Part 6

Lines 1051–1260

1051 'O! that is gone for which I sought to live,
1052 And therefore now I need not fear to die.
1053 To clear this spot by death, at least I give
1054 A badge of fame to slander's livery;
1055 A dying life to living infamy;
1056 Poor helpless help, the treasure stolen away,
1057 To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!
1058 'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
1059 The stained taste of violated troth;
1060 I will not wrong thy true affection so,
1061 To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
1062 This bastard graff shall never come to growth:
1063 He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
1064 That thou art doting father of his fruit.
1065 Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
1066 Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
1067 But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
1068 Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy gate.
1069 For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
1070 And with my trespass never will dispense,
1071 Till life to death acquit my forced offence.
1072 'I will not poison thee with my attaint,
1073 Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
1074 My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
1075 To hide the truth of this false night's abuses;
1076 My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,
1077 As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,
1078 Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'
1079 By this; lamenting Philomel had ended
1080 The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow,
1081 And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended
1082 To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow
1083 Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
1084 But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
1085 And therefore still in night would cloister'd be.
1086 Revealing day through every cranny spies,
1087 And seems to point her out where she sits weeping,
1088 To whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,
1089 Why pryest thou through my window? leave thy peeping;
1090 Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:
1091 Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
1092 For day hath nought to do what's done by night.'
1093 Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
1094 True grief is fond and testy as a child,
1095 Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
1096 Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
1097 Continuance tames the one: the other wild,
1098 Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still
1099 With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
1100 So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,
1101 Holds disputation with each thing she views,
1102 And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
1103 No object but her passion's strength renews;
1104 And as one shifts, another straight ensues:
1105 Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;
1106 Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords.
1107 The little birds that tune their morning's joy
1108 Make her moans mad with their sweet melody.
1109 For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
1110 Sad souls are slain in merry company:
1111 Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
1112 True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd
1113 When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd.
1114 'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
1115 He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
1116 To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
1117 Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
1118 Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood;
1119 Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
1120 Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.
1121 'You mocking birds,' quoth she, 'your tunes entomb
1122 Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,
1123 And in my hearing be you mute and dumb!
1124 (My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;
1125 A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:)
1126 Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
1127 Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.
1128 'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
1129 Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
1130 As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
1131 So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,
1132 And with deep groans the diapason bear:
1133 For burthen-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,
1134 While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.
1135 'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,
1136 To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,
1137 To imitate thee well, against my heart
1138 Will fix a sharp knife, to affright mine eye;
1139 Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.
1140 These means, as frets upon an instrument,
1141 Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.
1142 'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,
1143 As shaming any eye should thee behold,
1144 Some dark deep desert, seated from the way,
1145 That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,
1146 Will we find out; and there we will unfold
1147 To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:
1148 Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'
1149 As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,
1150 Wildly determining which way to fly,
1151 Or one encompass'd with a winding maze,
1152 That cannot tread the way out readily;
1153 So with herself is she in mutiny,
1154 To live or die which of the twain were better,
1155 When life is sham'd, and Death reproach's debtor.
1156 'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack! what were it,
1157 But with my body my poor soul's pollution?
1158 They that lose half with greater patience bear it
1159 Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion.
1160 That mother tries a merciless conclusion
1161 Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,
1162 Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.
1163 'My body or my soul, which was the dearer,
1164 When the one pure, the other made divine?
1165 Whose love of either to myself was nearer?
1166 When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
1167 Ah, me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,
1168 His leaves will wither, and his sap decay;
1169 So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.
1170 'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,
1171 Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
1172 Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
1173 Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
1174 Then let it not be call'd impiety,
1175 If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole
1176 Through which I may convey this troubled soul.
1177 'Yet die I will not till my Collatine
1178 Have heard the cause of my untimely death;
1179 That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
1180 Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
1181 My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,
1182 Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,
1183 And as his due writ in my testament.
1184 'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
1185 That wounds my body so dishonoured.
1186 'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;
1187 The one will live, the other being dead:
1188 So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;
1189 For in my death I murther shameful scorn:
1190 My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.
1191 'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,
1192 What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
1193 My resolution, Love, shall be thy boast,
1194 By whose example thou reveng'd mayst be.
1195 How Tarquin must be used, read it in me:
1196 Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
1197 And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.
1198 'This brief abridgement of my will I make:
1199 My soul and body to the skies and ground;
1200 My resolution, husband, do thou take;
1201 Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound;
1202 My shame be his that did my fame confound;
1203 And all my fame that lives disburs'd be
1204 To those that live, and think no shame of me.
1205 'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;
1206 How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!
1207 My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;
1208 My life's foul deed my life's fair end shall free it.
1209 Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say "so be it:"
1210 Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee;
1211 Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.'
1212 This plot of death when sadly she had laid,
1213 And wip'd the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
1214 With untun'd tongue she hoarsely call'd her maid,
1215 Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
1216 For fleet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies.
1217 Poor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so
1218 As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.
1219 Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
1220 With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
1221 And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,
1222 (For why her face wore sorrow's livery,)
1223 But durst not ask of her audaciously
1224 Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
1225 Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.
1226 But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
1227 Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;
1228 Even so the maid with swelling drops 'gan wet
1229 Her circled eyne, enforc'd by sympathy
1230 Of those fair suns, set in her mistress' sky,
1231 Who in a salt-wav'd ocean quench their light,
1232 Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.
1233 A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,
1234 Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling:
1235 One justly weeps; the other takes in hand
1236 No cause, but company, of her drops spilling:
1237 Their gentle sex to weep are often willing:
1238 Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts,
1239 And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.
1240 For men have marble, women waxen minds,
1241 And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
1242 The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
1243 Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
1244 Then call them not the authors of their ill,
1245 No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
1246 Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
1247 Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,
1248 Lays open all the little worms that creep;
1249 In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
1250 Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:
1251 Through crystal walls each little mote will peep:
1252 Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
1253 Poor women's faces are their own faults' books.
1254 No man inveigb against the wither'd flower,
1255 But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd!
1256 Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
1257 Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild
1258 Poor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd
1259 With men's abuses! those proud lords, to blame,
1260 Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

Notes

TLN 1054archaic vocab
“badge of fame to slander's livery”
'Livery' is the uniform worn by a servant in a great household — a badge of who their master is. 'Slander's livery' means that a stain on a woman's reputation was thought of as her permanent uniform once it was applied. Lucrece reasons that dying cleanly will give her instead a 'badge of fame' — proof of honour — rather than letting her be branded as shame's servant.
TLN 1062archaic vocab
“bastard graff shall never come to growth”
A 'graff' (or graft) is a cutting from one plant inserted into another to make it grow. 'Bastard graff' means an illegitimate shoot — here, any child Tarquin might have fathered. Lucrece resolves that Tarquin will never be able to boast that Collatine is raising a child of his blood, because she will die before any such 'fruit' can be born. The agricultural metaphor — a foreign slip polluting a pure 'stock' (family line) — runs through the stanza.
TLN 1069cultural context
“I am the mistress of my fate”
Lucrece claims the power to determine the outcome of her own story — specifically the right to acquit ('acquit') herself of a 'forced offence' by dying. In Roman tradition a woman who survived rape was judged by others; Lucrece's logic is that only her death can prove the assault was forced and clear her name. 'Acquit' is a legal term: her death is framed as a verdict she passes on herself.
historical The founding of the Roman Republic
TLN 1072archaic vocab
“not poison thee with my attaint”
'Attaint' is a legal term for a stain of dishonour or corruption, especially one that could be passed on to others. Lucrece fears that if she stays alive the shame of what Tarquin did will contaminate Collatine's honour — she would 'poison' him. 'Cleanly-coin'd excuses' means polished, newly minted (coin'd) pretexts — pretty lies she refuses to wrap her guilt in.
TLN 1079classical allusion
“lamenting Philomel had ended”
Philomel was an Athenian princess raped by Tereus, king of Thrace. He cut out her tongue to silence her; she wove the truth into a tapestry. The gods transformed her into a nightingale — whose mournful night-song was understood as her endless grief. 'Philomel' is the nightingale, and its 'nightly sorrow' runs through this scene as Lucrece's own sorrow. Dawn ends the nightingale's song and begins Lucrece's day of shame.
classical Philomela
TLN 1093archaic vocab
“Thus cavils she with every thing she sees”
'Cavils' means quarrels or argues petulantly, picking fights with small or trivial things. The narrator steps back to diagnose Lucrece's mood: fresh, acute grief is like a wayward child ('fond and testy') who cannot agree with anything around it. 'Fond' here means foolish or doting, not affectionate; 'testy' means irritable. The narrator is describing a recognizable psychological truth about raw grief — it lashes out at whatever is nearby.
TLN 1098rhetorical device
“Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still”
The narrator offers a simile: fresh, wild grief is like a beginner swimmer who thrashes and splashes ('plunging still') so hard and so uselessly that the very effort drowns them, unlike the seasoned griever whose sorrow has been tamed by time and experience ('Continuance tames the one'). 'Still' means 'continually' in this period, not 'quietly.' The simile makes grief physical and immediate.
TLN 1114rhetorical device
“'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore”
The narrator strings together a series of parallel paradoxes ('double death,' 'pines beholding food,' the salve that worsens the wound) to argue that proximity to relief makes suffering worse, not better. 'In ken of shore' means within sight of shore — drowning when land is visible is anguish doubled. 'Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows' means grief that is indulged ('dallied with') recognizes no restraint. All seven lines build the same psychological point through varied images.
TLN 1127archaic vocab
“Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears”
'Dumps' are slow, mournful tunes — musical pieces in a minor key suited to grief. Lucrece tells the birds to take their bright songs elsewhere and to relish ('relish') them for cheerful ears; grief prefers a slow melody ('dump') where the beat ('time') is marked by tears rather than by clapping. 'Relish' here means 'adjust' or 'soften to suit' a particular taste.
TLN 1149rhetorical device
“the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze”
A simile compares Lucrece's paralysis before the decision of suicide to a deer frozen in terror ('stands at gaze' — staring motionless, unable to choose which way to bolt) or to a traveller trapped in a 'winding maze.' Both images capture the Latin rhetorical device of 'deliberatio' — the speech of a person weighing two terrible alternatives — which the following stanzas develop at length. Lucrece cannot decide whether living in shame or dying is worse.
TLN 1170rhetorical device
“Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted”
The body is figured as a dwelling in a sustained military metaphor: sacked, besieged ('batter'd'), its sacred space defiled ('sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted'); 'fort' continues the conceit of a breached fortress, and 'grossly engirt' means roughly hemmed in by infamy. The stanza concludes that piercing this 'blemish'd fort' to free the soul is not impiety but reasonable. The shift to third person ('Her house') as Lucrece speaks gives the lines a dissociated quality — she describes her own body as someone else's property.
TLN 1240cultural context
“men have marble, women waxen minds”
The narrator offers a contemporary explanation for why women seem to show emotion more openly: men's minds are 'marble' (hard, resistant, hiding what is inside), women's 'waxen' (soft, taking impressions easily from outside force). Because women are more impressionable ('form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill'), they cannot be blamed for what is stamped upon them — any more than wax can be called evil for taking the shape of the devil's seal pressed into it.
TLN 1247archaic vocab
“like a goodly champaign plain”
'Champaign' (pronounced 'sham-PANE') means open, flat, unwooded country — a plain with no cover. Women's smooth faces, the narrator argues, are like open fields: every fault is visible, however small. Men's minds, by contrast, are 'rough-grown grove[s]' — dense woodland — where 'cave-keeping evils' lurk unseen. 'Mote' (TLN 1251) is a tiny speck of dust. The landscape metaphor extends the contrast of wax and marble into topography.