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 fixed 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 armed 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-distained1586 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 tired 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 imagined
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 forc
ed, 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,
In rage sent out, recalled in rage, being past:
Even so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw1672,
To push grief on and back the same grief draw.
Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth1674,
And his untimely frenzy1675 thus awaketh:
'Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power1677, no flood by raining slaketh.
My woe too sensible1678 thy passion maketh
More feeling-painful. Let it then suffice
To drown on1680 woe, one pair of weeping eyes.
'And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend1682 me:
Be suddenly1683 revenged on my foe,
Thine, mine, his own1684. Suppose thou dost defend me
From what is past. The help that thou shalt lend me
Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die,
For sparing justice feeds iniquity.
'But ere I name him, you fair lords,' quoth she,
Speaking to those that came with Collatine,
'Shall plight your honourable faiths1690 to me,
With swift pursuit to venge1691 this wrong of mine,
For 'tis a meritorious fair design
To chase injustice with revengeful arms:
Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'
At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her imposition1697,
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewrayed1698.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said1699,
The protestation1700 stops. 'O, speak,' quoth she,
'How may this forced stain be wiped from me?
'What is the quality1702 of my offence,
Being constrained with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense1704,
My low-declined honour to advance1705?
May any terms1706 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,
While with a joyless smile she turns away
The face, that map which deep impression bears
Of hard misfortune, carved in it with tears.
'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,
By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving1714.'
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,
Untimely1720 breathings, sick and short assays,
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 bail1725 it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison1726 where it breathed.
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
Her winged sprite1728, and through her wounds doth fly
Life's lasting date from cancelled destiny1729.
Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed,
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew1731,
Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed,
Himself on her self-slaughtered body threw,
And from the purple fountain Brutus1734 drew
The murd'rous knife and, as it left the place,
Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase1736,
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-sacked1740 island, vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.
Some of her blood still pure and red remained,
And some looked black and that false Tarquin stained.
About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a wat'ry rigol1745 goes,
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 putrefied.
'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius1751 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.
If children predecease progenitors1756,
We are their offspring and they none of ours.
'Poor broken glass1758, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born,
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bare-boned death by time outworn.
O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,
And shivered1763 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,
If they surcease1766 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
Thy father die and not thy father thee.'
By this, starts Collatine as from a dream
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place1773,
And then in key-cold1774 Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits1776 to die with her a space,
Till manly shame bids him possess his breath
And live to be revenged on her death.
The deep vexation1779 of his inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue,
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 come1784 in his poor heart's aid,
That no man could distinguish what he said.
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'er1790.
Then son and father weep with equal strife1791
Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife.
The 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',
Replies her husband. 'Do not take away
/>
My sorrow's interest1797, let no mourner say
He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
And only must be wailed by Collatine.'
'O,' quoth Lucretius, 'I did give that life
Which she too early and too late hath spilled.'
'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife,
I owed1803 her and 'tis mine that she hath killed.'
'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours filled
The dispersed1805 air, who, holding Lucrece' life,
Answered their cries, 'my daughter' and 'my wife'.
Brutus1807, who plucked the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation1808 in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit1809 in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show1810.
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 habit1814 by,
Wherein deep policy1815 did him disguise,
And armed his long-hid wits advisedly,
To check the tears in Collatinus' eyes.
'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth he, 'arise!
Let my unsounded1819 self, supposed a fool,
Now set thy long-experienced wit to school.
'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 humour1825 from weak minds proceeds.
Thy wretched1826 wife mistook the matter so,
To slay herself that should have slain her foe.
'Courageous Roman, do not steep1828 thy heart
In such relenting1829 dew of lamentations,
But kneel with me and help to bear thy part
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations1831,
That they will suffer1832 these abominations --
Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced --
By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.
'Now, by the Capitol1835 that we adore,
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained,
By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat1837 earth's store,