And in thy shady cell881, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.
'Thou mak'st the vestal883 violate her oath,
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance884 is thawed,
Thou smother'st honesty885; thou murd'rest troth:
Thou foul abettor, thou notorious bawd,
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud887.
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall889, thy joy to grief.
'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast,
Thy smoothing892 titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugared tongue to bitter wormwood893 taste:
Thy violent vanities894 can never last.
How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?
'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's897 friend
And bring him where his suit may be obtained?
When wilt thou sort899 an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chained?
Give physic901 to the sick? Ease to the pained?
The poor, lame, blind, halt902, creep, cry out for thee,
But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.
'The patient dies while the physician sleeps,
The orphan pines905 while the oppressor feeds.
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps,
Advice907 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 pages910.
'When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses912 keep them from thy aid.
They buy thy help, but Sin ne'er gives a fee:
He gratis914 comes and thou art well apaid
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
My Collatine would else916 have come to me
When Tarquin did, but he was stayed917 by thee.
'Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,
Guilty of perjury and subornation919,
Guilty of treason, forgery and shift920,
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessary by thine inclination922
To all sins past and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom924.
'Misshapen Time, copesmate925 of ugly Night,
Swift subtle post926, carrier of grisly care,
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes928, sin's packhorse, virtue's snare,
Thou nursest all and murd'rest all that are.
O, hear me then, injurious, shifting Time,
Be guilty of my death, since of931 my crime.
'Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
Betrayed the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancelled my fortunes and enchained me
To endless date935 of never-ending woes?
Time's office936 is to fine the hate of foes,
To eat up errors by opinion937 bred,
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.
'Time's glory is to calm contending939 kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn and sentinel942 the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate944 proud buildings with thy hours
And smear with dust their glitt'ring golden towers,
'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 quills949 from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs950,
To spoil antiquities of hammered steel
And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel952,
'To show the beldame953 daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child954,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle957 in themselves beguiled,
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful958 crops
And waste959 huge stones with little water drops.
'Why work'st thou mischief960 in thy pilgrimage,
Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
One poor retiring962 minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends964.
O, this dread Night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack.
'Thou ceaseless lackey967 to eternity,
With some mischance cross968 Tarquin in his flight,
Devise extremes beyond extremity
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night,
Let ghastly971 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 trances974,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans,
Let there bechance976 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 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 orts985 to crave,
And time to see one that by alms doth live986
Disdain to him987 disdained scraps to give.
'Let him have time to see his friends his foes
And merry fools to mock at him resort989,
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 sport992.
And ever let his unrecalling993 crime
Have time to wail th'abusing994 of his time.
'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curse him that996 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 deathsman1001 to so base a slave?
'The baser is he, coming1002 from a king,
To shame his hope1003 with deeds degenerate.
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
That makes him honoured or begets him hate1005:
For greatest scandal waits on1006 greatest state.
The moon being clouded presently1007 is missed,
But little stars may hide them when they list.
'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire1009
And unperceived fly with the filth away,
But if the like1011 the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Poor grooms1013 are sightless night, kings glorious day,
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
But eagles gazed upon with every eye.
'Out1016, idle words, servants to shallow fools,
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrator1017s!
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools1018,
Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters,
To trembling clients be you mediators.
For me, I force n
ot argument a straw1021,
Since that my case1022 is past the help of law.
'In vain I rail1023 at Opportunity,
At Time, at Tarquin and uncheerful Night,
In vain I cavil1025 with mine infamy,
In vain I spurn1026 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 blood1029.
'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 couch1037 she starteth,
To find some desp'rate instrument of death.
But this, no slaughterhouse, no tool imparteth1039
To make more vent for passage of her breath,
Which thronging1041 through her lips, so vanisheth
As smoke from Aetna1042 that in air consumes
Or that which from discharged cannon fumes1043.
'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless1045 life.
I feared by Tarquin's falchion1046 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 type1050 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 spot1053 by death, at least I give
A badge of fame to slander's1054 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 flatter1061 thee with an infringed oath.
This bastard graff1062 shall never come to growth:
He shall not boast who did thy stock1063 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'rest1067 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 dispense1070
Till life to death acquit my forced offence.
'I will not poison thee with my attaint1072
Nor fold my fault in cleanly coined1073 excuses.
My sable ground1074 of sin I will not paint
To hide the truth of this false night's1075 abuses.
My tongue shall utter all, mine eyes like sluices,
As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale1077,
Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'
By this1079, 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 cloudy1084 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 thou1089 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 nought to do1092 what's done by night.'
Thus cavils she with everything she sees:
True grief is fond1094 and testy as a child,
Who wayward1095 once, his mood with naught agrees:
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild1096,
Continuance1097 tames the one, the other wild,
Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,
With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
So she, deep-drenched1100 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 renews1103,
And as one shifts, another straight1104 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 annoy1109.
Sad souls are slain in merry company,
Grief best is pleased with grief's society:
True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed1112
When with like semblance it is sympathized1113.
'Tis double death to drown in ken1114 of shore,
He ten times pines1115 that pines beholding food,
To see the salve1116 doth make the wound ache more,
Great grief grieves most at that1117 would do it good,
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
Who, being stopped, the bounding1119 banks o'erflows:
Grief dallied1120 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 restless1124 discord loves no stops nor rests:
A woeful hostess brooks1125 not merry guests.
Relish1126 your nimble notes to pleasing ears:
Distress likes dumps1127 when time is kept with tears.
'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my dishevelled1129 hair.
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment1130,
So I at each sad strain will strain1131 a tear
And with deep groans the diapason1132 bear:
For burden-wise1133 I'll hum on Tarquin still,
While thou on Tereus1134 descants better skill.
'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,
To keep thy sharp woes waking1135, wretched I,
To imitate thee well, against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,
Who, if it wink1139, shall thereon fall and die.
These means, as frets1140 upon an instrument,
Shall tune our heartstrings to true languishment.
'And for1142, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,
As shaming1143 any eye should thee behold,
Some dark deep desert1144, seated from the way,
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold
Will we find out, and there we will unfold
To creatures stern1147, sad tunes to change their kinds:
Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'
As the poor frighted deer that stands at gaze1149,
Wildly determining which way to fly,
Or one encompassed1151 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 debtor1155.
'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack, what were it
But with my body my poor soul's pollution1157?
They that lose half with greater patience bear it
Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion11
59.
That mother tries1160 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 divine1164?
Whose love of either to myself was nearer1165
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 sacked1170, her quiet interrupted,
Her mansion battered by the enemy,
Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted,
Grossly engirt1173 with daring infamy.
Then let it not be called impiety,
If in this blemished fort1175 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 spent1182,
And as his due writ in my testament1183.
'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonoured.
'Tis honour to deprive1186 dishonoured life:
The one will live, the other being dead.
So of shame's ashes shall my fame1188 be bred,
For in my death I murder shameful scorn:
My shame so dead, mine honour is newborn.
'Dear lord of that dear jewel1191 I have lost,
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
My resolution1193, love, shall be thy boast,
By whose example thou revenged may'st be.
How Tarquin must be used1195, 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 to1199 the skies and ground,
My resolution, husband, do thou take,
Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound,