FROM the besieged Ardea all in post, |
|
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire, |
|
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host, |
|
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire |
|
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire, |
5 |
And girdle with embracing flames the waist |
|
Of Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste. |
|
|
Haply that name of chaste unhappily set |
|
This bateless edge on his keen appetite; |
|
When Collatine unwisely did not let |
10 |
To praise the clear unmatched red and white |
|
Which triumph’d in that sky of his delight, |
|
Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven’s beauties, |
|
With pure aspects did him peculiar duties. |
|
|
For he the night before, in Tarquin’s tent, |
15 |
Unlock’d the treasure of his happy state; |
|
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent |
|
In the possession of his beauteous mate; |
|
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate, |
|
That kings might be espoused to more fame, |
20 |
But king nor peer to such a peerless dame. |
|
|
O happiness enjoy’d but of a few! |
|
And, if possess’d, as soon decay’d and done |
|
As is the morning’s silver-melting dew |
|
Against the golden splendour of the sun; |
25 |
An expir’d date, cancell’d ere well begun: |
|
Honour and beauty, in the owner’s arms, |
|
Are weakly fortress’d from a world of harms. |
|
|
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade |
|
The eyes of men without an orator; |
30 |
What needeth then apology be made |
|
To set forth that which is so singular? |
|
Or why is Collatine the publisher |
|
Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown |
|
From thievish ears, because it is his own? |
35 |
|
Perchance his boast of Lucrece’ sovereignty |
|
Suggested this proud issue of a king; |
|
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be: |
|
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing, |
|
Braving compare, disdainfully did sting |
40 |
His high-pitch’d thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt |
|
That golden hap which their superiors want. |
|
|
But some untimely thought did instigate |
|
His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those; |
|
His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state, |
45 |
Neglected all, with swift intent he goes |
|
To quench the coal which in his liver glows. |
|
O! rash false heat, wrapp’d in repentant cold, |
|
Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne’er grows old. |
|
|
When at Collatium this false lord arriv’d, |
50 |
Well was he welcom’d by the Roman dame, |
|
Within whose face beauty and virtue striv’d |
|
Which of them both should underprop her fame: |
|
When virtue bragg’d, beauty would blush for shame; |
|
When beauty boasted blushes, in despite |
55 |
Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white. |
|
|
But beauty, in that white intituled, |
|
From Venus’ doves doth challenge that fair field; |
|
Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red, |
|
Which virtue gave the golden age to gild |
60 |
Their silver cheeks, and call’d it then their shield; |
|
Teaching them thus to use it in the fight, |
|
When shame assail’d, the red should fence the white. |
|
|
This heraldry in Lucrece’ face was seen, |
|
Argu’d by beauty’s red and virtue’s white: |
65 |
Of either’s colour was the other queen, |
|
Proving from world’s minority their right: |
|
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight; |
|
The sovereignty of either being so great, |
|
That oft they interchange each other’s seat. |
70 |
|
Their silent war of lilies and of roses, |
|
Which Tarquin view’d in her fair face’s field, |
|
In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses; |
|
Where, lest between them both it should be kill’d, |
|
The coward captive vanquished doth yield |
75 |
To those two armies that would let him go, |
|
Rather than triumph in so false a foe. |
|
|
Now thinks he that her husband’s shallow tongue— |
|
The niggard prodigal that prais’d her so— |
|
In that high task hath done her beauty wrong, |
80 |
Which far exceeds his barren skill to show: |
|
Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe |
|
Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise, |
|
In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes. |
|
|
This earthly saint, adored by this devil, |
85 |
Little suspecteth the false worshipper; |
|
For unstain’d thoughts do seldom dream on evil, |
|
Birds never lim’d no secret bushes fear: |
|
So guiltless she securely gives good cheer |
|
And reverend welcome to her princely guest, |
90 |
Whose inward ill no outward harm express’d: |
|
|
For that he colour’d with his high estate, |
|
Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty; |
|
That nothing in him seem’d inordinate, |
|
Save sometime too much wonder of his eye, |
95 |
Which, having all, all could not satisfy; |
|
But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store, |
|
That, cloy’d with much, he pineth still for more. |
|
|
But she, that never cop’d with stranger eyes, |
|
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks, |
100 |
Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies |
|
Writ in the glassy margents of such books: |
|
She touch’d no unknown baits, nor fear’d no hooks; |
|
Nor could she moralize his wanton sight, |
|
More than his eyes were open’d to the light. |
105 |
|
He stories to her ears her husband’s fame, |
|
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy; |
|
And decks with praises Collatine’s high name, |
|
Made glorious by his manly chivalry |
|
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory: |
110 |
Her joy with heav’d-up hand she doth express, |
|
And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success. |
|
|
Far from the purpose of his coming thither, |
|
He makes excuses for his being there: |
|
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather |
115 |
Doth yet in this fair welkin once appear; |
|
Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear, |
|
Upon the world dim darkness doth display, |
|
And in her vaulty prison stows the Day. |
|
|
For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed, |
120 |
Intending weariness with heavy spright; |
|
For after supper long he questioned |
|
With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night: |
|
Now leaden slumber with life’s strength doth fight, |
|
And every one to rest themselves betake, |
125 |
Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake. |
|
|
As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving |
|
The sundry dangers of his will’s obtaining; |
|
Yet ever to obtain his will resolving, |
|
Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining: |
130 |
Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining; |
|
And when great treasure is the meed propos’d, |
|
Though death be adjunct, there ’s no death suppos’d. |
|
|
Those that much covet are with gain so fond, |
|
For what they have not, that which they possess |
135 |
They scatter and unloose it from their bond, |
|
And so, by hoping more, they have but less; |
|
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess |
|
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain, |
|
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain. |
140 |
|
The aim of all is but to nurse the life |
|
With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age; |
|
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife, |
|
That one for all, or all for one we gage; |
|
As life for honour in fell battles’ rage; |
145 |
Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost |
|
The death of all, and all together lost. |
|
|
So that in venturing ill we leave to be |
|
The things we are for that which we expect; |
|
And this ambitious foul infirmity, |
150 |
In having much, torments us with defect |
|
Of that we have: so then we do neglect |
|
The thing we have: and, all for want of wit, |
|
Make something nothing by augmenting it. |
|
|
Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make, |
155 |
Pawning his honour to obtain his lust, |
|
And for himself himself he must forsake: |
|
Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust? |
|
When shall he think to find a stranger just, |
|
When he himself himself confounds, betrays |
160 |
To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days? |
|
|
Now stole upon the time the dead of night, |
|
When heavy sleep had clos’d up mortal eyes; |
|
No comfortable star did lend his light, |
|
No noise but owls’ and wolves’ death-boding cries; |
165 |
Now serves the season that they may surprise |
|
The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still, |
|
While lust and murder wake to stain and kill. |
|
|
And now this lustful lord leap’d from his bed, |
|
Throwing his mantle rudely o’er his arm; |
170 |
Is madly toss’d between desire and dread; |
|
Th’ one sweetly flatters, th’ other feareth harm; |
|
But honest fear, bewitch’d with lust’s foul charm, |
|
Doth too too oft betake him to retire, |
|
Beaten away by brain-sick rude desire. |
175 |
|
His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth, |
|
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly; |
|
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth, |
|
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye; |
|
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly: |
180 |
‘As from this cold flint I enforc’d this fire, |
|
So Lucrece must I force to my desire.’ |
|
|
Here pale with fear he doth premeditate |
|
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise, |
|
And in his inward mind he doth debate |
185 |
What following sorrow may on this arise: |
|
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise |
|
His naked armour of still-slaughter’d lust, |
|
And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust: |
|
|
‘Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not |
190 |
To darken her whose light excelleth thine; |
|
And die, unhallow’d thoughts, before you blot |
|
With your uncleanness that which is divine; |
|
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine: |
|
Let fair humanity abhor the deed |
195 |
That spots and stains love’s modest snow-white weed. |
|
|
‘O shame to knighthood and to shining arms! |
|
O foul dishonour to my household’s grave! |
|
O impious act, including all foul harms! |
|
A martial man to be soft fancy’s slave! |
200 |
True valour still a true respect should have; |
|
Then my digression is so vile, so base, |
|
That it will live engraven in my face. |
|
|
‘Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive, |
|
And be an eye-sore in my golden coat; |
205 |
Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive, |
|
To cipher me how fondly I did dote; |
|
That my posterity sham’d with the note, |
|
Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin |
|
To wish that I their father had not been. |
210 |
|
‘What win I if I gain the thing I seek? |
|
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. |
|
Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? |
|
Or sells eternity to get a toy? |
|
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? |
215 |
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, |
|
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down? |
|
|
‘If Collatinus dream of my intent, |
|
Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage |
|
Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent? |
220 |
This siege that hath engirt his marriage, |
|
This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage, |
|
This dying virtue, this surviving shame, |
|
Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame? |
|
|
‘O! what excuse can my invention make, |
225 |
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed? |
|
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake, |
|
Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed? |
|
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed; |
|
And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly, |
230 |
But coward-like with trembling terror die. |
|
|
‘Had Collatinus kill’d my son or sire, |
|
Or lain in ambush to betray my life, |
|
Or were he not my dear friend, this desire |
|
Might have excuse to work upon his wife, |
235 |
As in revenge or quittal of such strife: |
|
But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend, |
|
The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end. |
|
|
‘Shameful it is; ay, if the fact be known: |
|
Hateful it is; there is no hate in loving: |
240 |
I ’ll beg her love; but she is not her own: |
|
The worst is but denial and reproving: |
|
My will is strong, past reason’s weak removing. |
|
Who fears a sentence, or an old man’s saw, |
|
Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.’ |
245 |
|
Thus, graceless, holds he disputation |
|
’Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will, |
|
And with good thoughts makes dispensation, |
|
Urging the worser sense for vantage still; |
|
Which in a moment doth confound and kill |
250 |
All pure effects, and doth so far proceed, |
|
That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed. |
|
|
Quoth he, ‘She took me kindly by the hand, |
|
And gaz’d for tidings in my eager eyes, |
|
Fearing some hard news from the war-like band |
255 |
Where her beloved Collatinus lies. |
|
O! how her fear did make her colour rise: |
|
First red as roses that on lawn we lay, |
|
Then white as lawn, the roses took away. |
|
|
‘And how her hand, in my hand being lock’d, |
260 |
Forc’d it to tremble with her loyal fear! |
|
Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock’d, |
|
Until her husband’s welfare she did hear; |
|
Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer, |
|
That had Narcissus seen her as she stood, |
265 |
Self-love had never drown’d him in the flood. |
|
|
‘Why hunt I then for colour or excuses? |
|
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth; |
|
Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses; |
|
Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth: |
270 |
Affection is my captain, and he leadeth; |
|
And when his gaudy banner is display’d, |
|
The coward fights and will not be dismay’d. |
|
|
‘Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating, die! |
|
Respect and reason, wait on wrinkled age! |
275 |
My heart shall never countermand mine eye: |
|
Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage; |
|
My part is youth, and beats these from the stage. |
|
Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize; |
|
Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?’ |
280 |
|
As corn o’ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear |
|
Is almost chok’d by unresisted lust. |
|
Away he steals with open listening ear, |
|
Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust; |
|
Both which, as servitors to the unjust, |
285 |
So cross him with their opposite persuasion, |
|
That now he vows a league, and now invasion. |
|
|
Within his thought her heavenly image sits, |
|
And in the self-same seat sits Collatine: |
|
That eye which looks on her confounds his wits; |
290 |
That eye which him beholds, as more divine, |
|
Unto a view so false will not incline; |
|
But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart, |
|
Which once corrupted, takes the worser part; |
|
|
And therein heartens up his servile powers, |
295 |
Who, flatter’d by their leader’s jocund show, |
|
Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours; |
|
And as their captain, so their pride doth grow, |
|
Paying more slavish tribute than they owe. |
|
By reprobate desire thus madly led, |
300 |
The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece’ bed. |
|
|
The locks between her chamber and his will, |
|
Each one by him enforc’d, retires his ward; |
|
But as they open they all rate his ill, |
|
Which drives the creeping thief to some regard: |
305 |
The threshold grates the door to have him heard; |
|
Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there; |
|
They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear. |
|
|
As each unwilling portal yields him way, |
|
Through little vents and crannies of the place |
310 |
The wind wars with his torch to make him stay, |
|
And blows the smoke of it into his face, |
|
Extinguishing his conduct in this case; |
|
But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch, |
|
Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch: |
315 |
|
And being lighted, by the light he spies |
|
Lucretia’s glove, wherein her needle sticks: |
|
He takes it from the rushes where it lies, |
|
And griping it, the neeld his finger pricks; |
|
As who should say, ‘This glove to wanton tricks |
320 |
Is not inur’d; return again in haste; |
|
Thou seest our mistress’ ornaments are chaste.’ |
|
|
But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him; |
|
He in the worst sense construes their denial: |
|
The doors, the wind, the glove, that did delay him, |
325 |
He takes for accidental things of trial; |
|
Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial, |
|
Who with a ling’ring stay his course doth let, |
|
Till every minute pays the hour his debt. |
|
|
‘So, so,’ quoth he, ‘these lets attend the time, |
330 |
Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring, |
|
To add a more rejoicing to the prime, |
|
And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing. |
|
Pain pays the income of each precious thing; |
|
Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands, |
335 |
The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.’ |
|
|
Now is he come unto the chamber door, |
|
That shuts him from the heaven of his thought, |
|
Which with a yielding latch, and with no more, |
|
Hath barr’d him from the blessed thing he sought. |
340 |
So from himself impiety hath wrought, |
|
That for his prey to pray he doth begin, |
|
As if the heavens should countenance his sin. |
|
|
But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer, |
|
Having solicited the eternal power |
345 |
That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair, |
|
And they would stand auspicious to the hour, |
|
Even there he starts: quoth he, ‘I must deflower; |
|
The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact, |
|
How can they then assist me in the act? |
350 |
|
‘Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide! |
|
My will is back’d with resolution: |
|
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried; |
|
The blackest sin is clear’d with absolution; |
|
Against love’s fire fear’s frost hath dissolution. |
355 |
The eye of heaven is out, and misty night |
|
Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.’ |
|
|
This said, his guilty hand pluck’d up the latch, |
|
And with his knee the door he opens wide. |
|
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch: |
360 |
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied. |
|
Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside; |
|
But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing, |
|
Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting. |
|
|
Into the chamber wickedly he stalks, |
365 |
And gazeth on her yet unstained bed. |
|
The curtains being close, about he walks, |
|
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head: |
|
By their high treason is his heart misled; |
|
Which gives the watchword to his hand full soon, |
370 |
To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon. |
|
|
Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun, |
|
Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight; |
|
Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun |
|
To wink, being blinded with a greater light: |
375 |
Whether it is that she reflects so bright, |
|
That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed, |
|
But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed. |
|
|
O! had they in that darksome prison died, |
|
Then had they seen the period of their ill; |
380 |
Then Collatine again, by Lucrece’ side, |
|
In his clear bed might have reposed still: |
|
But they must ope, this blessed league to kill, |
|
And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight |
|
Must sell her joy, her life, her world’s delight. |
385 |
|
Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under, |
|
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss; |
|
Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder, |
|
Swelling on either side to want his bliss; |
|
Between whose hills her head entombed is: |
390 |
Where, like a virtuous monument she lies, |
|
To be admir’d of lewd unhallow’d eyes. |
|
|
Without the bed her other fair hand was, |
|
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white |
|
Show’d like an April daisy on the grass, |
395 |
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night. |
|
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light, |
|
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay, |
|
Till they might open to adorn the day. |
|
|
Her hair, like golden threads, play’d with her breath; |
400 |
O modest wantons! wanton modesty! |
|
Showing life’s triumph in the map of death, |
|
And death’s dim look in life’s mortality: |
|
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify, |
|
As if between them twain there were no strife, |
405 |
But that life liv’d in death, and death in life. |
|
|
Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue, |
|
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered, |
|
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew, |
|
And him by oath they truly honoured. |
410 |
These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred; |
|
Who, like a foul usurper, went about |
|
From this fair throne to heave the owner out. |
|
|
What could he see but mightily he noted? |
|
What did he note but strongly he desir’d? |
415 |
What he beheld, on that he firmly doted, |
|
And in his will his wilful eye he tir’d. |
|
With more than admiration he admir’d |
|
Her azure veins, her alabaster skin, |
|
Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin. |
420 |
|
As the grim lion fawneth o’er his prey, |
|
Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied, |
|
So o’er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay, |
|
His rage of lust by gazing qualified; |
|
Slack’d, not suppress’d; for standing by her side, |
425 |
His eye, which late this mutiny restrains, |
|
Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins: |
|
|
And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting, |
|
Obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting, |
|
In bloody death and ravishment delighting, |
430 |
Nor children’s tears nor mothers’ groans respecting, |
|
Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting: |
|
Anon his beating heart, alarum striking, |
|
Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking. |
|
|
His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye, |
435 |
His eye commends the leading to his hand; |
|
His hand, as proud of such a dignity, |
|
Smoking with pride, march’d on to make his stand |
|
On her bare breast, the heart of all her land; |
|
Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale, |
440 |
Left their round turrets destitute and pale. |
|
|
They, mustering to the quiet cabinet |
|
Where their dear governess and lady lies, |
|
Do tell her she is dreadfully beset, |
|
And fright her with confusion of their cries: |
445 |
She, much amaz’d, breaks ope her lock’d-up eyes, |
|
Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold, |
|
Are by his flaming torch dimm’d and controll’d. |
|
|
Imagine her as one in dead of night |
|
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking, |
450 |
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite, |
|
Whose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking; |
|
What terror ’tis! but she, in worser taking, |
|
From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view |
|
The sight which makes supposed terror true. |
455 |
|
Wrapp’d and confounded in a thousand fears, |
|
Like to a new-kill’d bird she trembling lies; |
|
She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears |
|
Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes: |
|
Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries; |
460 |
Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights, |
|
In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights. |
|
|
His hand, that yet remains upon her breast, |
|
Rude ram to batter such an ivory wall! |
|
May feel her heart,—poor citizen,—distress’d |
465 |
Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall, |
|
Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal. |
|
This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity, |
|
To make the breach and enter this sweet city. |
|
|
First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin |
470 |
To sound a parley to his heartless foe; |
|
Who o’er the white sheet peers her whiter chin, |
|
The reason of this rash alarm to know, |
|
Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show; |
|
But she with vehement prayers urgeth still |
475 |
Under what colour he commits this ill. |
|
|
Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,— |
|
That even for anger makes the lily pale, |
|
And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,— |
|
Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale; |
480 |
Under that colour am I come to scale |
|
Thy never-conquer’d fort: the fault is thine, |
|
For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine. |
|
|
‘Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide: |
|
Thy beauty hath ensnar’d thee to this night, |
485 |
Where thou with patience must my will abide, |
|
My will that marks thee for my earth’s delight, |
|
Which I to conquer sought with all my might; |
|
But as reproof and reason beat it dead, |
|
By thy bright beauty was it newly bred. |
490 |
|
‘I see what crosses my attempt will bring; |
|
I know what thorns the growing rose defends; |
|
I think the honey guarded with a sting; |
|
All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends: |
|
But will is deaf and hears no heedful friends; |
495 |
Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty, |
|
And dotes on what he looks, ’gainst law or duty. |
|
|
‘I have debated, even in my soul, |
|
What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed; |
|
But nothing can affection’s course control, |
500 |
Or stop the headlong fury of his speed. |
|
I know repentant tears ensue the deed, |
|
Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity; |
|
Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.’ |
|
|
This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade, |
505 |
Which like a falcon towering in the skies, |
|
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade, |
|
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies: |
|
So under his insulting falchion lies |
|
Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells |
510 |
With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon’s bells. |
|
|
‘Lucrece,’ quoth he, ‘this night I must enjoy thee: |
|
If thou deny, then force must work my way, |
|
For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee: |
|
That done, some worthless slave of thine I ’ll slay, |
515 |
To kill thine honour with thy life’s decay; |
|
And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him, |
|
Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him. |
|
|
‘So thy surviving husband shall remain |
|
The scornful mark of every open eye; |
520 |
Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain, |
|
Thy issue blurr’d with nameless bastardy: |
|
And thou, the author of their obloquy, |
|
Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rimes, |
|
And sung by children in succeeding times. |
525 |
|
‘But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend: |
|
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted; |
|
A little harm done to a great good end, |
|
For lawful policy remains enacted. |
|
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted |
530 |
In a pure compound; being so applied, |
|
His venom in effect is purified. |
|
|
‘Then, for thy husband and thy children’s sake, |
|
Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot |
|
The shame that from them no device can take, |
535 |
The blemish that will never be forgot; |
|
Worse than a slavish wipe or birth-hour’s blot: |
|
For marks descried in men’s nativity |
|
Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy.’ |
|
|
Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eye |
540 |
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause; |
|
While she, the picture of pure piety, |
|
Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws, |
|
Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws, |
|
To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, |
545 |
Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite. |
|
|
But when a black-fac’d cloud the world doth threat, |
|
In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding, |
|
From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get, |
|
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding, |
550 |
Hindering their present fall by this dividing; |
|
So his unhallow’d haste her words delays, |
|
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays. |
|
|
Yet, foul night-working cat, he doth but dally, |
|
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth: |
555 |
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly, |
|
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth: |
|
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth |
|
No penetrable entrance to her plaining: |
|
Tears harden lust though marble wear with raining. |
560 |
|
Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix’d |
|
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face; |
|
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix’d, |
|
Which to her oratory adds more grace. |
|
She puts the period often from his place; |
565 |
And midst the sentence so her accent breaks, |
|
That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks. |
|
|
She conjures him by high almighty Jove, |
|
By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship’s oath, |
|
By her untimely tears, her husband’s love, |
570 |
By holy human law, and common troth, |
|
By heaven and earth, and all the power of both, |
|
That to his borrow’d bed he make retire, |
|
And stoop to honour, not to foul desire. |
|
|
Quoth she, ‘Reward not hospitality |
575 |
With such black payment as thou hast pretended; |
|
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee; |
|
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended; |
|
End thy ill aim before thy shoot be ended; |
|
He is no woodman that doth bend his bow |
580 |
To strike a poor unseasonable doe. |
|
|
‘My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me; |
|
Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me; |
|
Myself a weakling, do not, then, ensnare me; |
|
Thou look’dst not like deceit, do not deceive me. |
585 |
My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee; |
|
If ever man were mov’d with woman’s moans, |
|
Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans. |
|
|
‘All which together, like a troubled ocean, |
|
Beat at thy rocky and wrack-threatening heart, |
590 |
To soften it with their continual motion; |
|
For stones dissolv’d to water do convert. |
|
O! if no harder than a stone thou art, |
|
Melt at my tears, and be compassionate; |
|
Soft pity enters at an iron gate. |
595 |
|
‘In Tarquin’s likeness I did entertain thee; |
|
Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame? |
|
To all the host of heaven I complain me, |
|
Thou wrong’st his honour, wound’st his princely name. |
|
Thou art not what thou seem’st; and if the same, |
600 |
Thou seem’st not what thou art, a god, a king; |
|
For kings like gods should govern every thing. |
|
|
‘How will thy shame be seeded in thine age, |
|
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring! |
|
If in thy hope thou dar’st do such outrage, |
605 |
What dar’st thou not when once thou art a king? |
|
O! be remembered no outrageous thing |
|
From vassal actors can be wip’d away; |
|
Then kings’ misdeeds cannot be hid in clay. |
|
|
‘This deed will make thee only lov’d for fear; |
610 |
But happy monarchs still are fear’d for love: |
|
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear, |
|
When they in thee the like offences prove: |
|
If but for fear of this, thy will remove; |
|
For princes are the glass, the school, the book, |
615 |
Where subjects’ eyes do learn, do read, do look. |
|
|
‘And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn? |
|
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame? |
|
Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern |
|
Authority for sin, warrant for blame, |
620 |
To privilege dishonour in thy name? |
|
Thou back’st reproach against long-living laud, |
|
And mak’st fair reputation but a bawd. |
|
|
‘Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee, |
|
From a pure heart command thy rebel will: |
625 |
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity, |
|
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill. |
|
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfill, |
|
When, pattern’d by thy fault, foul sin may say, |
|
He learn’d to sin, and thou didst teach the way? |
630 |
|
‘Think but how vile a spectacle it were, |
|
To view thy present trespass in another. |
|
Men’s faults do seldom to themselves appear; |
|
Their own transgressions partially they smother: |
|
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother. |
635 |
O! how are they wrapp’d in with infamies |
|
That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes. |
|
|
‘To thee, to thee, my heav’d-up hands appeal, |
|
Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier: |
|
I sue for exil’d majesty’s repeal; |
640 |
Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire: |
|
His true respect will prison false desire, |
|
And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne, |
|
That thou shalt see thy state and pity mine.’ |
|
|
‘Have done,’ quoth he; ‘my uncontrolled tide |
645 |
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let. |
|
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, |
|
And with the wind in greater fury fret: |
|
The petty streams that pay a daily debt |
|
To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’ haste |
650 |
Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.’ |
|
|
‘Thou art,’ quoth she, ‘a sea, a sovereign king; |
|
And lo! there falls into thy boundless flood |
|
Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning, |
|
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood. |
655 |
If all these petty ills shall change thy good, |
|
Thy sea within a puddle’s womb is hears’d, |
|
And not the puddle in thy sea dispers’d. |
|
|
‘So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave; |
|
Thou nobly base, they basely dignified; |
660 |
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave; |
|
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride: |
|
The lesser thing should not the greater hide; |
|
The cedar stoops not to the base shrub’s foot, |
|
But low shrubs wither at the cedar’s root. |
665 |
|
‘So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state’— |
|
‘No more,’ quoth he; ‘by heaven, I will not hear thee: |
|
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, |
|
Instead of love’s coy touch, shall rudely tear thee; |
|
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee |
670 |
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom, |
|
To be thy partner in this shameful doom.’ |
|
|
This said, he sets his foot upon the light, |
|
For light and lust are deadly enemies: |
|
Shame folded up in blind concealing night, |
675 |
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize. |
|
The wolf hath seiz’d his prey, the poor lamb cries; |
|
Till with her own white fleece her voice controll’d |
|
Entombs her outcry in her lips’ sweet fold: |
|
|
For with the nightly linen that she wears |
680 |
He pens her piteous clamours in her head, |
|
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears |
|
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed. |
|
O! that prone lust should stain so pure a bed, |
|
The spots whereof could weeping purify, |
685 |
Her tears should drop on them perpetually. |
|
|
But she hath lost a dearer thing than life, |
|
And he hath won what he would lose again; |
|
This forced league doth force a further strife; |
|
This momentary joy breeds months of pain; |
690 |
This hot desire converts to cold disdain: |
|
Pure Chastity is rifled of her store, |
|
And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before. |
|
|
Look! as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk, |
|
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight, |
695 |
Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk |
|
The prey wherein by nature they delight; |
|
So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night: |
|
His taste delicious, in digestion souring, |
|
Devours his will, that liv’d by foul devouring. |
700 |
|
O! deeper sin than bottomless conceit |
|
Can comprehend in still imagination; |
|
Drunken Desire must vomit his receipt, |
|
Ere he can see his own abomination. |
|
While Lust is in his pride, no exclamation |
705 |
Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire, |
|
Till like a jade Self-will himself doth tire. |
|
|
And then with lank and lean discolour’d cheek, |
|
With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, |
|
Feeble Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek, |
710 |
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case: |
|
The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, |
|
For there it revels; and when that decays, |
|
The guilty rebel for remission prays. |
|
|
So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome, |
715 |
Who this accomplishment so hotly chas’d; |
|
For now against himself he sounds this doom, |
|
That through the length of times he stands disgrac’d; |
|
Besides, his soul’s fair temple is defac’d; |
|
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, |
720 |
To ask the spotted princess how she fares. |
|
|
She says, her subjects with foul insurrection |
|
Have batter’d down her consecrated wall, |
|
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection |
|
Her immortality, and made her thrall |
725 |
To living death, and pain perpetual: |
|
Which in her prescience she controlled still, |
|
But her foresight could not forestall their will. |
|
|
Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth, |
|
A captive victor that hath lost in gain; |
730 |
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth, |
|
The scar that will despite of cure remain; |
|
Leaving his spoil perplex’d in greater pain. |
|
She bears the load of lust he left behind, |
|
And he the burden of a guilty mind. |
735 |
|
He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence, |
|
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there; |
|
He scowls and hates himself for his offence, |
|
She desperate with her nails her flesh doth tear; |
|
He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear, |
740 |
She stays, exclaiming on the direful night; |
|
He runs, and chides his vanish’d, loath’d delight. |
|
|
He thence departs a heavy convertite, |
|
She there remains a hopeless castaway; |
|
He in his speed looks for the morning light, |
745 |
She prays she never may behold the day; |
|
‘For day,’ quoth she, ‘night’s ’scapes doth open lay, |
|
And my true eyes have never practis’d how |
|
To cloak offences with a cunning brow. |
|
|
‘They think not but that every eye can see |
750 |
The same disgrace which they themselves behold; |
|
And therefore would they still in darkness be, |
|
To have their unseen sin remain untold; |
|
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold, |
|
And grave, like water that doth eat in steel, |
755 |
Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.’ |
|
|
Here she exclaims against repose and rest, |
|
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind. |
|
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast, |
|
And bids it leap from thence where it may find |
760 |
Some purer chest to close so pure a mind. |
|
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite |
|
Against the unseen secrecy of night: |
|
|
‘O comfort-killing Night, image of hell! |
|
Dim register and notary of shame! |
765 |
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell! |
|
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame! |
|
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame! |
|
Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator |
|
With close-tongu’d treason and the ravisher! |
770 |
|
‘O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night! |
|
Since thou art guilty of my curseless crime, |
|
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light, |
|
Make war against proportion’d course of time; |
|
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb |
775 |
His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed, |
|
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head. |
|
|
‘With rotten damps ravish the morning air; |
|
Let their exhal’d unwholesome breaths make sick |
|
The life of purity, the supreme fair, |
780 |
Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick; |
|
And let thy misty vapours march so thick, |
|
That in their smoky ranks his smother’d light |
|
May set at noon and make perpetual night. |
|
|
‘Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night’s child, |
785 |
The silver-shining queen he would distain; |
|
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil’d, |
|
Through Night’s black bosom should not peep again: |
|
So should I have co-partners in my pain; |
|
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, |
790 |
As palmers’ chat makes short their pilgrimage. |
|
|
‘Where now I have no one to blush with me, |
|
To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine, |
|
To mask their brows and hide their infamy; |
|
But I alone alone must sit and pine, |
795 |
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine, |
|
Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, |
|
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans. |
|
|
‘O Night! thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke, |
|
Let not the jealous Day behold that face |
800 |
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak |
|
Immodestly lies martyr’d with disgrace: |
|
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, |
|
That all the faults which in thy reign are made |
|
May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade. |
805 |
|
‘Make me not object to the tell-tale Day! |
|
The light will show, character’d in my brow, |
|
The story of sweet chastity’s decay, |
|
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow: |
|
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how |
810 |
To ’cipher what is writ in learned books, |
|
Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks. |
|
|
‘The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story, |
|
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin’s name; |
|
The orator, to deck his oratory, |
815 |
Will couple my reproach to Tarquin’s shame; |
|
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame, |
|
Will tie the hearers to attend each line, |
|
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine. |
|
|
‘Let my good name, that senseless reputation, |
820 |
For Collatine’s dear love be kept unspotted: |
|
If that be made a theme for disputation, |
|
The branches of another root are rotted, |
|
And undeserv’d reproach to him allotted |
|
That is as clear from this attaint of mine, |
825 |
As I ere this was pure to Collatine. |
|
|
‘O unseen shame! invisible disgrace! |
|
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar! |
|
Reproach is stamp’d in Collatinus’ face, |
|
And Tarquin’s eye may read the mot afar, |
830 |
How he in peace is wounded, not in war. |
|
Alas! how many bear such shameful blows, |
|
Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows. |
|
|
‘If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me, |
|
From me by strong assault it is bereft. |
835 |
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee, |
|
Have no perfection of my summer left, |
|
But robb’d and ransack’d by injurious theft: |
|
In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept, |
|
And suck’d the honey which thy chaste bee kept. |
840 |
|
‘Yet am I guilty of thy honour’s wrack; |
|
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him; |
|
Coming from thee, I could not put him back, |
|
For it had been dishonour to disdain him: |
|
Besides, of weariness he did complain him, |
845 |
And talk’d of virtue: O! unlook’d-for evil, |
|
When virtue is profan’d in such a devil. |
|
|
‘Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud? |
|
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests? |
|
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud? |
850 |
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts? |
|
Or kings be breakers of their own behests? |
|
But no perfection is so absolute, |
|
That some impurity doth not pollute. |
|
|
‘The aged man that coffers-up his gold |
855 |
Is plagu’d with cramps and gouts and painful fits; |
|
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold, |
|
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits, |
|
And useless barns the harvest of his wits; |
|
Having no other pleasure of his gain |
860 |
But torment that it cannot cure his pain. |
|
|
‘So then he hath it when he cannot use it, |
|
And leaves it to be master’d by his young; |
|
Who in their pride do presently abuse it: |
|
Their father was too weak, and they too strong, |
865 |
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long. |
|
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours |
|
Even in the moment that we call them ours. |
|
|
‘Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring; |
|
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers; |
870 |
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing; |
|
What virtue breeds iniquity devours: |
|
We have no good that we can say is ours, |
|
But ill-annexed Opportunity |
|
Or kills his life, or else his quality. |
875 |
|
‘O Opportunity! thy guilt is great, |
|
’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason; |
|
Thou sett’st the wolf where he the lamb may get; |
|
Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season; |
|
’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason; |
880 |
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, |
|
Sits Sin to seize the souls that wander by him. |
|
|
‘Thou mak’st the vestal violate her oath; |
|
Thou blow’st the fire when temperance is thaw’d; |
|
Thou smother’st honesty, thou murder’st troth; |
885 |
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd! |
|
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud: |
|
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief, |
|
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief! |
|
|
‘Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, |
890 |
Thy private feasting to a public fast, |
|
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name, |
|
Thy sugar’d tongue to bitter wormwood taste: |
|
Thy violent vanities can never last. |
|
How comes it, then, vile Opportunity, |
895 |
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee? |
|
|
‘When wilt thou be the humble suppliant’s friend, |
|
And bring him where his suit may be obtain’d? |
|
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end? |
|
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain’d? |
900 |
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain’d? |
|
The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee; |
|
But they ne’er meet with Opportunity. |
|
|
‘The patient dies while the physician sleeps; |
|
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds; |
905 |
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps; |
|
Advice is sporting while infection breeds: |
|
Thou grant’st no time for charitable deeds: |
|
Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder’s rages, |
|
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages. |
910 |
|
‘When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee, |
|
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid: |
|
They buy thy help; but Sin ne’er gives a fee, |
|
He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid |
|
As well to hear as grant what he hath said. |
915 |
My Collatine would else have come to me |
|
When Tarquin did, but he was stay’d by thee. |
|
|
‘Guilty thou art of murder and of theft, |
|
Guilty of perjury and subornation, |
|
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift, |
920 |
Guilty of incest, that abomination; |
|
An accessory by thine inclination |
|
To all sins past, and all that are to come, |
|
From the creation to the general doom. |
|
|
‘Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly Night, |
925 |
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care, |
|
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight, |
|
Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare; |
|
Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are; |
|
O! hear me, then, injurious, shifting Time, |
930 |
Be guilty of my death, since of my crime. |
|
|
‘Why hath thy servant, Opportunity, |
|
Betray’d the hours thou gav’st me to repose? |
|
Cancell’d my fortunes, and enchained me |
|
To endless date of never-ending woes? |
935 |
Time’s office is to fine the hate of foes; |
|
To eat up errors by opinion bred, |
|
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed. |
|
|
‘Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, |
|
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, |
940 |
To stamp the seal of time in aged things, |
|
To wake the morn and sentinel the night, |
|
To wrong the wronger till he render right, |
|
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, |
|
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers; |
945 |
|
‘To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, |
|
To feed oblivion with decay of things, |
|
To blot old books and alter their contents, |
|
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings, |
|
To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs, |
950 |
To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel, |
|
And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel; |
|
|
‘To show the beldam daughters of her daughter, |
|
To make the child a man, the man a child, |
|
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter, |
955 |
To tame the unicorn and lion wild, |
|
To mock the subtle, in themselves beguil’d, |
|
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops, |
|
And waste huge stones with little water-drops. |
|
|
‘Why work’st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage, |
960 |
Unless thou couldst return to make amends? |
|
One poor retiring minute in an age |
|
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends, |
|
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends: |
|
O! this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back, |
965 |
I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack. |
|
|
‘Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity, |
|
With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight: |
|
Devise extremes beyond extremity, |
|
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night: |
970 |
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright, |
|
And the dire thought of his committed evil |
|
Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil. |
|
|
‘Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances, |
|
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans; |
975 |
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances |
|
To make him moan, but pity not his moans; |
|
Stone him with harden’d hearts, harder than stones; |
|
And let mild women to him lose their mildness, |
|
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness. |
980 |
|
‘Let him have time to tear his curled hair, |
|
Let him have time against himself to rave, |
|
Let him have time of Time’s help to despair, |
|
Let him have time to live a loathed slave, |
|
Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave, |
985 |
And time to see one that by alms doth live |
|
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give. |
|
|
‘Let him have time to see his friends his foes, |
|
And merry fools to mock at him resort; |
|
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes |
990 |
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short |
|
His time of folly and his time of sport; |
|
And ever let his unrecalling crime |
|
Have time to wail the abusing of his time. |
|
|
‘O Time! thou tutor both to good and bad, |
995 |
Teach me to curse him that thou taught’st this ill; |
|
At his own shadow let the thief run mad, |
|
Himself himself seek every hour to kill: |
|
Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill; |
|
For who so base would such an office have |
1000 |
As slanderous deathsman to so base a slave? |
|
|
‘The baser is he, coming from a king, |
|
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate: |
|
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing |
|
That makes him honour’d, or begets him hate; |
1005 |
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. |
|
The moon being clouded presently is miss’d, |
|
But little stars may hide them when they list. |
|
|
‘The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire, |
|
And unperceiv’d fly with the filth away; |
1010 |
But if the like the snow-white swan desire, |
|
The stain upon his silver down will stay. |
|
Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day. |
|
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly, |
|
But eagles gaz’d upon with every eye. |
1015 |
|
‘Out, idle words! servants to shallow fools, |
|
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! |
|
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools; |
|
Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters; |
|
To trembling clients be you mediators: |
1020 |
For me, I force not argument a straw, |
|
Since that my case is past the help of law. |
|
|
‘In vain I rail at Opportunity, |
|
At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night; |
|
In vain I cavil with mine infamy, |
1025 |
In vain I spurn at my confirm’d despite; |
|
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. |
|
The remedy indeed to do me good, |
|
Is to let forth my foul-defiled blood. |
|
|
‘Poor hand, why quiver’st thou at this decree? |
1030 |
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame; |
|
For if I die, my honour lives in thee, |
|
But if I live, thou liv’st in my defame; |
|
Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, |
|
And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe, |
1035 |
Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.’ |
|
|
This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth, |
|
To find some desperate instrument of death; |
|
But this no slaughter-house no tool imparteth |
|
To make more vent for passage of her breath; |
1040 |
Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth |
|
As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes, |
|
Or that which from discharged cannon fumes. |
|
|
‘In vain,’ quoth she, ‘I live, and seek in vain |
|
Some happy mean to end a hapless life: |
1045 |
I fear’d by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain, |
|
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife: |
|
But when I fear’d I was a loyal wife: |
|
So am I now: O no! that cannot be; |
|
Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me. |
1050 |
|
‘O! that is gone for which I sought to live, |
|
And therefore now I need not fear to die. |
|
To clear this spot by death, at least I give |
|
A badge of fame to slander’s livery; |
|
A dying life to living infamy. |
1055 |
Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away, |
|
To burn the guiltless casket where it lay? |
|
|
‘Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know |
|
The stained taste of violated troth; |
|
I will not wrong thy true affection so, |
1060 |
To flatter thee with an infringed oath; |
|
This bastard graff shall never come to growth; |
|
He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute |
|
That thou art doting father of his fruit. |
|
|
‘Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought, |
1065 |
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state; |
|
But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought |
|
Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate. |
|
For me, I am the mistress of my fate, |
|
And with my trespass never will dispense, |
1070 |
Till life to death acquit my forc’d offence. |
|
|
‘I will not poison thee with my attaint, |
|
Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin’d excuses; |
|
My sable ground of sin I will not paint, |
|
To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses; |
1075 |
My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices, |
|
As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, |
|
Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.’ |
|
|
By this, lamenting Philomel had ended |
|
The well-tun’d warble of her nightly sorrow, |
1080 |
And solemn night with slow sad gait descended |
|
To ugly hell; when, lo! the blushing morrow |
|
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow: |
|
But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, |
|
And therefore still in night would cloister’d be. |
1085 |
|
Revealing day through every cranny spies, |
|
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping; |
|
To whom she sobbing speaks: ‘O eye of eyes! |
|
Why pry’st thou through my window? leave thy peeping; |
|
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping: |
1090 |
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, |
|
For day hath nought to do what ’s done by night.’ |
|
|
Thus cavils she with everything she sees: |
|
True grief is fond and testy as a child, |
|
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees: |
1095 |
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild; |
|
Continuance tames the one; the other wild, |
|
Like an unpractis’d swimmer plunging still, |
|
With too much labour drowns for want of skill. |
|
|
So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care, |
1100 |
Holds disputation with each thing she views, |
|
And to herself all sorrow doth compare; |
|
No object but her passion’s strength renews, |
|
And as one shifts, another straight ensues: |
|
Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words; |
1105 |
Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords. |
|
|
The little birds that tune their morning’s joy |
|
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody: |
|
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy; |
|
Sad souls are slain in merry company; |
1110 |
Grief best is pleas’d with grief’s society: |
|
True sorrow then is feelingly suffic’d |
|
When with like semblance it is sympathiz’d. |
|
|
’Tis double death to drown in ken of shore; |
|
He ten times pines that pines beholding food; |
1115 |
To see the salve doth make the wound ache more; |
|
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good; |
|
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood, |
|
Who, being stopp’d, the bounding banks o’erflows; |
|
Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. |
1120 |
|
‘You mocking birds,’ quoth she, ‘your tunes entomb |
|
Within your hollow-swelling feather’d breasts, |
|
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb: |
|
My restless discord loves no stops nor rests; |
|
A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests: |
1125 |
Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears; |
|
Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears. |
|
|
‘Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment, |
|
Make thy sad grove in my dishevell’d hair: |
|
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment, |
1130 |
So I at each sad strain will strain a tear, |
|
And with deep groans the diapason bear; |
|
For burden-wise I ’ll hum on Tarquin still, |
|
While thou on Tereus descant’st better skill. |
|
|
‘And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part |
1135 |
To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I, |
|
To imitate thee well, against my heart |
|
Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye, |
|
Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die. |
|
These means, as frets upon an instrument, |
1140 |
Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment. |
|
|
‘And for, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day, |
|
As shaming any eye should thee behold, |
|
Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, |
|
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold, |
1145 |
We will find out; and there we will unfold |
|
To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds: |
|
Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.’ |
|
|
As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze, |
|
Wildly determining which way to fly, |
1150 |
Or one encompass’d with a winding maze, |
|
That cannot tread the way out readily; |
|
So with herself is she in mutiny, |
|
To live or die which of the twain were better, |
|
When life is sham’d, and death reproach’s debtor. |
1155 |
|
‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack! what were it |
|
But with my body my poor soul’s pollution? |
|
They that lose half with greater patience bear it |
|
Than they whose whole is swallow’d in confusion. |
|
That mother tries a merciless conclusion, |
1160 |
Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one, |
|
Will slay the other and be nurse to none. |
|
|
‘My body or my soul, which was the dearer, |
|
When the one pure, the other made divine? |
|
Whose love of either to myself was nearer, |
1165 |
When both were kept for heaven and Collatine? |
|
Ay me! the bark peel’d from the lofty pine, |
|
His leaves will wither and his sap decay; |
|
So must my soul, her bark being peel’d away. |
|
|
‘Her house is sack’d, her quiet interrupted, |
1170 |
Her mansion batter’d by the enemy; |
|
Her sacred temple spotted, spoil’d, corrupted, |
|
Grossly engirt with daring infamy: |
|
Then let it not be call’d impiety, |
|
If in this blemish’d fort I make some hole |
1175 |
Through which I may convey this troubled soul. |
|
|
‘Yet die I will not till my Collatine |
|
Have heard the cause of my untimely death; |
|
That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine, |
|
Revenge on him that made me stop my breath. |
1180 |
My stained blood to Tarquin I ’ll bequeath, |
|
Which by him tainted shall for him be spent, |
|
And as his due writ in my testament. |
|
|
‘Mine honour I ’ll bequeath unto the knife |
|
That wounds my body so dishonoured. |
1185 |
’Tis honour to deprive dishonour’d life; |
|
The one will live, the other being dead: |
|
So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred; |
|
For in my death I murder shameful scorn: |
|
My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born. |
1190 |
|
‘Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost, |
|
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee? |
|
My resolution, love, shall be thy boast, |
|
By whose example thou reveng’d mayst be. |
|
How Tarquin must be us’d, read it in me: |
1195 |
Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe, |
|
And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so. |
|
|
‘This brief abridgment of my will I make: |
|
My soul and body to the skies and ground; |
|
My resolution, husband, do thou take; |
1200 |
Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound; |
|
My shame be his that did my fame confound; |
|
And all my fame that lives disbursed be |
|
To those that live, and think no shame of me. |
|
|
‘Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will; |
1205 |
How was I overseen that thou shalt see it! |
|
My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill; |
|
My life’s foul deed, my life’s fair end shall free it. |
|
Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say, “So be it:” |
|
Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee: |
1210 |
Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.’ |
|
|
This plot of death when sadly she had laid, |
|
And wip’d the brinish pearl from her bright eyes, |
|
With untun’d tongue she hoarsely call’d her maid, |
|
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies; |
1215 |
For fleet-wing’d duty with thought’s feathers flies. |
|
Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so |
|
As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow. |
|
|
Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow, |
|
With soft slow tongue, true mark of modesty, |
1220 |
And sorts a sad look to her lady’s sorrow, |
|
For why her face wore sorrow’s livery; |
|
But durst not ask of her audaciously |
|
Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so, |
|
Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash’d with woe. |
1225 |
|
But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set, |
|
Each flower moisten’d like a melting eye; |
|
Even so the maid with swelling drops ’gan wet |
|
Her circled eyne, enforc’d by sympathy |
|
Of those fair suns set in her mistress’ sky, |
1230 |
Who in a salt-wav’d ocean quench their light, |
|
Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night. |
|
|
A pretty while these pretty creatures stand, |
|
Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling; |
|
One justly weeps, the other takes in hand |
1235 |
No cause but company of her drops spilling; |
|
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing, |
|
Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts, |
|
And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts: |
|
|
For men have marble, women waxen minds, |
1240 |
And therefore are they form’d as marble will; |
|
The weak oppress’d, the impression of strange kinds |
|
Is form’d in them by force, by fraud, or skill: |
|
Then call them not the authors of their ill, |
|
No more than wax shall be accounted evil |
1245 |
Wherein is stamp’d the semblance of a devil. |
|
|
Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain, |
|
Lays open all the little worms that creep; |
|
In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain |
|
Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep: |
1250 |
Through crystal walls each little mote will peep: |
|
Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks, |
|
Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books. |
|
|
No man inveigh against the wither’d flower, |
|
But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill’d: |
1255 |
Not that devour’d, but that which doth devour, |
|
Is worthy blame. O! let it not be hild |
|
Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfill’d |
|
With men’s abuses: those proud lords, to blame, |
|
Make weak-made women tenants to their shame. |
1260 |
|
The precedent whereof in Lucrece view, |
|
Assail’d by night with circumstances strong |
|
Of present death, and shame that might ensue |
|
By that her death, to do her husband wrong: |
|
Such danger to resistance did belong, |
1265 |
The dying fear through all her body spread; |
|
And who cannot abuse a body dead? |
|
|
By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak |
|
To the poor counterfeit of her complaining: |
|
‘My girl,’ quoth she, ‘on what occasion break |
1270 |
Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are raining? |
|
If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining, |
|
Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood: |
|
If tears could help, mine own would do me good. |
|
|
‘But tell me, girl, when went’—and there she stay’d |
1275 |
Till after a deep groan—‘Tarquin from hence?’— |
|
‘Madam, ere I was up,’ replied the maid, |
|
‘The more to blame my sluggard negligence: |
|
Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense; |
|
Myself was stirring ere the break of day, |
1280 |
And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away. |
|
|
‘But, lady, if your maid may be so bold, |
|
She would request to know your heaviness.’ |
|
‘O! peace,’ quoth Lucrece; ‘if it should be told, |
|
The repetition cannot make it less; |
1285 |
For more it is than I can well express: |
|
And that deep torture may be call’d a hell, |
|
When more is felt than one hath power to tell. |
|
|
‘Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen: |
|
Yet save that labour, for I have them here. |
1290 |
What should I say? One of my husband’s men |
|
Bid thou be ready by and by, to bear |
|
A letter to my lord, my love, my dear: |
|
Bid him with speed prepare to carry it; |
|
The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.’ |
1295 |
|
Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write, |
|
First hovering o’er the paper with her quill: |
|
Conceit and grief an eager combat fight; |
|
What wit sets down is blotted straight with will; |
|
This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill: |
1300 |
Much like a press of people at a door, |
|
Throng her inventions, which shall go before. |
|
|
At last she thus begins: ‘Thou worthy lord |
|
Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee, |
|
Health to thy person! next vouchsafe t’ afford, |
1305 |
If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see, |
|
Some present speed to come and visit me. |
|
So I commend me from our house in grief: |
|
My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.’ |
|
|
Here folds she up the tenour of her woe, |
1310 |
Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly. |
|
By this short schedule Collatine may know |
|
Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality: |
|
She dares not thereof make discovery, |
|
Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse, |
1315 |
Ere she with blood had stain’d her stain’d excuse. |
|
|
Besides, the life and feeling of her passion |
|
She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her; |
|
When sighs, and groans, and tears may grace the fashion |
|
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her |
1320 |
From that suspicion which the world might bear her. |
|
To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter |
|
With words, till action might become them better. |
|
|
To see sad sights moves more than hear them told; |
|
For then the eye interprets to the ear |
1325 |
The heavy motion that it doth behold, |
|
When every part a part of woe doth bear: |
|
’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear; |
|
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords, |
|
And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words. |
1330 |
|
Her letter now is seal’d, and on it writ |
|
‘At Ardea to my lord, with more than haste.’ |
|
The post attends, and she delivers it, |
|
Charging the sour-fac’d groom to hie as fast |
|
As lagging fowls before the northern blast. |
1335 |
Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems: |
|
Extremely still urgeth such extremes. |
|
|
The homely villein curtsies to her low; |
|
And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye |
|
Receives the scroll without or yea or no, |
1340 |
And forth with bashful innocence doth hie: |
|
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie |
|
Imagine every eye beholds their blame; |
|
For Lucrece thought he blush’d to see her shame: |
|
|
When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect |
1345 |
Of spirit, life, and bold audacity. |
|
Such harmless creatures have a true respect |
|
To talk in deeds, while others saucily |
|
Promise more speed, but do it leisurely: |
|
Even so this pattern of the worn-out age |
1350 |
Pawn’d honest looks, but laid no words to gage. |
|
|
His kindled duty kindled her mistrust, |
|
That two red fires in both their faces blaz’d; |
|
She thought he blush’d, as knowing Tarquin’s lust, |
|
And, blushing with him, wistly on him gaz’d; |
1355 |
Her earnest eye did make him more amaz’d: |
|
The more saw the blood his cheeks replenish, |
|
The more she thought he spied in her some blemish. |
|
|
But long she thinks till he return again, |
|
And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone. |
1360 |
The weary time she cannot entertain, |
|
For now ’tis stale to sigh, to weep, to groan: |
|
So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan, |
|
That she her plaints a little while doth stay, |
|
Pausing for means to mourn some newer way. |
1365 |
|
At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece |
|
Of skilful painting, made for Priam’s Troy; |
|
Before the which is drawn the power of Greece, |
|
For Helen’s rape the city to destroy, |
|
Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy; |
1370 |
Which the conceited painter drew so proud, |
|
As heaven, it seem’d, to kiss the turrets bow’d. |
|
|
A thousand lamentable objects there, |
|
In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life; |
|
Many a dry drop seem’d a weeping tear, |
1375 |
Shed for the slaughter’d husband by the wife: |
|
The red blood reek’d, to show the painter’s strife; |
|
The dying eyes gleam’d forth their ashy lights, |
|
Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights. |
|
|
There might you see the labouring pioner, |
1380 |
Begrim’d with sweat, and smeared all with dust; |
|
And from the towers of Troy there would appear |
|
The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust, |
|
Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust: |
|
Such sweet observance in this work was had, |
1385 |
That one might see those far-off eyes look sad. |
|
|
In great commanders grace and majesty |
|
You might behold, triumphing in their faces; |
|
In youth quick bearing and dexterity; |
|
And here and there the painter interlaces |
1390 |
Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces; |
|
Which heartless peasants did so well resemble, |
|
That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble. |
|
|
In Ajax and Ulysses, O! what art |
|
Of physiognomy might one behold; |
1395 |
The face of either cipher’d either’s heart; |
|
Their face their manners most expressly told: |
|
In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour roll’d; |
|
But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent |
|
Show’d deep regard and smiling government. |
1400 |
|
There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, |
|
As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight; |
|
Making such sober action with his hand, |
|
That it beguil’d attention, charm’d the sight. |
|
In speech, it seem’d, his beard, all silver white, |
1405 |
Wagg’d up and down, and from his lips did fly |
|
Thin winding breath, which purl’d up to the sky. |
|
|
About him were a press of gaping faces, |
|
Which seem’d to swallow up his sound advice; |
|
All jointly listening, but with several graces, |
1410 |
As if some mermaid did their ears entice, |
|
Some high, some low, the painter was so nice; |
|
The scalps of many, almost hid behind, |
|
To jump up higher seem’d, to mock the mind. |
|
|
Here one man’s hand lean’d on another’s head, |
1415 |
His nose being shadow’d by his neighbour’s ear; |
|
Here one being throng’d bears back, all boll’n and red; |
|
Another smother’d seems to pelt and swear; |
|
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear, |
|
As, but for loss of Nestor’s golden words, |
1420 |
It seem’d they would debate with angry swords. |
|
|
For much imaginary work was there; |
|
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, |
|
That for Achilles’ image stood his spear, |
|
Grip’d in an armed hand; himself behind, |
1425 |
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: |
|
A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, |
|
Stood for the whole to be imagined. |
|
|
And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy, |
|
When their brave hope, bold Hector, march’d to field, |
1430 |
Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy |
|
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield; |
|
And to their hope they such odd action yield, |
|
That through their light joy seemed to appear,— |
|
Like bright things stain’d—a kind of heavy fear. |
1435 |
|
And, from the strand of Dardan, where they fought, |
|
To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran, |
|
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought |
|
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began |
|
To break upon the galled shore, and than |
1440 |
Retire again, till meeting greater ranks |
|
They join and shoot their foam at Simois’ banks. |
|
|
To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come, |
|
To find a face where all distress is stell’d. |
|
Many she sees where cares have carved some, |
1445 |
But none where all distress and dolour dwell’d, |
|
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld, |
|
Staring on Priam’s wounds with her old eyes, |
|
Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies. |
|
|
In her the painter had anatomiz’d |
1450 |
Time’s ruin, beauty’s wrack, and grim care’s reign: |
|
Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguis’d; |
|
Of what she was no semblance did remain; |
|
Her blue blood chang’d to black in every vein, |
|
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, |
1455 |
Show’d life imprison’d in a body dead. |
|
|
On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes, |
|
And shapes her sorrow to the beldam’s woes, |
|
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries, |
|
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes: |
1460 |
The painter was no god to lend her those; |
|
And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong, |
|
To give her so much grief and not a tongue. |
|
|
‘Poor instrument,’ quoth she, ‘without a sound, |
|
I ’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue, |
1465 |
And drop sweet balm in Priam’s painted wound, |
|
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong, |
|
And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long, |
|
And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes |
|
Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies. |
1470 |
|
‘Show me the strumpet that began this stir, |
|
That with my nails her beauty I may tear. |
|
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur |
|
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear: |
|
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here; |
1475 |
And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye, |
|
The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die. |
|
|
‘Why should the private pleasure of some one |
|
Become the public plague of many moe? |
|
Let sin, alone committed, light alone |
1480 |
Upon his head that hath transgressed so; |
|
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe; |
|
For one’s offence why should so many fall, |
|
To plague a private sin in general? |
|
|
‘Lo! here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies, |
1485 |
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds, |
|
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies, |
|
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds, |
|
And one man’s lust these many lives confounds: |
|
Had doting Priam check’d his son’s desire, |
1490 |
Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.’ |
|
|
Here feelingly she weeps Troy’s painted woes; |
|
For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell, |
|
Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes; |
|
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell: |
1495 |
So Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell |
|
To pencil’d pensiveness and colour’d sorrow; |
|
She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow. |
|
|
She throws her eyes about the painting round, |
|
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament: |
1500 |
At last she sees a wretched image bound, |
|
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent; |
|
His face, though full of cares, yet show’d content; |
|
Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes, |
|
So mild, that Patience seem’d to scorn his woes. |
1505 |
|
In him the painter labour’d with his skill |
|
To hide deceit, and give the harmless show |
|
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still, |
|
A brow unbent, that seem’d to welcome woe; |
|
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so |
1510 |
That blushing red no guilty instance gave, |
|
Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have. |
|
|
But, like a constant and confirmed devil, |
|
He entertain’d a show so seeming-just, |
|
And therein so ensconc’d his secret evil, |
1515 |
That jealousy itself could not mistrust |
|
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust |
|
Into so bright a day such black-fac’d storms, |
|
Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms. |
|
|
The well-skill’d workman this mild image drew |
1520 |
For perjur’d Sinon, whose enchanting story |
|
The credulous Old Priam after slew; |
|
Whose words, like wildfire, burnt the shining glory |
|
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry, |
|
And little stars shot from their fixed places, |
1525 |
When their glass fell wherein they view’d their faces. |
|
|
This picture she advisedly perus’d, |
|
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill, |
|
Saying, some shape in Sinon’s was abus’d; |
|
So fair a form lodg’d not a mind so ill: |
1530 |
And still on him she gaz’d, and gazing still, |
|
Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied, |
|
That she concludes the picture was belied. |
|
|
‘It cannot be,’ quoth she, ‘that so much guile,’— |
|
She would have said,—‘can lurk in such a look;’ |
1535 |
But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while, |
|
And from her tongue ‘can lurk’ from ‘cannot’ took: |
|
‘It cannot be,’ she in that sense forsook, |
|
And turn’d it thus, ‘It cannot be, I find, |
|
But such a face should bear a wicked mind: |
1540 |
|
‘For even as subtle Sinon here is painted, |
|
So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild, |
|
As if with grief or travail he had fainted, |
|
To me came Tarquin armed; so beguil’d |
|
With outward honesty, but yet defil’d |
1545 |
With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish, |
|
So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish. |
|
|
‘Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes, |
|
To see those borrow’d tears that Sinon sheds! |
|
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise? |
1550 |
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds: |
|
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds; |
|
Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy pity, |
|
Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city. |
|
|
‘Such devils steal effects from lightless hell; |
1555 |
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold, |
|
And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell; |
|
These contraries such unity do hold, |
|
Only to flatter fools and make them bold: |
|
So Priam’s trust false Sinon’s tears doth flatter, |
1560 |
That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.’ |
|
|
Here, all enrag’d, such passion her assails, |
|
That patience is quite beaten from her breast. |
|
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails, |
|
Comparing him to that unhappy guest |
1565 |
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest: |
|
At last she smilingly with this gives o’er; |
|
‘Fool, fool!’ quoth she, ‘his wounds will not be sore.’ |
|
|
Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow, |
|
And time doth weary time with her complaining. |
1570 |
She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow, |
|
And both she thinks too long with her remaining: |
|
Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining: |
|
Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps; |
|
And they that watch see time how slow it creeps. |
1575 |
|
Which all this time hath overslipp’d her thought, |
|
That she with painted images hath spent; |
|
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought |
|
By deep surmise of others’ detriment; |
|
Losing her woes in shows of discontent. |
1580 |
It easeth some, though none it ever cur’d, |
|
To think their dolour others have endur’d. |
|
|
But now the mindful messenger, come back, |
|
Brings home his lord and other company; |
|
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black; |
1585 |
And round about her tear-distained eye |
|
Blue circles stream’d, like rainbows in the sky: |
|
These water-galls in her dim element |
|
Foretell new storms to those already spent. |
|
|
Which when her sad-beholding husband saw, |
1590 |
Amazedly in her sad face he stares: |
|
Her eyes, though sod in tears, look’d red and raw, |
|
Her lively colour kill’d with deadly cares. |
|
He hath no power to ask her how she fares: |
|
Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance, |
1595 |
Met far from home, wondering each other’s chance. |
|
|
At last he takes her by the bloodless hand, |
|
And thus begins: ‘What uncouth ill event |
|
Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand? |
|
Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent? |
1600 |
Why art thou thus attir’d in discontent? |
|
Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness, |
|
And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.’ |
|
|
Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire, |
|
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe: |
1605 |
At length address’d to answer his desire, |
|
She modestly prepares to let them know |
|
Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe; |
|
While Collatine and his consorted lords |
|
With sad attention long to hear her words. |
1610 |
|
And now this pale swan in her watery nest |
|
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending. |
|
‘Few words,’ quoth she, ‘shall fit the trespass best, |
|
Where no excuse can give the fault amending: |
|
In me moe woes than words are now depending; |
1615 |
And my laments would be drawn out too long, |
|
To tell them all with one poor tired tongue. |
|
|
‘Then be this all the task it hath to say: |
|
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed |
|
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay |
1620 |
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head; |
|
And what wrong else may be imagined |
|
By foul enforcement might be done to me, |
|
From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free. |
|
|
‘For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight, |
1625 |
With shining falchion in my chamber came |
|
A creeping creature with a flaming light, |
|
And softly cried, “Awake, thou Roman dame, |
|
And entertain my love; else lasting shame |
|
On thee and thine this night I will inflict, |
1630 |
If thou my love’s desire do contradict. |
|
|
‘“For some hard-favour’d groom of thine,” quoth he, |
|
“Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will, |
|
I ’ll murder straight, and then I ’ll slaughter thee, |
|
And swear I found you where you did fulfil |
1635 |
The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill |
|
The lechers in their deed: this act will be |
|
My fame, and thy perpetual infamy.” |
|
|
‘With this I did begin to start and cry, |
|
And then against my heart he sets his sword, |
1640 |
Swearing, unless I took all patiently, |
|
I should not live to speak another word; |
|
So should my shame still rest upon record, |
|
And never be forgot in mighty Rome |
|
The adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom. |
1645 |
|
‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak, |
|
And far the weaker with so strong a fear: |
|
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak; |
|
No rightful plea might plead for justice there: |
|
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear |
1650 |
That my poor beauty had purloin’d his eyes; |
|
And when the judge is robb’d the prisoner dies. |
|
|
‘O! teach me how to make mine own excuse, |
|
Or, at the least, this refuge let me find; |
|
Though my gross blood be stain’d with this abuse, |
1655 |
Immaculate and spotless is my mind; |
|
That was not forc’d; that never was inclin’d |
|
To accessary yieldings, but still pure |
|
Doth in her poison’d closet yet endure.’ |
|
|
Lo! here the hopeless merchant of this loss, |
1660 |
With head declin’d, and voice damm’d up with woe, |
|
With sad-set eyes, and wretched arms across, |
|
From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow |
|
The grief away that stops his answer so: |
|
But, wretched as he is, he strives in vain; |
1665 |
What he breathes out his breath drinks up again. |
|
|
As through an arch the violent roaring tide |
|
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste, |
|
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride |
|
Back to the strait that forc’d him on so fast; |
1670 |
In rage sent out, recall’d in rage, being past: |
|
Even so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw, |
|
To push grief on, and back the same grief draw. |
|
|
Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth, |
|
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh: |
1675 |
‘Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth |
|
Another power; no flood by raining slaketh. |
|
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh |
|
More feeling-painful: let it then suffice |
|
To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes. |
1680 |
|
‘And for my sake, when I might charm thee so, |
|
For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me: |
|
Be suddenly revenged on my foe, |
|
Thine, mine, his own: suppose thou dost defend me |
|
From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me |
1685 |
Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die; |
|
For sparing justice feeds iniquity. |
|
|
‘But ere I name him, you, fair lords,’ quoth she,— |
|
Speaking to those that came with Collatine,— |
|
‘Shall plight your honourable faiths to me, |
1690 |
With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine; |
|
For ’tis a meritorious fair design |
|
To chase injustice with revengeful arms: |
|
Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies’ harms.’ |
|
|
At this request, with noble disposition |
1695 |
Each present lord began to promise aid, |
|
As bound in knighthood to her imposition, |
|
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray’d: |
|
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said, |
|
The protestation stops. ‘O! speak,’ quoth she, |
1700 |
‘How may this forced stain be wip’d from me? |
|
|
‘What is the quality of mine offence, |
|
Being constrain’d with dreadful circumstance? |
|
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense, |
|
My low-declined honour to advance? |
1705 |
May any terms acquit me from this chance? |
|
The poison’d fountain clears itself again; |
|
And why not I from this compelled stain?’ |
|
|
With this, they all at once began to say, |
|
Her body’s stain her mind untainted clears; |
1710 |
While with a joyless smile she turns away |
|
The face, that map which deep impression bears |
|
Of hard misfortune, carv’d in it with tears. |
|
‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘no dame, hereafter living, |
|
By my excuse shall claim excus’s giving.’ |
1715 |
|
Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break, |
|
She throws forth Tarquin’s name, ‘He, he,’ she says, |
|
But more than ‘he’ her poor tongue could not speak; |
|
Till after many accents and delays, |
|
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays, |
1720 |
She utters this, ‘He, he, fair lords, ’tis he, |
|
That guides this hand to give this wound to me.’ |
|
|
Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast |
|
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheath’d: |
|
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest |
1725 |
Of that polluted prison where it breath’d; |
|
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath’d |
|
Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly |
|
Life’s lasting date from cancell’d destiny. |
|
|
Stone-still, astonish’d with this deadly deed, |
1730 |
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew; |
|
Till Lucrece’ father, that beholds her bleed, |
|
Himself on her self-slaughter’d body threw; |
|
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew |
|
The murderous knife, and as it left the place, |
1735 |
Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase; |
|
|
And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide |
|
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood |
|
Circles her body in on every side, |
|
Who, like a late-sack’d island, vastly stood, |
1740 |
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood. |
|
Some of her blood still pure and red remain’d, |
|
And some look’d black, and that false Tarquin stain’d. |
|
|
About the mourning and congealed face, |
|
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes, |
1745 |
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place: |
|
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece’ woes, |
|
Corrupted blood some watery token shows; |
|
And blood untainted still doth red abide, |
|
Blushing at that which is so putrified. |
1750 |
|
‘Daughter, dear daughter!’ old Lucretius cries, |
|
‘That life was mine which thou hast here depriv’d |
|
If in the child the father’s image lies, |
|
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unliv’d? |
|
Thou wast not to this end from me deriv’d. |
1755 |
If children predecease progenitors, |
|
We are their offspring, and they none of ours. |
|
|
‘Poor broken glass, I often did behold |
|
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born; |
|
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old, |
1760 |
Shows me a bare-bon’d death by time outworn. |
|
O! from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn, |
|
And shiver’d all the beauty of my glass, |
|
That I no more can see what once I was. |
|
|
‘O Time! cease thou thy course, and last no longer, |
1765 |
If they surcease to be that should survive. |
|
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger, |
|
And leave the faltering feeble souls alive? |
|
The old bees die, the young possess their hive: |
|
Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see |
1770 |
Thy father die, and not thy father thee!’ |
|
|
By this, starts Collatine as from a dream, |
|
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place; |
|
And then in key-cold Lucrece’ bleeding stream |
|
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face, |
1775 |
And counterfeits to die with her a space; |
|
Till manly shame bids him possess his breath |
|
And live to be revenged on her death. |
|
|
The deep vexation of his inward soul |
|
Hath serv’d a dumb arrest upon his tongue; |
1780 |
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control |
|
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long, |
|
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng |
|
Weak words so thick, come in his poor heart’s aid, |
|
That no man could distinguish what he said. |
1785 |
|
Yet sometime ‘Tarquin’ was pronounced plain, |
|
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore. |
|
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain, |
|
Held back his sorrow’s tide to make it more; |
|
At last it rains, and busy winds give o’er: |
1790 |
Then son and father weep with equal strife |
|
Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife. |
|
|
The one doth call her his, the other his, |
|
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay. |
|
The father says, ‘She ’s mine.’ ‘O! mine she is,’ |
1795 |
Replies her husband; ‘do not take away |
|
My sorrow’s interest; let no mourner say |
|
He weeps for her, for she was only mine, |
|
And only must be wail’d by Collatine.’ |
|
|
‘O!’ quoth Lucretius, ‘I did give that life |
1800 |
Which she too early and too late hath spill’d.’ |
|
‘Woe, woe,’ quoth Collatine, ‘she was my wife, |
|
I ow’d her, and ’tis mine that she hath kill’d.’ |
|
‘My daughter’ and ‘my wife’ with clamours fill’d |
|
The dispers’d air, who, holding Lucrece’ life, |
1805 |
Answer’d their cries, ‘my daughter’ and ‘my wife.’ |
|
|
Brutus, who pluck’d the knife from Lucrece’ side, |
|
Seeing such emulation in their woe, |
|
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride, |
|
Burying in Lucrece’ wound his folly’s show. |
1810 |
He with the Romans was esteemed so |
|
As silly-jeering idiots are with kings, |
|
For sportive words and uttering foolish things: |
|
|
But now he throws that shallow habit by, |
|
Wherein deep policy did him disguise; |
1815 |
And arm’d his long-hid wits advisedly, |
|
To check the tears in Collatinus’ eyes. |
|
‘Thou wronged lord of Rome,’ quoth he, ‘arise: |
|
Let my unsounded self, suppos’d a fool, |
|
Now set thy long-experienc’d wit to school. |
1820 |
|
‘Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe? |
|
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds? |
|
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow |
|
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds? |
|
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds: |
1825 |
Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so, |
|
To slay herself, that should have slain her foe. |
|
|
‘Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart |
|
In such relenting dew of lamentations; |
|
But kneel with me and help to bear thy part, |
1830 |
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations, |
|
That they will suffer these abominations, |
|
Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac’d, |
|
By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas’d. |
|
|
‘Now, by the Capitol that we adore, |
1835 |
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain’d, |
|
By heaven’s fair sun that breeds the fat earth’s store, |
|
By all our country rights in Rome maintain’d, |
|
And by chaste Lucrece’ soul, that late complain’d |
|
Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife, |
1840 |
We will revenge the death of this true wife.’ |
|
|
This said, he struck his hand upon his breast, |
|
And kiss’d the fatal knife to end his vow; |
|
And to his protestation urg’d the rest, |
|
Who, wondering at him, did his words allow: |
1845 |
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow; |
|
And that deep vow, which Brutus made before, |
|
He doth again repeat, and that they swore. |
|
|
When they had sworn to this advised doom, |
|
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence; |
1850 |
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome, |
|
And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offence: |
|
Which being done with speedy diligence, |
|
The Romans plausibly did give consent |
|
To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment. |
1855 |