Even as poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes,   
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,   
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,   
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.   
  The warm effects which she in him finds missing,    605
  She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.   
 
But all in vain; good queen, it will not be:   
She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d;   
Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;   
She ’s Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.    610
  ‘Fie, fie!’ he says, ‘you crush me; let me go;   
  You have no reason to withhold me so.’   
 
‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere this,   
But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.   
O! be advis’d; thou know’st not what it is    615
With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,   
  Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,   
  Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.   
 
‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set   
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;    620
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;   
His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes;   
  Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way,   
  And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.   
 
‘His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm’d,    625
Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;   
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm’d;   
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:   
  The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,   
  As fearful of him part, through whom he rushes.    630
 
‘Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine,   
To which Love’s eyes pay tributary gazes;   
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,   
Whose full perfection all the world amazes;   
  But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!    635
  Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.   
 
‘O! let him keep his loathsome cabin still;   
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:   
Come not within his danger by thy will;   
They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.    640
  When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,   
  I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.   
 
‘Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?   
Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?   
Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright?    645
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,   
  My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,   
  But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.   
 
‘For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy   
Doth call himself Affection’s sentinel;    650
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,   
And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill, kill!”   
  Distempering gentle Love in his desire,   
  As air and water do abate the fire.   
 
‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,    655
This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring,   
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,   
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,   
  Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear   
  That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:    660
 
‘And more than so, presenteth to mine eye   
The picture of an angry-chafing boar,   
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie   
An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore;   
  Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed    665
  Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.   
 
‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,   
That tremble at the imagination?   
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,   
And fear doth teach it divination:    670
  I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,   
  If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.   
 
‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me;   
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,   
Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,    675
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:   
  Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,   
  And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds.   
 
‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,   
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles    680
How he outruns the winds, and with what care   
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:   
  The many musits through the which he goes   
  Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.   
 
‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,    685
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,   
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,   
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,   
  And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;   
  Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:    690
 
‘For there his smell with others being mingled,   
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,   
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled   
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;   
  Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,    695
  As if another chase were in the skies.   
 
‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,   
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,   
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:   
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;    700
  And now his grief may be compared well   
  To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.   
 
‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch   
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;   
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,    705
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:   
  For misery is trodden on by many,   
  And being low never reliev’d by any.   
 
‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more;   
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:    710
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,   
Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,   
  Applying this to that, and so to so;   
  For love can comment upon every woe.   
 
‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he;    715
‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:   
The night is spent,’ ‘Why, what of that?’ quoth she.   
‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends;   
  And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.’   
  ‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.’    720
 
‘But if thou fall, O! then imagine this,   
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,   
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.   
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips   
  Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,    725
  Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.   
 
‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:   
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,   
Till forging Nature be condemn’d of treason,   
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;    730
  Wherein she fram’d thee in high heaven’s despite,   
  To shame the sun by day and her by night.   
 
‘And therefore hath she brib’d the Destinies,   
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,   
To mingle beauty with infirmities,    735
And pure perfection with impure defeature;   
  Making it subject to the tyranny   
  Of mad mischances and much misery;   
 
‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,   
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,    740
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint   
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;   
  Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn’d despair,   
  Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair.   
 
‘And not the least of all these maladies    745
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under:   
Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities,   
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,   
  Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,   
  As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.    750
 
‘Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,   
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,   
That on the earth would breed a scarcity   
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,   
  Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night    755
  Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.   
 
‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave,   
Seeming to bury that posterity   
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,   
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?    760
  If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,   
  Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.   
 
‘So in thyself thyself art made away;   
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,   
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,    765
Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life.   
  Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,   
  But gold that ’s put to use more gold begets.’   
 
‘Nay then,’ quoth Adon, ‘you will fall again   
Into your idle over-handled theme;    770
The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,   
And all in vain you strive against the stream;   
  For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,   
  Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.   
 
‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,    775
And every tongue more moving than your own,   
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,   
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;   
  For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,   
  And will not let a false sound enter there;    780
 
‘Lest the deceiving harmony should run   
Into the quiet closure of my breast;   
And then my little heart were quite undone,   
In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest.   
  No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,    785
  But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.   
 
‘What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove?   
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;   
I hate not love, but your device in love,   
That lends embracements unto every stranger.    790
  You do it for increase: O strange excuse!   
  When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse.   
 
‘Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,   
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp’d his name;   
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed    795
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;   
  Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,   
  As caterpillars do the tender leaves.   
 
‘Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,   
But Lust’s effect is tempest after sun;    800
Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,   
Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.   
  Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;   
  Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.   
 
‘More I could tell, but more I dare not say;    805
The text is old, the orator too green.   
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;   
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:   
  Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended,   
  Do burn themselves for having so offended.’    810
 
With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace   
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,   
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;   
Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress’d.   
  Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky,    815
  So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye;   
 
Which after him she darts, as one on shore   
Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,   
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,   
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:    820
  So did the merciless and pitchy night   
  Fold in the object that did feed her sight.   
 
Whereat amaz’d, as one that unaware   
Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood,   
Or ’stonish’d as night-wanderers often are,    825
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;   
  Even so confounded in the dark she lay,   
  Having lost the fair discovery of her way.   
 
And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,   
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,    830
Make verbal repetition of her moans;   
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:   
  ‘Ay me!’ she cries, and twenty times, ‘Woe, woe!’   
  And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.   
 
She marking them, begins a wailing note,    835
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;   
How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;   
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:   
  Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,   
  And still the choir of echoes answer so.    840
 
Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,   
For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short:   
If pleas’d themselves, others, they think, delight   
In such like circumstance, with such like sport:   
  Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,    845
  End without audience, and are never done.   
 
For who hath she to spend the night withal,   
But idle sounds resembling parasites;   
Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call,   
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?    850
  She says, ‘’Tis so:’ they answer all, ‘’Tis so;’   
  And would say after her, if she said ‘No.’   
 
Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,   
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,   
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast    855
The sun ariseth in his majesty;   
  Who doth the world so gloriously behold,   
  That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.   
 
Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:   
‘O thou clear god, and patron of all light,    860
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow   
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,   
  There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother,   
  May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.’   
 
This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,    865
Musing the morning is so much o’erworn,   
And yet she hears no tidings of her love;   
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn:   
  Anon she hears them chant it lustily,   
  And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.    870
 
And as she runs, the bushes in the way   
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,   
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:   
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,   
  Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,    875
  Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.   
 
By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;   
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder   
Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,   
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;    880
  Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds   
  Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.   
 
For now she knows it is no gentle chase,   
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,   
Because the cry remaineth in one place,    885
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:   
  Finding their enemy to be so curst,   
  They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.   
 
This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,   
Through which it enters to surprise her heart;    890
Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,   
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;   
  Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,   
  They basely fly and dare not stay the field.   
 
Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,    895
Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay’d,   
She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy,   
And childish error, that they are afraid;   
  Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:   
  And with that word she spied the hunted boar,    900
 
Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,   
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,   
A second fear through all her sinews spread,   
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:   
  This way she runs, and now she will no further,    905
  But back retires to rate the boar for murther.   
 
A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,   
She treads the path that she untreads again;   
Her more than haste is mated with delays,   
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,    910
  Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,   
  In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.   
 
Here kennel’d in a brake she finds a hound,   
And asks the weary caitiff for his master,   
And there another licking of his wound,    915
’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster;   
  And here she meets another sadly scowling,   
  To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.   
 
When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise,   
Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim,    920
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;   
Another and another answer him,   
  Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,   
  Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go.   
 
Look, how the world’s poor people are amaz’d    925
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,   
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz’d,   
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;   
  So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,   
  And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.    930
 
‘Hard-favour’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,   
Hateful divorce of love,’—thus chides she Death,—   
‘Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean   
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,   
  Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set    935
  Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?   
 
‘If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,   
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;   
O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see,   
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.    940
  Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart   
  Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant’s heart.   
 
‘Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,   
And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power.   
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;    945
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower.   
  Love’s golden arrow at him should have fled,   
  And not Death’s ebon dart, to strike him dead.   
 
‘Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?   
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?    950
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping   
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?   
  Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,   
  Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigour.’   
 
Here overcome, as one full of despair,    955
She vail’d her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp’d   
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair   
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d;   
  But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,   
  And with his strong course opens them again.    960
 
O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;   
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;   
Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow,   
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;   
  But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,    965
  Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.   
 
Variable passions throng her constant woe,   
As striving who should best become her grief;   
All entertain’d, each passion labours so,   
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,    970
  But none is best; then join they all together,   
  Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.   
 
By this, far off she hears some huntsman holla;   
A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well:   
The dire imagination she did follow    975
This sound of hope doth labour to expel;   
  For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,   
  And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.   
 
Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,   
Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass;    980
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,   
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass,   
  To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,   
  Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.   
 
O hard-believing love! how strange it seems    985
Not to believe, and yet too credulous;   
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;   
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:   
  The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,   
  In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.    990
 
Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,   
Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;   
It was not she that call’d him all to naught,   
Now she adds honours to his hateful name;   
  She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,    995
  Imperious supreme of all mortal things.   
 
‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘sweet Death, I did but jest;   
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear   
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,   
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;   1000
  Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess,—   
  I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease.   
 
‘’Tis not my fault: the boar provok’d my tongue;   
Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander;   
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;   1005
I did but act, he ’s author of my slander:   
  Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet,   
  Could rule them both without ten women’s wit.’   
 
Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,   
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;   1010
And that his beauty may the better thrive,   
With Death she humbly doth insinuate;   
  Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories   
  His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.   
 
‘O Jove!’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I,   1015
To be of such a weak and silly mind   
To wail his death who lives and must not die   
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;   
  For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,   
  And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.   1020
 
‘Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear   
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves;   
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,   
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.’   
  Even at this word she hears a merry horn   1025
  Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.   
 
As falcon to the lure, away she flies;   
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;   
And in her haste unfortunately spies   
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight;   1030
  Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view,   
  Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew:   
 
Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,   
Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,   
And there, all smother’d up, in shade doth sit,   1035
Long after fearing to creep forth again;   
  So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled   
  Into the deep dark cabins of her head:   
 
Where they resign their office and their light   
To the disposing of her troubled brain;   1040
Who bids them still consort with ugly night,   
And never wound the heart with looks again;   
  Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,   
  By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,   
 
Whereat each tributary subject quakes;   1045
As when the wind, imprison’d in the ground,   
Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes,   
Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.   
  This mutiny each part doth so surprise   
  That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;   1050
 
And, being open’d, threw unwilling light   
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d   
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white   
With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench’d:   
  No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,   1055
  But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.   
 
This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,   
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,   
Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;   
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:   1060
  Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,   
  Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.   
 
Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,   
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;   
And then she reprehends her mangling eye,   1065
That makes more gashes where no breach should be:   
  His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;   
  For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.   
 
‘My tongue cannot express my grief for one,   
And yet,’ quoth she, ‘behold two Adons dead!   1070
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,   
Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead:   
  Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire!   
  So shall I die by drops of hot desire.   
 
‘Alas! poor world, what treasure hast thou lost?   1075
What face remains alive that ’s worth the viewing?   
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast   
Of things long since, or anything ensuing?   
  The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;   
  But true-sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.   1080
 
‘Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!   
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:   
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;   
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:   
  But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air   1085
  Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair:   
 
‘And therefore would he put his bonnet on,   
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;   
The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,   
Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;   1090
  And straight, in pity of his tender years,   
  They both would strive who first should dry his tears.   
 
‘To see his face the lion walk’d along   
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;   
To recreate himself when he hath sung,   1095
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him;   
  If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,   
  And never fright the silly lamb that day.   
 
‘When he beheld his shadow in the brook,   
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;   1100
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,   
That some would sing, some other in their bills   
  Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries;   
  He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.   
 
‘But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,   1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,   
Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;   
Witness the entertainment that he gave:   
  If he did see his face, why then I know   
  He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.   1110
 
‘’Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain:   
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,   
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,   
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;   
  And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine   1115
  Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.   
 
‘Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,   
With kissing him I should have kill’d him first;   
But he is dead, and never did he bless   
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.’   1120
  With this she falleth in the place she stood,   
  And stains her face with his congealed blood.   
 
She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;   
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold;   
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,   1125
As if they heard the woeful words she told;   
  She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,   
  Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies;   
 
Two glasses where herself herself beheld   
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;   1130
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,   
And every beauty robb’d of his effect:   
  ‘Wonder of time,’ quoth she, ‘this is my spite,   
  That, you being dead, the day should yet be light.   
 
‘Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy,   1135
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:   
It shall be waited on with jealousy,   
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;   
  Ne’er settled equally, but high or low;   
  That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.   1140
 
‘It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,   
Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while;   
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d   
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:   
  The strongest body shall it make most weak,   1145
  Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.   
 
‘It shall be sparing and too full of riot,   
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;   
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,   
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;   1150
  It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,   
  Make the young old, the old become a child.   
 
‘It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;   
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;   
It shall be merciful, and too severe,   1155
And most deceiving when it seems most just;   
  Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,   
  Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.   
 
‘It shall be cause of war and dire events,   
And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire;   1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,   
As dry combustious matter is to fire:   
  Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy,   
  They that love best their love shall not enjoy.’   
 
By this, the boy that by her side lay kill’d   1165
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,   
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,   
A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white;   
  Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood   
  Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.   1170
 
She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,   
Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath;   
And says within her bosom it shall dwell,   
Since he himself is reft from her by death:   
  She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears   1175
  Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears.   
 
‘Poor flower,’ quoth she, ‘this was thy father’s guise,   
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire   
For every little grief to wet his eyes:   
To grow unto himself was his desire,   1180
  And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good   
  To wither in my breast as in his blood.   
 
‘Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;   
Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right:   
Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest,   1185
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:   
  There shall not be one minute in an hour   
  Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.’   
 
Thus weary of the world, away she hies,   
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid   1190
Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies   
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d;   
  Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen   
  Means to immure herself and not be seen.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.

    THE LOVE I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.
    Your lordship’s in all duty,       
    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.   

    THE ARGUMENT

    LUCIUS TARQUINIUS,—for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus,—after he had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly murdered, and contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people’s suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king’s son, in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife—though it were late in the night—spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius, being inflamed with Lucrece’ beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, and 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 the 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.


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

Sonnet I.

“From fairest creatures we desire increase”

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase   
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,   
But as the riper should by time decease,   
His tender heir might bear his memory:   
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,            5
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,   
Making a famine where abundance lies,   
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.   
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament   
And only herald to the gaudy spring,     10
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,   
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.   
  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,   
  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.   

Sonnet II.

“When forty winters shall besiege thy brow”

WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow   
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,   
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,   
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:   
Then being ask’d, where all thy beauty lies,            5
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,   
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,   
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.   
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,   
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine     10
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’   
Proving his beauty by succession thine!   
  This were to be new made when thou art old,   
  And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.   

Sonnet III.

“Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest”

LOOK in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest   
Now is the time that face should form another;   
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,   
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother,   
For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb            5
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?   
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb   
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?   
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee   
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;     10
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,   
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.   
  But if thou live, remember’d not to be,   
  Die single, and thine image dies with thee.   

Sonnet IV.

“Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend”

UNTHRIFTY loveliness, why dost thou spend   
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?   
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,   
And being frank, she lends to those are free:   
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse            5
The bounteous largess given thee to give?   
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use   
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?   
For having traffic with thyself alone,   
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive:     10
Then how, when Nature calls thee to be gone,   
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?   
  Thy unus’d beauty must be tomb’d with thee,   
  Which used, lives th’ executor to be.   

Sonnet V.

“Those hours, that with gentle work did frame”

THOSE hours, that with gentle work did frame   
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,   
Will play the tyrants to the very same   
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;   
For never-resting time leads summer on            5
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;   
Sap check’d with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,   
Beauty o’ersnow’d and bareness every where:   
Then, were not summer’s distillation left,   
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,     10
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,   
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:   
  But flowers distill’d, though they with winter meet,   
  Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.