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.’

Even 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,