His ear her prayers admits558, but his heart granteth
No penetrable559 entrance to her plaining:
Tears harden560 lust, though marble wear with raining.
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 the565 period often from his place,
And midst the sentence so her accent566 breaks
That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.
She conjures him by568 high almighty Jove,
By knighthood, gentry569 and sweet friendship's oath,
By her untimely570 tears, her husband's love,
By holy human law and common troth571,
By heaven and earth and all the power of both,
That to his borrowed573 bed he make retire
And stoop574 to honour, not to foul desire.
Quoth she, 'Reward not hospitality
With such black payment as thou hast pretended576,
Mud577 not the fountain that gave drink to thee,
Mar578 not the thing that cannot be amended,
End thy ill aim579 before thy shoot be ended.
He is no woodman580 that doth bend his bow
To strike581 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.
My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave586 thee.
If ever man were moved587 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'ning590 heart,
To soften it with their continual motion,
For stones dissolved 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.
'In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee:
Hast thou put on his shape597 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,
Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king,
For kings like gods should govern everything602.
'How will thy shame be seeded603 in thine age
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring?
If in thy hope605 thou dar'st do such outrage,
What dar'st thou not when once thou art a king?
O, be remembered, no outrageous thing
From vassal actors608 can be wiped away,
Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay609.
'This deed will make thee only loved for610 fear,
But happy611 monarchs still are feared for love.
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
When they in thee the like offences prove612.
If but for fear of this, thy will remove614.
For princes are the glass615, the school, the book,
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.
'And wilt thou be the school where lust shall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures618 of such shame?
Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant620 for blame,
To privilege621 dishonour in thy name?
Thou back'st622 reproach against long-living laud
And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd623.
'Hast thou command624? By him that gave it thee,
From a pure heart command thy rebel will:
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity626,
For it was lent thee all that brood627 to kill.
Thy princely office628 how canst thou fulfil,
When, patterned by629 thy fault, foul sin may say,
He learned to sin and thou didst teach the way?
'Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear:
Their own transgressions partially they smother.
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
O, how are they wrapped in with infamies636
That from their own misdeeds askance637 their eyes!
'To thee, to thee, my heaved-up638 hands appeal,
Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier639.
I sue for exiled majesty's repeal640:
Let him return and flatt'ring641 thoughts retire.
His true respect642 will prison false desire
And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne643,
That thou shalt see thy state644 and pity mine.'
'Have done', quoth he. 'My uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells646 the higher by this let.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide
And with the wind in greater fury fret:
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
To their salt sovereign650 with their fresh falls' haste
Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'
'Thou art', quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king,
And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood655.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hearsed657,
And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.
'So shall these slaves659 be king and thou their slave,
Thou nobly base, they basely dignified,
Thou their fair life and they thy fouler grave,
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride.
The lesser thing should not the greater hide.
The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
But low shrubs wither at the cedar's root.
'So let thy thoughts, low vassals666 to thy state --'
'No more', quoth he, 'by heaven, I will not hear thee.
Yield to my love. If not, enforced hate
Instead of love's coy669 touch shall rudely tear thee.
That done, despitefully670 I mean to bear thee
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom671
To be thy partner in this shameful doom672.'
This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies:
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seized677 his prey, the poor lamb cries,
Till with her own white fleece678 her voice controlled
Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold679.
For with the nightly linen680 that she wears
He pens her piteous clamours in her head,
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone684 lust should stain so pure a bed,
The spots whereof could weeping685 purify,
Her tears should drop on them perpetually!
But she hath lost a dearer thing than life
And he hath won what he would lose again:
This forced league689 doth force a further strife,
This momentary joy breeds months of pain,
This hot desire converts to cold disdain,
Pure chastity is rifled692 of her store,
And lust, the thief, far poorer than before.
Look as the full-fed hound or gorged694 hawk,
Unapt695 for tender smell or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk696
&n
bsp; The prey wherein by nature they delight:
So surfeit-taking698 Tarquin fares this night:
His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
Devours his will that lived by foul devouring.
O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit701
Can comprehend in still imagination702!
Drunken desire must vomit his receipt703,
Ere he can see his own abomination.
While lust is in his pride705, no exclamation
Can curb his heat or rein his rash desire,
Till like a jade707 self-will himself doth tire.
And then with lank and lean discoloured cheek,
With heavy eye, knit brow and strengthless pace,
Feeble desire, all recreant710, poor and meek,
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:
The flesh being proud712, desire doth fight with grace,
For there713 it revels and when that decays,
The guilty rebel for remission714 prays.
So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chased,
For now against himself he sounds this doom717,
That through the length of times he stands disgraced.
Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced,
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess721 how she fares.
She says her subjects722 with foul insurrection
Have battered down her consecrated wall,
And by their mortal724 fault brought in subjection
Her immortality and made her thrall725
To living death and pain perpetual,
Which in her prescience727 she controlled still,
But728 her foresight could not forestall their will.
Ev'n in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
A captive victor that hath lost in gain,
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
The scar that will, despite of cure, remain,
Leaving his spoil733 perplexed in greater pain.
She bears the load of lust734 he left behind,
And he the burden of a guilty mind.
He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence,
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there.
He scowls and hates himself for his offence,
She, desperate739, with her nails her flesh doth tear.
He faintly flies740, sweating with guilty fear,
She stays, exclaiming on741 the direful night.
He runs and chides his vanished, loathed delight.
He thence departs a heavy convertite743,
She there remains a hopeless castaway744.
He in his speed looks for the morning light,
She prays she never may behold the day.
'For day', quoth she, 'Night's scapes747 doth open lay,
And my true eyes have never practised how
To cloak offences with a cunning brow749.
'They think not but750 that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves behold,
And therefore would they still in darkness be752,
To have their unseen sin remain untold.
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
And grave755, like water that doth eat in steel,
Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'
Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast
And bids it leap from thence, where it may find
Some purer chest to close761 so pure a mind.
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite762
Against the unseen secrecy of night:
'O comfort-killing Night! Image of hell!
Dim register765 and notary of shame!
Black stage766 for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos767! Nurse of blame!
Blind, muffled bawd! Dark harbour for defame768!
Grim cave of death! Whisp'ring conspirator
With close-tongued770 treason and the ravisher!
'O hateful, vaporous and foggy Night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster773 thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportioned course of time774,
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
His wonted776 height, yet ere he go to bed,
Knit777 poisonous clouds about his golden head.
'With rotten damps778 ravish the morning air,
Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick
The life780 of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive781 his weary noontide prick,
And let thy musty vapours march so thick
That in their smoky ranks his smothered light
May set at noon and make perpetual night.
'Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night's child,
The silver-shining queen786 he would distain.
Her twinkling handmaids787 too, by him defiled,
Through Night's black bosom should not peep again.
So should I have co-partners in my pain,
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
As palmers791' chat makes short their pilgrimage.
'Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms793 and hang their heads with mine,
To mask their brows and hide their infamy,
But I alone alone must sit and pine795,
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans798.
'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking799 smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
Immodestly lies martyred with disgrace.
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
That all the faults which in thy reign are made
May likewise be sepulchred805 in thy shade.
'Make me not object806 to the tell-tale day:
The light will show, charactered in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow.
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how
To cipher811 what is writ in learned books,
Will quote812 my loathsome trespass in my looks.
'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name.
The orator, to deck815 his oratory,
Will couple816 my reproach to Tarquin's shame.
Feast-finding minstrels817, tuning my defame,
Will tie818 the hearers to attend each line,
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine819.
'Let my good name, that senseless reputation820,
For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted.
If that be made a theme for disputation822,
The branches of another root823 are rotted,
And undeserved reproach to him allotted
That is as clear825 from this attaint of mine
As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.
'O unseen shame! Invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! Crest-wounding828, private scar!
Reproach is stamped in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot830 afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows.
'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft835:
My honey lost and I, a drone-like836 bee,
Have no perfection837 of my summer left,
; But robbed and ransacked by injurious838 theft.
In thy weak hive a wand'ring wasp hath crept
And sucked the honey which thy chaste bee kept.
'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack841,
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him842:
Coming from thee, I could not put him back843,
For it had been dishonour to disdain844 him.
Besides, of weariness he did complain him
And talked of virtue -- O unlooked-for evil
When virtue is profaned in such a devil!
'Why should the worm848 intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos849 hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts850 with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly851 lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests852?
But no perfection is so absolute
That some impurity doth not pollute.
'The aged man that coffers up855 his gold
Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining858 Tantalus he sits
And useless barns859 the harvest of his wits,
Having no other pleasure of his gain
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
'So then he hath it when he cannot use it
And leaves it to be mastered by his young,
Who in their pride do presently864 abuse it:
Their father was too weak and they too strong
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours.
'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring,
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers,
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing,
What virtue breeds iniquity devours.
We have no good that we can say is ours,
But ill-annexed Opportunity874
Or875 kills his life or else his quality.
'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
'Tis thou that execut'st877 the traitor's treason:
Thou sets878 the wolf where he the lamb may get.
Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st879 the season.
'Tis thou that spurn'st880 at right, at law, at reason,