The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ‘Lo here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,

  1485

  Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;

  Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,

  And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds;

  And one man’s lust these many lives confounds;

  Had doting Priam check’d his son’s desire,

  1490

  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 goes;

  Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.

  1495

  So Lucrece set a-work, sad tales doth tell

  To pencill’d pensiveness and colour’d sorrow:

  She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.

  She throws her eyes about the painting round,

  And who she finds forlorn, she doth lament.

  1500

  At last she sees a wretched image bound,

  That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent;

  His face though full of cares, yet show’d content.

  Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,

  So mild that patience seem’d to scorn his woes.

  1505

  In him the painter labour’d with his skill

  To hide deceit and give the harmless show

  An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,

  A brow unbent that seem’d to welcome woe,

  Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so

  1510

  That blushing red no guilty instance gave,

  Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

  But like a constant and confirmed devil,

  He entertain’d a show so seeming just,

  And therein so ensconc’d his secret evil,

  1515

  That jealousy itself could not mistrust

  False creeping craft and perjury should thrust

  Into so bright a day such black-fac’d storms,

  Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

  The well-skill’d workman this mild image drew

  1520

  For perjur’d Sinon, whose enchanting story

  The credulous old Priam after slew;

  Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory

  Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,

  And little stars shot from their fixed places,

  1525

  When their glass fell, wherein they view’d their faces.

  This picture she advisedly perus’d,

  And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,

  Saying some shape in Sinon’s was abus’d:

  So fair a form lodg’d not a mind so ill.

  1530

  And still on him she gaz’d, and gazing still,

  Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,

  That she concludes the picture was belied.

  ‘It cannot be,’ quoth she, ‘that so much guile,’ –

  She would have said, – ‘can lurk in such a look.’

  1535

  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 turn’d it thus: ‘It cannot be, I find,

  But such a face should bear a wicked mind.

  1540

  ‘For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,

  So sober sad, so weary and so mild, –

  As if with grief or travail he had fainted, –

  To me came Tarquin armed to beguild

  With outward honesty, but yet defil’d

  1545

  With inward vice. As Priam him did cherish,

  So did I Tarquin, – so my Troy did perish.

  ‘Look, look how list’ning Priam wets his eyes,

  To see those borrow’d tears that Sinon sheds!

  Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?

  1550

  For every tear he falls 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 fire to burn thy city.

  ‘Such devils steal effects from lightless hell,

  1555

  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,

  1560

  That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.’

  Here all enrag’d, such passion her assails,

  That patience is quite beaten from her breast.

  She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,

  Comparing him to that unhappy guest

  1565

  Whose deed hath made herself herself detest.

  At last she smilingly with this gives o’er:

  ‘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.

  1570

  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 sustaining:

  Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,

  And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

  1575

  Which all this time hath overslipp’d her thought,

  That she with painted images hath spent,

  Being from the feeling of her own grief brought

  By deep surmise of others’ detriment,

  Losing her woes in shows of discontent.

  1580

  It easeth some, though none it ever cured,

  To think their dolour others have endured.

  But now the mindful messenger come back

  Brings home his lord and other company;

  Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black,

  1585

  And round about her tear-distained eye

  Blue circles stream’d, like rainbows in the sky:

  Those water-galls in her dim element

  Foretell new storms to those already spent.

  Which when her sad beholding husband saw,

  1590

  Amazedly in her sad face he stares;

  Her eyes though sod in tears, look’d red and raw,

  Her lively colour kill’d with deadly cares.

  He hath no power to ask her how she fares;

  Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance,

  1595

  Met far from home, wond’ring each other’s chance.

  At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,

  And thus begins: ‘What uncouth ill event

  Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand?

  Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?

  1600

  Why art thou thus attir’d in discontent?

  Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,

  And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.’

  Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,

  Ere once she can discharge one word of woe.

  1605

  At length address’d to answer his desire,

  She modestly prepares to let them know

  Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe;

  While Collatine and his consorted lords

  With sad attention long to hear her words.

  1610

  And now this pale swan in her wat’ry nest

  Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending:

  ‘Few words,’ quoth she, ‘shall fit the tr
espass best,

  Where no excuse can give the fault amending.

  In me moe woes than words are now depending;

  1615

  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 of thy bed

  A stranger came, and on that pillow lay

  1620

  Where thou wast wont 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,

  1625

  With shining falchion in my chamber came

  A creeping creature with a flaming light,

  And softly cried “Awake, thou Roman dame,

  And entertain my love; else lasting shame

  On thee and thine this night I will inflict,

  1630

  If thou my love’s desire do contradict.

  ‘ “For some hard-favour’d groom of thine,” quoth he,

  “Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,

  I’ll murder straight, and then I’ll slaughter thee,

  And swear I found you where you did fulfil

  1635

  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 set his sword,

  1640

  Swearing, unless I took all patiently,

  I should not live to speak another word.

  So should my shame still rest upon record,

  And never be forgot in mighty Rome

  Th’adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

  1645

  ‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,

  And far the weaker with so strong a fear.

  My bloody judge forbod my tongue to speak;

  No rightful plea might plead for justice there.

  His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

  1650

  That my poor beauty had purloin’d his eyes;

  And when the judge is robb’d, the prisoner dies.

  ‘O teach me how to make mine own excuse,

  Or at the least, this refuge let me find:

  Though my gross blood be stain’d with this abuse,

  1655

  Immaculate and spotless is my mind;

  That was not forc’d, that never was inclin’d

  To accessory yieldings, but still pure

  Doth in her poison’d closet yet endure.’

  Lo here the hopeless merchant of this loss,

  1660

  With head declin’d and voice damm’d up with woe,

  With sad set eyes and wretched arms across,

  From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow

  The grief away that stops his answer so;

  But wretched as he is, he strives in vain:

  1665

  What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.

  As through an arch the violent roaring tide

  Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,

  Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride

  Back to the strait that forc’d him on so fast,

  1670

  In rage sent out, recall’d in rage being past:

  Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw,

  To push grief on and back the same grief draw.

  Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,

  And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:

  1675

  ‘Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth

  Another power; no flood by raining slaketh;

  My woe too sensible thy passion maketh

  More feeling-painful. Let it then suffice

  To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

  1680

  ‘And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,

  For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me:

  Be suddenly revenged on my foe, –

  Thine, mine, his own. Suppose thou dost defend me

  From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me

  1685

  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 faiths to me,

  1690

  With swift pursuit to ’venge 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

  1695

  Each present lord began to promise aid,

  As bound in knighthood to her imposition,

  Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray’d;

  But she that yet her sad task hath not said,