Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
True grief is fond and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still,
With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

So she deep-drenched in a sea of care,
Holds disputation with each thing she views,
And to herself all sorrow doth compare ;
No object but her passions strength renews;
And as one shifts, another straight ensues:
Sometime her grief is dumb, and hath no words;
Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords.

The little birds that tune their morning's joy,
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody:
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
Sad souls are slain in merry company;
Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd,
When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd.
'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
He ten times pines, that pines beholding food;
To see the salve doth make the wound ake more;
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good,
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.

You mocking birds, quoth she, your tunes entomb
Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts!
And in my hearing be you inute and dumb!
(My restless discord knows no stops nor rests;
A woful hostess brooks not merry guests :)
Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.
Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my dishevel'd hair.
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 burthen-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,
While thou on Tereus descant'st, 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 my eye:
Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.
These means, as frets upon an instrument,
Shail 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
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 incompass'd with a winding maze,
That cannot tread the way out readily;
So with herself is she in mutiny,

way,

To live or die which of the twain were better,
When life is sham'd, and death reproaches 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 swallow'd 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.
Ah me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,
His leaves will wither, and his sap decay;
So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.

Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,
Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
Her sacred table spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
Then let it not be call'd impiety,

If in this blemish'd 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.

671

My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonoured.
"Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd 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 reveng'd may'st be.
How Tarquin must be us'd, read it in me:
Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.
This brief abridgment 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 wip'd the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
With untun'd tongue she hoarsely call'd her maid,
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
For fleet-wing'd 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-eclipsed so,
Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with wo.
But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;
Even so the maid with swelling drops 'gan wet
Her circled eyne, enforc'd by sympathy
Of those fair suns, set in her mistress' sky,
Who in a salt-wav'd 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;

1 Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will.'-The overseer of a will was designed as a check upon the executors. Our author appoints John Hall and his wife for his executors, and Thomas Russel and Francia Col. lina as his overseers.-Steevens.

The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd 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 stamp'd 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 wither'd flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd!
Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild
Poor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd
With men's abuses: those proud lords, to blame,
Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.
The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,
Assail'd 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, that down thy cheeks are
If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining, [raining?
Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:
If tears could help, mine own would do me gooo.
But tell me, girl, when went (and there she stay'd
Till after a deep groan) Tarquin from hence?
Madam, ere I was up, reply'd 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 call'd 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 wo,
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 stain'd her stain'd 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
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her [fashion
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 wo 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 seal'd, and on it writ,
At Ardea to my lord, with more than haste :
The post attends, and she delivers it,
Charging the sour-fac'd 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 villein courtsies 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 blush'd 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
Pawn'd honest looks, but lay'd no words to gage.
That two red fires in both their faces blaz'd;
His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
She thought he blush'd, as knowing Tarquin's lust,
And, blushing with him, wistly on him gaz'd;
Her earnest eye did make him more amaz'd:
The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
The more she thought he spy'd 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 wo hath wearied wo, 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,

Threatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
Which the conceited painter drew so proud,
As heaven (it seem'd) to kiss the turrets bow'd.
A thousand lamentable objects there,
In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life:
Many a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear,
Shed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife:
The red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife;
And dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights,
Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.
There might you see the labouring pioneer
Begrim'd 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 sawthem quake and tremble

1 At Ardea, to my lord, with more than haste.'About a century and a half ago, all our letters that required speed were superscribed, With post post haste. - Malone.

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; Thy 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. stand,Why should the private pleasure of some one Become the public plague of many mo? Let sin, alone committed, light alone Upon his head that hath transgressed so; Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty wo: For one's offence why should so many fall, To plague a private sin in general?

Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd 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 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,
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 wo be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;
And they that watch, see time how slow it creeps.
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.
It easeth some, though none it ever cur'd,
To think their dolour others have endur'd.

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 stream'd, like rainbows in the sky;
These water-galls in her dim element
Foretel 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, look'd red and raw,
Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares;
But stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,
Met far from home, wondering 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 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 wo:
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.
And now this pale swan in her watery 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 ail 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 cry'd, 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-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
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
The 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 purloin'd his eyes,
And when the judge is rob'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,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind ;
That was not forc'd; that never was inclin'd
To accessary yieldings, but still pure
Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.
Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,
With head declin'd, and voice damm'd up with we,
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 ;
What he breathes out, his breath drinks up again.
As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Out-runs 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;
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 wo 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 wo too sensible thy passion maketh
More feeling-painful: let it then suffice
To drown one wo, 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 bewray'd.
But she, that yet her sad task bath not said,
The protestation stops. O, speak, quoth she,
How
may this forced stain be wip'd from me

Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly The dispers'd air, who holding Lucrece' life,