The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  They join, and shoot their foam at Simois’ banks.

  To this well painted piece is Lucrece come,

  To find a face where all distress is stelled.

  Many she sees where cares have carved some,

  But none where all distress and dolour dwelled

  Till she despairing Hecuba beheld

  Staring on Priam’s wounds with her old eyes,

  Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies.

  In her the painter had anatomized

  Time’s ruin, beauty’s wreck, and grim care’s reign.

  Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised;

  Of what she was no semblance did remain.

  Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,

  Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,

  Showed life imprisoned in a body dead.

  On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,

  And shapes her sorrow to the beldame’s woes,

  Who nothing wants to answer her but cries

  And bitter words to ban her cruel foes.

  The painter was no god to lend her those,

  And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong

  To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.

  ‘Poor instrument,’ quoth she, ‘without a sound,

  I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue,

  And drop sweet balm in Priam’s painted wound,

  And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,

  And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long,

  And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes

  Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

  ‘Show me the strumpet that began this stir,

  That with my nails her beauty I may tear.

  Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur

  This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;

  Thine eye kindled the fire that burneth here,

  And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,

  The sire, the son, the dame and daughter die.

  ‘Why should the private pleasure of someone

  Become the public plague of many moe?

  Let sin alone committed light alone

  Upon his head that hath transgressed so;

  Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.

  For one’s offence why should so many fall,

  To plague a private sin in general?

  ‘Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,

  Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swoons,

  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 checked his son’s desire,

  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.

  So Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell

  To pencilled pensiveness and coloured 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.

  At last she sees a wretched image bound,

  That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent.

  His face, though full of cares, yet showed content.

  Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,

  So mild that patience seemed to scorn his woes.

  In him the painter laboured with his skill

  To hide deceit and give the harmless show

  An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,

  A brow unbent that seemed to welcome woe;

  Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so

  That blushing red no guilty instance gave,

  Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

  But like a constant and confirmed devil

  He entertained a show so seeming just,

  And therein so ensconced his secret evil

  That jealousy itself could not mistrust

  False creeping craft and perjury should thrust

  Into so bright a day such blackfaced storms,

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

  The well skilled workman this mild image drew

  For perjured 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

  When their glass fell wherein they viewed their faces.

  This picture she advisedly perused,

  And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,

  Saying some shape in Sinon’s was abused,

  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 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’,

  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 it thus: ‘It cannot be, I find,

  But 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 travail he had fainted,

  To me came Tarquin armed, too beguiled

  With outward honesty, but yet defiled

  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 borrowed tears that Sinon sheds.

  Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?

  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,

  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 senseless Sinon with her nails,

  Comparing him to that unhappy guest

  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.

  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.

  Which all this time hath overslipped 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.

  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,

  And round about her tear-distained eye

  Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky.

  These water-galls 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 sod 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 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?

  Why art thou thus attired 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.

  At length addressed 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.

  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 trespass best,

  Where no excuse can give the fault amending.

  In me more woes than words are now depending,

  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

  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

  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,

  If thou my love’s desire do contradict.

  ‘“For some hard-favoured 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

  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,

  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.

  ‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,

  And far the weaker with so strong a fear.

  My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;

  No rightful plea might plead for justice there.

  His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

  That my poor beauty had purloined 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 gross blood be stained with this abuse,

  Immaculate and spotless is my mind.

  That was not forced, that never was inclined

  To accessory yieldings, but still pure

  Doth in her poisoned closet yet endure.’

  Lo, here the hopeless merchant of this loss,

  With head declined and voice dammed up with woe,

  With sad set eyes and wreathed 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.

  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 forced him on so fast,

  In rage sent out, recalled 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:

  ‘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 on woe one pair of weeping eyes.

  ‘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

  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

  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

  Each present lord began to promise aid,

  As bound in knighthood to her imposition,

  Longing to hear the hateful foe bewrayed.

  But she that yet her sad task hath not said

  The protestation stops. ‘O speak,’ quoth she;

  ‘How may this forced stain be wiped from me?

  ‘What is the quality of my offence,

  Being constrained with dreadful circumstance?

  May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,

  My low-declined honour to advance?

  May any terms 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 giving.’

  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,

  Untimely breathings, sick and short essays,

  She utters this: ‘He, he, fair lords, ’tis he

  That guides this hand to give this wound to me.’

  Eve
n here she sheathed in her harmless breast

  A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed.

  That blow did bail it from the deep unrest

  Of that polluted prison where it breathed.

  Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed

  Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly

  Life’s lasting date from cancelled destiny.

  Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed

  Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew,

  Till Lucrece’ father that beholds her bleed

  Himself on her self-slaughtered body threw;

  And from the purple fountain Brutus drew

  The murd’rous knife; and as it left the place

  Her blood in poor revenge held it in chase,

  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-sacked 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 Tarquinstained.

  About the mourning and congealed face

  Of that black blood a wat’ry rigol 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 Lucretius cries,