Before the which is drawn1368 the power of Greece,
For Helen’s rape1369 the city to destroy,
Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion1370 with annoy,
Which the conceited1371 painter drew so proud
As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed.
A thousand lamentable objects there,
In scorn1374 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 reeked1377, 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 pioneer1380
Begrimed with sweat and smearèd all with dust,
And from the towers of Troy there would appear
The very eyes of men through loopholes1383 thrust,
Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust1384:
Such sweet observance1385 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, quick1389 bearing and dexterity.
And here and there the painter interlaces1390
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 Ulysses1394, O, what art
Of physiognomy1395 might one behold!
The face of either ciphered1396 either’s heart.
Their face their manners most expressly told:
In Ajax’ eyes blunt1398 rage and rigour rolled,
But the mild glance that sly1399 Ulysses lent
Showed deep regard1400 and smiling government.
There pleading1401 might you see grave Nestor stand,
As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight,
Making such sober action1403 with his hand,
That it beguiled1404 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 purled1407 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 graces1410,
As if some mermaid did their ears entice,
Some high, some low — the painter was so nice1412.
The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
To jump up higher seemed, to mock the mind1414.
Here one man’s hand leaned on another’s head,
His nose being shadowed by his neighbour’s ear.
Here one, being thronged1417, bears back, all boll’n and red.
Another smothered seems to pelt1418 and swear,
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear
As, but for loss of1420 Nestor’s golden words,
It seemed they would debate with angry swords.
For much imaginary work was there:
Conceit deceitful1423, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles’ image stood his spear1424,
Gripped in an armèd 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 imaginèd.
And from the walls of strong besiegèd Troy,
When their brave hope, bold Hector1430, marched to field,
Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield,
And to their hope they such1433 odd action yield
That through their light joy seemèd to appear,
Like bright things stained, a kind of heavy fear.
And from the strand of Dardan1436, where they fought,
To Simois1437’ reedy banks the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges1439 and their ranks began
To break upon the gallèd1440 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 stelled1444.
Many she sees where cares have carvèd some1445,
But none where all distress and dolour1446 dwelled
Till she despairing Hecuba1447 beheld,
Staring on Priam’s wounds, with her old eyes,
Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies.
In her the painter had anatomized1450
Time’s ruin, beauty’s wrack and grim care’s reign.
Her cheeks with chaps1452 and wrinkles were disguised:
Of what she was1453 no semblance did remain.
Her blue1454 blood changed to black in every vein,
Wanting the spring1455 that those shrunk pipes had fed,
Showed life imprisoned in a body dead.
On this sad shadow1457 Lucrece spends her eyes
And shapes her sorrow to the beldame1458’s woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her1459 but cries
And bitter words to ban1460 her cruel foes.
The painter was no god to lend her those1461,
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 strumpet1471 that began this stir,
That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
Thy heat of lust, fond1473 Paris, did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear.
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here,
And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
The sire, the son, the dame1477, and daughter die.
‘Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe1479?
Let sin, alone committed, light1480 alone
Upon his head that hath transgressèd so.
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.
For one’s offence why should so many fall,
To plague a private sin in general1484?
‘Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus1486 swoons,
Here friend by friend in bloody channel1487 lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvisèd1488 wounds,
And one man’s lust these many lives confounds.
Had doting1490 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 goes1494;
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell1495.
So Lucrece, set a-work1496, sad tales doth tell
To pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow1497:
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.
At last she sees a wretched image bound1501,
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent1502.
His face, though full of cares, yet showed content.
Onward to Troy with t
he blunt swains1504 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 show1507
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still1508,
A brow unbent1509 that seemed to welcome woe,
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
That blushing red no guilty instance1511 gave,
Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.
But, like a constant and confirmèd devil,
He entertained a show1514 so seeming just,
And therein so ensconced1515 his secret evil,
That jealousy itself could not mistrust
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
Into so bright a day such black-faced storms
Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.
The well-skilled workman1520 this mild image drew
For perjured Sinon whose enchanting1521 story
The credulous old Priam after slew,
Whose words like wildfire1523 burnt the shining glory
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
And little stars shot from their fixèd places,
When their glass1526 fell wherein they viewed their faces.
This picture she advisedly1527 perused
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,
Saying, some shape in Sinon’s was abused1529:
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 plain1532 face she spied
That she concludes the picture was belied1533.
‘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 it1539 thus, ‘It cannot be, I find,
But1540 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 travail1543 he had fainted,
To me came Tarquin armèd to beguild1544
With outward honesty but yet defiled
With inward vice: as Priam him1546 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 falls1551 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 fire1554 to burn thy city.
‘Such devils steal effects1555 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 senseless1564 Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that unhappy1565 guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest.
At last she smilingly with this gives o’er1567:
‘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 sustaining1573:
Though woe be heavy1574, yet it seldom sleeps,
And they that watch1575 see time how slow it creeps.
Which all this time hath overslipped1576 her thought
That she with painted images hath spent,
Being from1578 the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others’ detriment1579,
Losing her woes in shows1580 of discontent.
It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
To think their dolour others have endured.
But now the mindful1583 messenger come back
Brings home his lord and other company,
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black,
And round about her tear-distainèd1586 eye
Blue circles streamed1587, like rainbows in the sky.
These water-galls1588 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 sod1592 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 chance1596.
At last he takes her by the bloodless hand
And thus begins: ‘What uncouth1598 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 discontent1601?
Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness
And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.’
Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire1604,
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe.
At length addressed1606 to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe,
While Collatine and his consorted1609 lords
With sad attention long to hear her words.
And now this pale swan in her wat’ry nest
Begins the sad dirge1612 of her certain ending1611:
‘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 depending1615,
And my laments would be drawn out too long
To tell them all with one poor tirèd tongue.
‘Then be this all the task it hath to say:
Dear husband, in the interest of1619 thy bed
A stranger came and on that pillow lay
Where thou was wont1621 to rest thy weary head,
And what wrong else may be imaginèd
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 falchion1626 in my chamber came
A creeping creature with a flaming light
And softly cried, “Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain1629 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 groom1632 of thine,” quoth he,
“Unless thou yoke thy liking1633 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 sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
I should not live to speak another word.
So should my shame still rest upon record1643
And never be forgot in mighty Rome
Th’adulterate1645 death of Lucrece and her groom.
‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear.
My bloody1648 judge forbade my tongue to speak,
No rightful plea might plead for justice there.
His scarlet1650 lust came evidence to swear
That my poor beauty had purloined1651 his eyes,
And when the judge is robbed the prisoner dies.
‘O, teach me how to make mine own excuse,
Or at the least this refuge let me find:
Though my gross1655 blood be stained with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind:
That was not forced, that never was inclined
To accessary yieldings1658, but still pure
Doth in her poisoned closet1659 yet endure.’
Lo, here, the hopeless merchant1660 of this loss,
With head declined1661, and voice dammed up with woe,
With sad set eyes and wretched arms across1662,
From lips new-waxen1663 pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so.
But, wretched as he is, he strives in vain:
What he breathes out his breath drinks up again1666.
As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,
Yet in the eddy1669 boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait1670 that forced him on so fast,
The Sonnets and Other Poems Page 12