The protestation stops. ‘O speak,’ quoth she:
1700
‘How may this forced stain be wip’d from me?
‘What is the quality of my 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 poisoned 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 excuse’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 unsheathed;
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
1725
Of that polluted prison where it breathed.
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
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 murd’rous 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 deprived;
If in the child the father’s image lies,
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived:
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 falt’ring 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.
Then 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 utt’ring 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 lamentatio
ns;
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 disgraced, –
By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.
‘Now by that Capitol that we adore,
1835
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained,
By heaven’s fair sun that breeds the fat earth’s store,
By all our country rights in Rome maintained,
And by chaste Lucrece’ soul that late complained
Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,
1840
We will revenge the death of this true wife.’
This said, he strook his hand upon his breast,
And kiss’d the fatal knife to end his vow;
And to his protestation urg’d the rest,
Who wond’ring 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
The Passionate Pilgrim
1
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unskilful in the world’s false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although I know my years be past the best,
I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,
Outfacing faults in love with love’s ill rest.
But wherefore says my love that she is young?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit’s in a soothing tongue,
And age, in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I’ll lie with love, and love with me,
Since that our faults in love thus smother’d be.
2
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
That like two spirits do suggest me still;
My better angel is a man, right fair,
My worser spirit a woman, colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her fair pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
For being both to me, both to each, friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
3
Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain’d cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then thou, fair sun that on this earth doth shine,
Exhal’st this vapour vow. In thee it is;
If broken then, it is no fault of mine.
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To break an oath, to win a paradise?
4
Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty’s queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show’d him favours to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touch’d him here and there;
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refus’d to take her figur’d proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer.
Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward:
He rose and ran away; ah fool too froward!
5
If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll constant prove:
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.
Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice:
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire.
Thine eye love’s lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 29