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,
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:
She, much-amaz'd, breaks ope her lock 'd-up
Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold, [eyes,
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
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.
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;
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,
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
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 shew;
But she with vehement prayers urgeth still,
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;
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,
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.
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;
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
But nothing can affection's course control,
Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.
I know repentant tears ensue the deed;
Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity
Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy.
This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,
Whose crooked beak threats, if he mount he
So under his insulting falchion lies ¡dies,
Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells,
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,
To kill thine hono ur 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;
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 rhymes,
And sung by children in succeeding times.
But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:
A little harm, done to a great good end,
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
For lawful policy remains enacted.
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
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,
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,
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause;
While she, the picture of pure piety,
Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws,
To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws,
Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.
Look, 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 dust doth
get,
[biding,
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their
Hindering their present fall by this dividing;
So his uulallow'd haste her words delays,
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.
Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
While in lis hold-fast foot the weak mouse
panteth:
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly,
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart grant-
No penetrable entrance to her plaining: [eth
Tears harden lust, though marble wear with
raining.
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;
And 'midst the sentence to 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
By her untimely tears, her husband's love,
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 [tended;
With such black payment as thou hast pre-
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
End thy ill ain., before thy shoot be ended:
He is no wood-man that doth bend his bow
To strike a poor unseasonable doe.
My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare
[me;
Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave
Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me:
Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive
(leave thee.
My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to
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 wreck-threat'ning heart,
To soften it with their continual motion;
For stones dissolv'd to water do convert.
O, if not harder than a stone thou art,
Melt at my tears and be compassionate!
Soft pity enters at an iron gate.
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
Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same,
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,
What dar'st thou not, when once thou art a king?
O, be remember'd, 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,
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,
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.
And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame?
Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?
Thou back'st reproach against long-lived 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:
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
For it was lent thee all thy brood to kill.
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil,
When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may,
[way?
He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the
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 trangressions partially they smother:
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy
brother.
O. how are they wrapp'd in with infamies, That from their own misdeeds askaunce 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;
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
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,
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.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hers'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;
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.
So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state--
No more, quoth he, by heaven, I will not hear
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, [thee
Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
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,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannise.
The wolf hath seiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries;
Till with her own white fleece her voice con-
troll'd,
Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:
For with the nightly linen that she wears,
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
He pens her piteous clamours in her head;
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!
Her tears should drop on them perpetually.
The spots whereof could weeping purify,
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 strite;
This momentary joy breeds months of pain;
This hot desire converts to cold disdain:
And lust, the thief, far poorer than before.
Pure chastity is rifled of her store,
Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
The prey wherein by nature they delight;
So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
is taste delicious, in digestion souring,
Devours his will, that liv'd by foul devouring.
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
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
Feeble Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
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,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chas'd;
For now against himself he sounds this dooni,-
That through the length of times he stands dis-
grac'd:
Besides, his soul's fair temple is defac'd;
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess how she fares.
She says, her subjects with foul insurrection
Ilave batter'd down her consecrated wall,
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
Her immortality, and made her thrall
To living death, and pain perpetual:
Which in her prescience she controlled still,
But her fore-sight could not fore-stall their will.
Even in this thought, through the dark night
10, hateful, vaporous, and foggy night,
Since thou art guilty of my cureless 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
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
The life of purity, the supreme fair, [sick
Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide 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,)
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 copartners in my pain:
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
As palmer's chat make 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,
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver
Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with
brine;
[groans,
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.
O night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold that face
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 sepulcher'd in thy shade!
Make me not object to the tell-tale day!
The light will shew, 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
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
lay,The orator, to deck his oratory, [name;
A captive victor, that hath lost in gain;
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 burthen of a guilty mind.
He, like a thievish dog, creeps sadly thence;
She, like a weary'd 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,
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 cast-away:
He in his speed looks for the morning light,
She prays she never may behold the day:
For day, quoth she,night's scapes doth open
And my true eyes have never practis'd how
To cloke offences with a cunning brow.
They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves be-
hold;
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,
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
Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her
Against the unseen secrecy of night. [spite
O, comfort-killing night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
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!
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,
For Collatine's dear love he 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,
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
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.
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.
Yet am I guiltless of thy honour's wreck,
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
Coming from thee I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him;
Besides of weariness he did complain him,
And 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 enckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute.
The aged man that coffers up his gold, [fits;
Is plagu'd with cramps, and gouts, and painful
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,
Even in the moment that we call them ours.
Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious
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.
9, Opportunity; thy guilt is great:
'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason;
Thou set'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;
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;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal, and displacest land:
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!
Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast;
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name;
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.
How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?
When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's
friend,
Advice is sporting while infection breeds;
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:
Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages
When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid;
They buy thy help: but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appay'd,
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
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;
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessary 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,
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
Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are.
O hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.
Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
Betray'd the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancel'd my fortunes, and enchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is, to find the hate of foes;
To eat up errors by opinion bred,
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.
Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he reuder right;
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
And smear with dust their glittering golden
To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books, and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings;
To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs;
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of fortune's wheel:
To shew the beldame daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild;
To mock the subtle, in themselves 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,
Unless thou could'st return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand
Lending him wit, that to bad debtors lends:
O, this dread night,would'st thou one hour come
back,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd? I could prevent this storm, and shun thy wrack!
[flight:
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end? Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath With some mischance cross Tarquin in his
chain'd?
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;
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;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
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.
Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave;
And time to see one that by alms doth live,
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
And merry fools to mock at him resort:
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
His time of folly, and his time of sport:
And ever let his unrecalling crime
Have time to wail the abusing of his time.
O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curse him that thou tanght'st this
At his own shadow let the thief run mad, [ill!
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 slanderous death's-man 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;
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 maybathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceiv'd 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
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly, [day,
But eagles gaz'd 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 coufirm'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?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee,
But if I live, thou livs't in my defame;
Since thou could'st not defend thy loyal dame,
And wast afear'd to scratch her wicked foe,
Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.
This said, from her be-tumbled couch she start-
eth,
To find some desperate instrument of death:
But this no slaughter-house 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 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.
O! that is gone, for which I sought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die.
To clear this spot by death, at least I give
A badge of fame to slander's livery;
A dying life to living infamy:
Poor helpless help, the treasure stol'n away,
To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!
Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
The stained taste of violated troth;
I will not wrong thy true affection so,
To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
This bastard graff shall never come to growth
He shall not boast, who did thy stock pollute,
That thou art doating 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 interest was not
bought,
[gate
Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy
For me, I am the mistress of my fate;
And with my trespass never will dispense,
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.
To hide the truth of this false night's abuses:
My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
Mytongue 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 low, 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.
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;
[sleeping:
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
For day hath nought to do what's done by night.
Thus cavils she with every thing she sees;
True grief is fond and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought
agrees.
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
Holds disputation with each thing she views,
And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
No object but her passions 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;
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