawed; 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 sugared 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 obtained? When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end, Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chained? Give physic to the sick, ease to the pained? 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 stayed 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 accessory by thine inclination To all sins past and all that are to come, From the creation to the general doom.

“Misshapen 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 murd’rest all that are. O hear me then, injurious, shifting Time! Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

“Why hath thy servant, Opportunity Betrayed the hours thou gav’st me to repose, Cancelled 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 glitt’ring 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 hammered 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 hard’ned 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 sland’rous deathsman 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 honoured or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. The moon being clouded presently is missed, 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 confirmed 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 liv’st in my defame. Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, And wast afeared to scratch her wicked foe, Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.”

This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth, To find some desp’rate 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 Ætna, 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 feared by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain, Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife. But when I feared 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 int’rest 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-coined 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 cloistered 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 naught to do what’s done by night.”

Thus cavils she with everything she sees. True grief is fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught 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 stopped, 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 feathered 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 disheveled 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 descants 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 encompassed 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 swallowed 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 pilled from the lofty pine, His leaves will wither and his sap decay; So must my soul, her bark being pilled away.

“Her house is sacked, her quiet interrupted, Her mansion battered by the enemy, Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted, Grossly engirt with daring infamy. Then let it not be called impiety, If in this blemished 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 dishonoured 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 mayst 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 called her maid, Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies; For fleet-winged 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-washed with woe.

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set, Each flower moistened 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 formed as marble will; The weak oppressed, th’ impression of strange kinds Is formed 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 stamped 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 faults’ books.

No man inveigh against the withered flower, But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed; Not that devoured, but that which doth devour, Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfilled With men’s abuses! Those proud lords, to blame, Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view, Assailed 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, The 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 stayed 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 called 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 stained her stained 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 the 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 sealed, 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; Extremely still urgeth such extremes.

The homely villain curtsies 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 blushed to see her 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 Pawned 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 blushed, 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, to 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, Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy; Which the conceited painter drew so proud, As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed.

A thousand lamentable objects there, In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless life. Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear, Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife. The red blood reeked to show the painter’s strife, The dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights, Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.

There might you see the labouring pioneer 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; And here and there the painter interlaces 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 ciphered either’s heart; Their face their manners most expressly told. In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled, But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent Showed 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, charmed the sight. In speech, it seemed, his beard, all silver white, Wagged up and down, and from his lips did fly Thin winding breath, which purled up to the sky.

About him were a press of gaping faces, Which seemed to swallow up his sound advice, All jointly list’ning, 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 seemed to mock the mind.

Here one man’s hand leaned on another’s head, His nose being shadowed by his neighbour’s ear; Here one being thronged bears back, all boll’n and red; Another smothered 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 seemed 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, marched 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 stained, 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 then 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 stelled. Many she sees where cares have carved some, But none where all distress and dolour dwelled, 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 wrack, and grim care’s reign. Her cheeks with chops 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, Showed life imprisoned 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 checked 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 pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow; She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round, And who 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 showed content; Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes, So mild, that patience seemed to scorn his woes.

In him the painter laboured with his skill To hide deceit and give the harmless show An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still, A brow unbent that seemed 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 entertained 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-skilled 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 viewed 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 turned 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 too, 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 borrowed 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 overslipped 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-distained eye Blue circles streamed, 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, looked red and raw, Her lively colour killed 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, wond’ring 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 addressed 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 wat’ry 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 more 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 wast 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-favoured 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 The 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 purloined his eyes; And when the judge is robbed, 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 stained 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 poisoned closet yet endure.”

Lo, here the hopeless merchant of this loss, With head declined and voice dammed 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, recalled 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 bewrayed. 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 my offence, Being constrained 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 poisoned 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 bail it from the deep unrest Of that polluted prison where it breathed. Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly Life’s lasting date from cancelled destiny.

Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed, Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew, Till Lucrece’ father that beholds her bleed, Himself on her self-slaughtered body threw, And from the purple fountain Brutus drew The murd’rous 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-sacked island, vastly stood Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood. Some of her blood still pure and red remained, And some looked black, and that false Tarquin stained.

About the mourning and congealed face Of that black blood a wat’ry 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 fair fresh mirror, dim and old, Shows me a bare-boned death by time outworn. 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 falt’ring 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 wailed by Collatine.”

“O,” quoth Lucretius, “I did give that life Which she too early and too late hath spilled.” “Woe, woe,” quoth Collatine, “she was my wife, I owed her, and ’tis mine that she hath killed.” “My daughter” and “my wife” with clamours filled The dispersed air, who, holding Lucrece’ life, Answered their cries, “my daughter” and “my wife”.

Brutus, who plucked 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 utt’ring foolish things.

But now he throws that shallow habit by, Wherein deep policy did him disguise, And armed his long-hid wits advisedly, To check the tears in Collatinus’ eyes. “Thou wronged lord of Rome,” quoth he, “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 stained, By heaven’s fair sun that breeds the fat earth’s store, By all our country rights in Rome maintained, And by chaste Lucrece’ soul that late complained 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 kissed the fatal knife, to end his vow; And to his protestation urged the rest, Who, wond’ring 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.

VENUS AND ADONIS

_Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua._

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, and Baron of Titchfield.

Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

VENUS AND ADONIS

Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn, Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase; Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn; 4 Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him.

“Thrice fairer than myself,” thus she began, “The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare, 8 Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man, More white and red than doves or roses are: Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life. 12

“Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed, And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow; If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know: 16 Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses, And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

“And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety, But rather famish them amid their plenty, 20 Making them red, and pale, with fresh variety: Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty: A summer’s day will seem an hour but short, Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.” 24

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm, The precedent of pith and livelihood, And trembling in her passion, calls it balm, Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good: 28 Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein, Under her other was the tender boy, 32 Who blush’d and pouted in a dull disdain, With leaden appetite, unapt to toy; She red and hot as coals of glowing fire, He red for shame, but frosty in desire. 36

The studded bridle on a ragged bough Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love!— The steed is stalled up, and even now To tie the rider she begins to prove: 40 Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust, And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust.

So soon was she along, as he was down, Each leaning on their elbows and their hips: 44 Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown, And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips, And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken, “If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.” 48

He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks; Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs To fan and blow them dry again she seeks. 52 He saith she is immodest, blames her miss; What follows more, she murders with a kiss.

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone, 56 Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste, Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone: Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin, And where she ends she doth anew begin. 60

Forc’d to content, but never to obey, Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face. She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey, And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace, 64 Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers So they were dew’d with such distilling showers.

Look how a bird lies tangled in a net, So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies; 68 Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret, Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes: Rain added to a river that is rank Perforce will force it overflow the bank. 72

Still she entreats, and prettily entreats, For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale. Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets, ’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale; 76 Being red she loves him best, and being white, Her best is better’d with a more delight.

Look how he can, she cannot choose but love; And by her fair immortal hand she swears, 80 From his soft bosom never to remove, Till he take truce with her contending tears, Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet; And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.

Upon this promise did he raise his chin, 85 Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave, Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in; So offers he to give what she did crave, 88 But when her lips were ready for his pay, He winks, and turns his lips another way.