1593-4 by Shakespeare 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,                      EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD 

	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 he 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 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 everyone commended the virtues of his own wife, among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife, Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome, and, intending by their secret and sudden arrival to make trial of that which everyone 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 enflamed 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 

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