The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,

  So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,

  And with deep groans the diapason bear;

  For burden-wise I’ll hum on Tarquin still,

  While thou on Tereus descants better skill.

  ‘And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part

  To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,

  To imitate thee well, against my heart

  Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,

  Who if it wink shall thereon fall and die.

  These means, as frets upon an instrument,

  Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.

  ‘And for, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day,

  As shaming any eye should thee behold,

  Some dark deep desert seated from the way,

  That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,

  Will we find out, and there we will unfold

  To creatures stern sad tunes to change their kinds.

  Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.’

  As the poor frighted deer that stands at gaze,

  Wildly determining which way to fly,

  Or one encompassed 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 debtor.

  ‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack, what were it

  But with my body my poor soul’s pollution?

  They that lose half with greater patience bear it

  Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion.

  That mother tries 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 divine?

  Whose love of either to myself was nearer,

  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 sacked, her quiet interrupted,

  Her mansion battered by the enemy,

  Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted,

  Grossly engirt with daring infamy.

  Then let it not be called impiety

  If in this blemished fort 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 spent,

  And as his due writ in my testament.

  ‘My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife

  That wounds my body so dishonoured.

  ’Tis honour to deprive dishonoured life;

  The one will live, the other being dead.

  So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred,

  For in my death I murder shameful scorn;

  My shame so dead, mine honour is new born.

  ‘Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,

  What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?

  My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,

  By whose example thou revenged mayst be.

  How Tarquin must be used, 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 to the skies and ground;

  My resolution, husband, do thou take;

  Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound;

  My shame be his that did my fame confound;

  And all my fame that lives disbursed be

  To those that live and think no shame of me.

  ‘Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will.

  How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!

  My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;

  My life’s foul deed my life’s fair end shall free it.

  Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say “So be it”.

  Yield to my hand, my hand shall conquer thee;

  Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.’

  This plot of death when sadly she had laid,

  And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,

  With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,

  Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;

  For fleet-winged duty with thought’s feathers flies.

  Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so

  As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.

  Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow

  With soft slow tongue, true mark of modesty,

  And sorts a sad look to her lady’s sorrow,

  For why her face wore sorrow’s livery;

  But durst not ask of her audaciously

  Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsèd so,

  Nor why her fair cheeks over-washed with woe.

  But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,

  Each flower moistened like a melting eye,

  Even so the maid with swelling drops gan wet

  Her circled eyne, enforced by sympathy

  Of those fair suns set in her mistress’ sky,

  Who in a salt-waved ocean quench their light;

  Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.

  A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,

  Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling.

  One justly weeps, the other takes in hand

  No cause but company of her drops’ spilling.

  Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,

  Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts,

  And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.

  For men have marble, women waxen minds,

  And therefore are they formed as marble will.

  The weak oppressed, th’impression of strange kinds

  Is formed in them by force, by fraud, or skill.

  Then call them not the authors of their ill,

  No more than wax shall be accounted evil

  Wherein is stamped the semblance of a devil.

  Their smoothness like a goodly champaign plain

  Lays open all the little worms that creep;

  In men as in a rough-grown grove remain

  Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep.

  Through crystal walls each little mote will peep;

  Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,

  Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.

  No man inveigh against the withered flower,

  But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed.

  Not that devoured, but that which doth devour

  Is worthy blame. O, let it not be held

  Poor women’s faults that they are so full-filled

  With men’s abuses. Those proud lords, to blame,

  Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

  The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,

  Assailed by night with circumstances strong

  Of present death, and shame that might ensue

  By that her death, to do her husband wrong.

  Such danger to resistance did belong

  That dying fear through all her body spread;

  And who cannot abuse a body dead?

  By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak

  To the poor counterfeit of her complaining.

  ‘My girl,’ quoth she, ‘on what occasion break

  Those tears from thee t
hat down thy cheeks are raining?

  If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,

  Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood.

  If tears could help, mine own would do me good.

  ‘But tell me, girl, when went’—and there she stayed,

  Till after a deep groan—‘Tarquin from hence?’

  ‘Madam, ere I was up,’ replied the maid,

  ‘The more to blame my sluggard negligence.

  Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense:

  Myself was stirring ere the break of day,

  And ere I rose was Tarquin gone away.

  ‘But lady, if your maid may be so bold,

  She would request to know your heaviness.’

  ‘O, peace,’ quoth Lucrece, ‘if it should be told,

  The repetition cannot make it less;

  For more it is than I can well express,

  And that deep torture may be called a hell

  When more is felt than one hath power to tell.

  ‘Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen;

  Yet save that labour, for I have them here.

  What should I say? One of my husband’s men

  Bid thou be ready by and by to bear

  A letter to my lord, my love, my dear.

  Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;

  The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.’

  Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,

  First hovering o’er the paper with her quill.

  Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;

  What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;

  This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill.

  Much like a press of people at a door

  Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

  At last she thus begins: ‘Thou worthy lord

  Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,

  Health to thy person! Next, vouchsafe t’afford—

  If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see—

  Some present speed to come and visit me.

  So I commend me, from our house in grief;

  My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.’

  Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,

  Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.

  By this short schedule Collatine may know

  Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality.

  She dares not thereof make discovery,

  Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,

  Ere she with blood had stained her stain’s excuse.

  Besides, the life and feeling of her passion

  She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her,

  When sighs and groans and tears may grace the

  fashion

  Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her

  From that suspicion which the world might bear her.

  To shun this blot she would not blot the letter

  With words, till action might become them better.

  To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,

  For then the eye interprets to the ear

  The heavy motion that it doth behold,

  When every part a part of woe doth bear.

  ’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear;

  Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,

  And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

  Her letter now is sealed, and on it writ

  ‘At Ardea to my lord with more than haste’.

  The post attends, and she delivers it,

  Charging the sour-faced groom to hie as fast

  As lagging fowls before the northern blast.

  Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems;

  Extremity still urgeth such extremes.

  The homely villain curtsies to her low,

  And blushing on her with a steadfast eye

  Receives the scroll without or yea or no,

  And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.

  But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie

  Imagine every eye beholds their blame,

  For Lucrece thought he blushed to see her shame,

  When, silly groom, God wot, it was defect

  Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.

  Such harmless creatures have a true respect

  To talk in deeds, while others saucily

  Promise more speed, but do it leisurely.

  Even so this pattern of the worn-out age

  Pawned honest looks, but laid no words to gage.

  His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,

  That two red fires in both their faces blazed.

  She thought he blushed as knowing Tarquin’s lust,

  And blushing with him, wistly on him gazed.

  Her earnest eye did make him more amazed.

  The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,

  The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.

  But long she thinks till he return again,

  And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.

  The weary time she cannot entertain,

  For now ’tis stale to sigh, to weep, and groan.

  So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,

  That she her plaints a little while doth stay,

  Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.

  At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece

  Of skilful painting made for Priam’s Troy,

  Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,

  For Helen’s rape the city to destroy,

  Threat’ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;

  Which the conceited painter drew so proud

  As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed.

  A thousand lamentable objects there,

  In scorn 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 reeked 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 pioneer

  Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust,

  And from the towers of Troy there would appear

  The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,

  Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust.

  Such sweet observance 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, quick bearing and dexterity;

  And here and there the painter interlaces

  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 Ulysses, O what art

  Of physiognomy might one behold!

  The face of either ciphered either’s heart;

  Their face their manners most expressly told.

  In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled,

  But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent

  Show I deep regard and smiling government.

  There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,

  As ’twere encouraging the Greeks to fight,

  Making such sober action with his hand

  That it beguiled 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 purled 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 graces,

  As if some mermaid did their ears entice;

  Some high, some low, the painter was
so nice.

  The scalps of many, almost hid behind,

  To jump up higher seemed, to mock the mind.

  Here one man’s hand leaned on another’s head,

  His nose being shadowed by his neighbour’s ear;

  Here one being thronged bears back, all boll’n and red;

  Another, smothered, seems to pelt and swear,

  And in their rage such signs of rage they bear

  As but for loss of Nestor’s golden words

  It seemed they would debate with angry swords.

  For much imaginary work was there;

  Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,

  That for Achilles’ image stood his spear

  Gripped in an armed 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 imagined.

  And from the walls of strong-besiegèd Troy

  When their brave hope, bold Hector, marched to field,

  Stood many Trojan mothers sharing joy

  To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;

  And to their hope they such odd action yield

  That through their light joy seemed to appear,

  Like bright things stained, a kind of heavy fear.

  And from the strand of Dardan where they fought

  To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran,

  Whose waves to imitate the battle sought

  With swelling ridges, and their ranks began

  To break upon the galled shore, and then

  Retire again, till meeting greater ranks