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 desired?
415
What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
And in his will his wilful eye he tired.
With more than admiration he admired
Her azure veins, her alablaster 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, –
Slak’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 must’ring 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 strive I to embrace mine infamy.’
This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
505
Which like a falcon tow’ring 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 falcons’ 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 rhymes
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 sometime 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 th’ aspiring mountains hiding
From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
Which blow these pitchy vapours from their biding,
550
Hind’ring their present fall by this dividing:
So his unhallowed haste her words delays,
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.
Yet, foul night-waking 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 fixed
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face.
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixed,
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 borrowed 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’st 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-threat’ning 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 everything.
‘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 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;
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?
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 23