Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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‘Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,

With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight.

Devise extremes beyond extremity

To make him curse this cursed crimeful night.

Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright,

And the dire thought of his committed evil

Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.

‘Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances;

Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;

Let there bechance him pitiful mischances

To make him moan, but pity not his moans.

Stone him with hardened hearts harder than stones,

And let mild women to him lose their mildness,

Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

‘Let him have time to tear his curlèd hair,

Let him have time against himself to rave,

Let him have time of time’s help to despair,

Let him have time to live a loathed slave,

Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave,

And time to see one that by alms doth live

Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

‘Let him have time to see his friends his foes,

And merry fools to mock at him resort.

Let him have time to mark how slow time goes

In time of sorrow, and how swift and short

His time of folly and his time of sport;

And ever let his unrecalling crime

Have time to wail th’abusing of his time.

‘O time, thou tutor both to good and bad,

Teach me to curse him that thou taught’st this ill;

At his own shadow let the thief run mad,

Himself himself seek every hour to kill;

Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill,

For who so base would such an office have

As sland’rous deathsman to so base a slave?

‘The baser is he, coming from a king,

To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.

The mightier man, the mightier is the thing

That makes him honoured or begets him hate,

For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.

The moon being clouded presently is missed,

But little stars may hide them when they list.

‘The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire

And unperceived fly with the filth away,

But if the like the snow-white swan desire,

The stain upon his silver down will stay.

Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day.

Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly,

But eagles gazed upon with every eye.

‘Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools,

Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!

Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools,

Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters,

To trembling clients be you mediators;

For me, I force not argument a straw,

Since that my case is past the help of law.

‘In vain I rail at opportunity,

At time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night.

In vain I cavil with mine infamy,

In vain I spurn at my confirmed despite.

This helpless smoke of words doth me no right;

The remedy indeed to do me good

Is to let forth my foul defiled blood.

‘Poor hand, why quiver’st thou at this decree?

Honour thyself to rid me of this shame,

For if I die, my honour lives in thee,

But if I live, thou liv’st in my defame.

Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,

And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe,

Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.’

This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth,

To find some desp’rate instrument of death.

But this, no slaughterhouse, no tool imparteth

To make more vent for passage of her breath,

Which thronging through her lips so vanisheth

As smoke from Etna that in air consumes,

Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

‘In vain,’ quoth she, ‘I live, and seek in vain

Some happy mean to end a hapless life.

I feared by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain,

Yet for the selfsame purpose seek a knife.

But when I feared I was a loyal wife;

So am I now—O no, that cannot be,

Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

‘O, that is gone for which I sought to live,

And therefore now I need not fear to die.

To clear this spot by death, at least I give

A badge of fame to slander’s livery,

A dying life to living infamy.

Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away,

To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!

‘Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know

The stained taste of violated troth.

I will not wrong thy true affection so

To flatter thee with an infringed oath.

This bastard graft shall never come to growth.

He shall not boast, who did thy stock pollute,

That thou art doting father of his fruit,

‘Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,

Nor laugh with his companions at thy state.

But thou shalt know thy int’rest was not bought

Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate.

For me, I am the mistress of my fate,

And with my trespass never will dispense

Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

‘I will not poison thee with my attaint,

Nor fold my fault in cleanly coined excuses.

My sable ground of sin I will not paint

To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses.

My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,

As from a mountain spring that feeds a dale

Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.’

By this, lamenting Philomel had ended

The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow,

And solemn night with slow sad gait descended

To ugly hell, when lo, the blushing morrow

Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow.

But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,

And therefore still in night would cloistered be.

Revealing day through every cranny spies,

And seems to point her out where she sits weeping;

To whom she sobbing speaks, ‘O eye of eyes,

Why pry’st thou through my window? Leave thy

peeping,

Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping,

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,

For day hath naught to do what’s done by night.’

Thus cavils she with everything she sees:

True grief is fond and testy as a child

Who, wayward once, his mood with naught agrees;

Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild.

Continuance tames the one; the other wild,

Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,

With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

So she, deep drenched in a sea of care,

Holds disputation with each thing she views,

And to herself all sorrow doth compare;

No object but her passion’s strength renews,

And as one shifts, another straight ensues.

Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words,

Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords.

The little birds that tune their morning’s joy

Make her moans mad with their sweet melody,

For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;

Sad souls are slain in merry company;

Grief best is pleased with grief’s society.

True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed

When with like semblance it is sympathized.

’Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;

He ten times pines that pines beholding food;

To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;

Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;

Deep woes.roll forward like a gentle flood

Who, being stopped, the bounding banks o’erflows.

Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.

‘You mocking birds,’ quoth she, ‘your tunes entomb

Within your hollow-swelling feathered breasts,

And in my hearing be you mute and dumb;

My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;

A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests.

Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;

Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.

‘Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment,

Make thy sad grove in my dishevelled hair.

As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,

So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,

And with deep groans the diapason bear;

For burden-wise I’ll hum on Tarquin still,

While thou on Tereus descants better skill.

‘And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part

To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,

To imitate thee well, against my heart

Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,

Who if it wink shall thereon fall and die.

These means, as frets upon an instrument,

Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.

‘And for, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day,

As shaming any eye should thee behold,

Some dark deep desert seated from the way,

That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,

Will we find out, and there we will unfold

To creatures stern sad tunes to change their kinds.

Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.’

As the poor frighted deer that stands at gaze,

Wildly determining which way to fly,

Or one encompassed with a winding maze,

That cannot tread the way out readily,

So with herself is she in mutiny,

To live or die which of the twain were better

When life is shamed and death reproach’s debtor.

‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack, what were it

But with my body my poor soul’s pollution?

They that lose half with greater patience bear it

Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion.

That mother tries a merciless conclusion

Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one

Will slay the other and be nurse to none.

‘My body or my soul, which was the dearer,

When the one pure the other made divine?

Whose love of either to myself was nearer,

When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?

Ay me, the bark peeled from the lofty pine

His leaves will wither and his sap decay;

So must my soul, her bark being peeled away.

‘Her house is sacked, her quiet interrupted,

Her mansion battered by the enemy,

Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted,

Grossly engirt with daring infamy.

Then let it not be called impiety

If in this blemished fort I make some hole

Through which I may convey this troubled soul.

‘Yet die I will not till my Collatine

Have heard the cause of my untimely death,

That he may vow in that sad hour of mine

Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.

My stained blood to Tarquin I’ll bequeath,

Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,

And as his due writ in my testament.

‘My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife

That wounds my body so dishonoured.

’Tis honour to deprive dishonoured life;

The one will live, the other being dead.

So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred,

For in my death I murder shameful scorn;

My shame so dead, mine honour is new born.

‘Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,

What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?

My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,

By whose example thou revenged mayst be.

How Tarquin must be used, read it in me.

Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe;

And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.

‘This brief abridgement of my will I make:

My soul and body to the skies and ground;

My resolution, husband, do thou take;

Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound;

My shame be his that did my fame confound;

And all my fame that lives disbursed be

To those that live and think no shame of me.

‘Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will.

How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!

My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;

My life’s foul deed my life’s fair end shall free it.

Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say “So be it”.

Yield to my hand, my hand shall conquer thee;

Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.’

This plot of death when sadly she had laid,

And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,

With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,

Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;

For fleet-winged duty with thought’s feathers flies.

Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so

As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.

Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow

With soft slow tongue, true mark of modesty,

And sorts a sad look to her lady’s sorrow,

For why her face wore sorrow’s livery;

But durst not ask of her audaciously

Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsèd so,

Nor why her fair cheeks over-washed with woe.

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,

Each flower moistened like a melting eye,

Even so the maid with swelling drops gan wet

Her circled eyne, enforced by sympathy

Of those fair suns set in her mistress’ sky,

Who in a salt-waved ocean quench their light;

Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,

Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling.

One justly weeps, the other takes in hand

No cause but company of her drops’ spilling.

Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,

Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts,

And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.

For men have marble, women waxen minds,

And therefore are they formed as marble will.

The weak oppressed, th’impression of strange kinds

Is formed in them by force, by fraud, or skill.

Then call them not the authors of their ill,

No more than wax shall be accounted evil

Wherein is stamped the semblance of a devil.

Their smoothness like a goodly champaign plain

Lays open all the little worms that creep;

In men as in a rough-grown grove remain

Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep.

Through crystal walls each little mote will peep;

Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,

Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.

No man inveigh against the withered flower,

But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed.

Not that devoured, but that which doth devour

Is worthy blame. O, let it not be held

Poor women’s faults that they are so full-filled

With men’s abuses. Those proud lords, to blame,

Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,

Assailed by night with circumstances strong

Of present death, and shame that might ensue

By that her death, to do her husband wrong.

Such danger to resistance did belong

That dying fear through all her body spread;

And who cannot abuse a body dead?

By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak

To the poor counterfeit of her complaining.

‘My girl,’ quoth she, ‘on what occasion break

Those tears from thee that down thy cheeks are raining?

If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,

Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood.

If tears could help, mine own would do me good.

‘But tell me, girl, when went’—and there she stayed,

Till after a deep groan—‘Tarquin from hence?’

‘Madam, ere I was up,’ replied the maid,

‘The more to blame my sluggard negligence.

Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense:

Myself was stirring ere the break of day,

And ere I rose was Tarquin gone away.

‘But lady, if your maid may be so bold,

She would request to know your heaviness.’

‘O, peace,’ quoth Lucrece, ‘if it should be told,

The repetition cannot make it less;

For more it is than I can well express,

And that deep torture may be called a hell

When more is felt than one hath power to tell.

‘Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen;

Yet save that labour, for I have them here.

What should I say? One of my husband’s men

Bid thou be ready by and by to bear

A letter to my lord, my love, my dear.

Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;

The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.’

Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,

First hovering o’er the paper with her quill.

Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;

What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;

This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill.

Much like a press of people at a door

Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

At last she thus begins: ‘Thou worthy lord

Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,

Health to thy person! Next, vouchsafe t’afford—

If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see—

Some present speed to come and visit me.

So I commend me, from our house in grief;

My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.’

Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,

Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.

By this short schedule Collatine may know

Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality.

She dares not thereof make discovery,

Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,

Ere she with blood had stained her stain’s excuse.

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion

She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her,

When sighs and groans and tears may grace the

fashion

Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her

From that suspicion which the world might bear her.

To shun this blot she would not blot the letter

With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,

For then the eye interprets to the ear

The heavy motion that it doth behold,

When every part a part of woe doth bear.

’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear;

Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,

And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

Her letter now is sealed, and on it writ

‘At Ardea to my lord with more than haste’.

The post attends, and she delivers it,

Charging the sour-faced groom to hie as fast

As lagging fowls before the northern blast.

Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems;

Extremity still urgeth such extremes.

The homely villain curtsies to her low,

And blushing on her with a steadfast eye

Receives the scroll without or yea or no,

And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.

But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie

Imagine every eye beholds their blame,

For Lucrece thought he blushed to see her shame,

When, silly groom, God wot, it was defect

Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.

Such harmless creatures have a true respect

To talk in deeds, while others saucily

Promise more speed, but do it leisurely.

Even so this pattern of the worn-out age

Pawned honest looks, but laid no words to gage.

His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,

That two red fires in both their faces blazed.

She thought he blushed as knowing Tarquin’s lust,

And blushing with him, wistly on him gazed.

Her earnest eye did make him more amazed.

The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,

The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.

But long she thinks till he return again,

And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.

The weary time she cannot entertain,

For now ’tis stale to sigh, to weep, and groan.

So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,

That she her plaints a little while doth stay,

Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.

At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece

Of skilful painting made for Priam’s Troy,

Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,

For Helen’s rape the city to destroy,

Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;

Which the conceited painter drew so proud

As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed.

A thousand lamentable objects there,

In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life.

Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear

Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife.

The red blood reeked to show the painter’s strife,

And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights

Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.

There might you see the labouring pioneer

Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust,

And from the towers of Troy there would appear

The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,

Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust.

Such sweet observance in this work was had

That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.

In great commanders grace and majesty

You might behold, triumphing in their faces;

In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;

And here and there the painter interlaces

Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces,

Which heartless peasants did so well resemble

That one would swear he saw them quake and

tremble.

In Ajax and Ulysses, O what art

Of physiognomy might one behold!

The face of either ciphered either’s heart;

Their face their manners most expressly told.

In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled,

But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent

Show I deep regard and smiling government.

There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,

As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight,

Making such sober action with his hand

That it beguiled attention, charmed the sight.

In speech it seemed his beard all silver-white

Wagged up and down, and from his lips did fly

Thin winding breath which purled up to the sky.

About him were a press of gaping faces

Which seemed to swallow up his sound advice,

All jointly list’ning, but with several graces,

As if some mermaid did their ears entice;

Some high, some low, the painter was so nice.

The scalps of many, almost hid behind,

To jump up higher seemed, to mock the mind.

Here one man’s hand leaned on another’s head,

His nose being shadowed by his neighbour’s ear;

Here one being thronged bears back, all boll’n and red;

Another, smothered, seems to pelt and swear,

And in their rage such signs of rage they bear

As but for loss of Nestor’s golden words

It seemed they would debate with angry swords.

For much imaginary work was there;

Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,

That for Achilles’ image stood his spear

Gripped in an armed hand; himself behind

Was left unseen save to the eye of mind;

A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,

Stood for the whole to be imagined.

And from the walls of strong-besiegèd Troy

When their brave hope, bold Hector, marched to field,

Stood many Trojan mothers sharing joy

To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;

And to their hope they such odd action yield

That through their light joy seemed to appear,

Like bright things stained, a kind of heavy fear.

And from the strand of Dardan where they fought

To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran,

Whose waves to imitate the battle sought

With swelling ridges, and their ranks began

To break upon the galled shore, and then

Retire again, till meeting greater ranks

They join, and shoot their foam at Simois’ banks.

To this well painted piece is Lucrece come,

To find a face where all distress is stelled.

Many she sees where cares have carved some,

But none where all distress and dolour dwelled

Till she despairing Hecuba beheld

Staring on Priam’s wounds with her old eyes,

Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies.

In her the painter had anatomized

Time’s ruin, beauty’s wreck, and grim care’s reign.

Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised;

Of what she was no semblance did remain.

Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,

Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,

Showed life imprisoned in a body dead.

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,

And shapes her sorrow to the beldame’s woes,

Who nothing wants to answer her but cries

And bitter words to ban her cruel foes.

The painter was no god to lend her those,

And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong

To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.

‘Poor instrument,’ quoth she, ‘without a sound,

I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue,

And drop sweet balm in Priam’s painted wound,

And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,

And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long,

And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes

Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

‘Show me the strumpet that began this stir,

That with my nails her beauty I may tear.

Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur

This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;

Thine eye kindled the fire that burneth here,

And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,

The sire, the son, the dame and daughter die.

‘Why should the private pleasure of someone

Become the public plague of many moe?

Let sin alone committed light alone

Upon his head that hath transgressed so;

Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.

For one’s offence why should so many fall,

To plague a private sin in general?

‘Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,

Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swoons,

Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,

And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,

And one man’s lust these many lives confounds.

Had doting Priam checked his son’s desire,

Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.’

Here feelingly she weeps Troy’s painted woes;

For sorrow, like a heavy hanging bell

Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;

Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.

So Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell

To pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow.

She lends them words, and she their looks doth

borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round,

And who she finds forlorn she doth lament.

At last she sees a wretched image bound,

That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent.

His face, though full of cares, yet showed content.

Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,

So mild that patience seemed to scorn his woes.

In him the painter laboured with his skill

To hide deceit and give the harmless show

An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,

A brow unbent that seemed to welcome woe;

Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so

That blushing red no guilty instance gave,

Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But like a constant and confirmed devil

He entertained a show so seeming just,

And therein so ensconced his secret evil

That jealousy itself could not mistrust

False creeping craft and perjury should thrust

Into so bright a day such blackfaced storms,

Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well skilled workman this mild image drew

For perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story

The credulous old Priam after slew;

Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory

Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,

And little stars shot from their fixed places

When their glass fell wherein they viewed their faces.

This picture she advisedly perused,

And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,

Saying some shape in Sinon’s was abused,

So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill;

And still on him she gazed, and gazing still,

Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied

That she concludes the picture was belied.

‘It cannot be,’ quoth she, ‘that so much guile’—

She would have said ‘can lurk in such a look’,

But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while,

And from her tongue ‘can lurk’ from ‘cannot’ took.

‘It cannot be’ she in that sense forsook,

And turned it thus: ‘It cannot be, I find,

But such a face should bear a wicked mind.

‘For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,

So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,

As if with grief or travail he had fainted,

To me came Tarquin armed, too beguiled

With outward honesty, but yet defiled

With inward vice. As Priam him did cherish,

So did I Tarquin, so my Troy did perish.

‘Look, look, how list’ning Priam wets his eyes

To see those borrowed tears that Sinon sheds.

Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?

For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds.

His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds.

Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity

Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.

‘Such devils steal effects from lightless hell,

For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,

And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell.

These contraries such unity do hold

Only to flatter fools and make them bold;

So Priam’s trust false Sinon’s tears doth flatter

That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.’

Here, all enraged, such passion her assails

That patience is quite beaten from her breast.

She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,

Comparing him to that unhappy guest

Whose deed hath made herself herself detest.

At last she smilingly with this gives o‘er:

‘Fool, fool,’ quoth she, ‘his wounds will not be sore.’

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,

And time doth weary time with her complaining.

She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,

And both she thinks too long with her remaining.

Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining.

Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,

And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath overslipped her thought

That she with painted images hath spent,

Being from the feeling of her own grief brought

By deep surmise of others’ detriment,

Losing her woes in shows of discontent.

It easeth some, though none it ever cured,

To think their dolour others have endured.

But now the mindful messenger come back

Brings home his lord and other company,

Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black,

And round about her tear-distained eye

Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky.

These water-galls in her dim element

Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad beholding husband saw,

Amazedly in her sad face he stares.

Her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw,

Her lively colour killed with deadly cares.

He hath no power to ask her how she fares.

Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance,

Met far from home, wond’ring each other’s chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,

And thus begins: ‘What uncouth ill event

Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand?

Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?

Why art thou thus attired in discontent?

Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,

And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.’

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire

Ere once she can discharge one word of woe.

At length addressed to answer his desire,

She modestly prepares to let them know

Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe,

While Collatine and his consorted lords

With sad attention long to hear her words.

And now this pale swan in her wat‘ry nest

Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.

‘Few words,’ quoth she, ‘shall fit the trespass best,

Where no excuse can give the fault amending.

In me more woes than words are now depending,

And my laments would be drawn out too long

To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.

‘Then be this all the task it hath to say:

Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed

A stranger came, and on that pillow lay

Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;

And what wrong else may be imagined

By foul enforcement might be done to me,

From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.

‘For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight

With shining falchion in my chamber came

A creeping creature with a flaming light,

And softly cried, “Awake, thou Roman dame,

And entertain my love; else lasting shame

On thee and thine this night I will inflict,

If thou my love’s desire do contradict.

‘“For some hard-favoured groom of thine,” quoth he,

“Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,

I’ll murder straight, and then I’ll slaughter thee,

And swear I found you where you did fulfil

The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill

The lechers in their deed. This act will be

My fame, and thy perpetual infamy.”

‘With this I did begin to start and cry,

And then against my heart he set his sword,

Swearing unless I took all patiently

I should not live to speak another word.

So should my shame still rest upon record,

And never be forgot in mighty Rome

Th’adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,

And far the weaker with so strong a fear.

My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;