Part 222

“Let him have time to tear his curled hair, Let him have time against himself to rave, Let him have time of Time’s help to despair, Let him have time to live a loathed slave, Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave, And time to see one that by alms doth live Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

“Let him have time to see his friends his foes, And merry fools to mock at him resort; Let him have time to mark how slow time goes In time of sorrow, and how swift and short His time of folly and his time of sport; And ever let his unrecalling crime Have time to wail th’ abusing of his time.

“O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad, Teach me to curse him that thou taught’st this ill! At his own shadow let the thief run mad, Himself himself seek every hour to kill. Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill, For who so base would such an office have As sland’rous deathsman to so base a slave?

“The baser is he, coming from a king, To shame his hope with deeds degenerate. The mightier man, the mightier is the thing That makes him honoured or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. The moon being clouded presently is missed, But little stars may hide them when they list.

“The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire, And unperceived fly with the filth away; But if the like the snow-white swan desire, The stain upon his silver down will stay. Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day. Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly, But eagles gazed upon with every eye.

“Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools, Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools; Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters; To trembling clients be you mediators. For me, I force not argument a straw, Since that my case is past the help of law.

“In vain I rail at Opportunity, At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night; In vain I cavil with mine infamy, In vain I spurn at my confirmed despite. This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The remedy indeed to do me good Is to let forth my foul defiled blood.

“Poor hand, why quiver’st thou at this decree? Honour thyself to rid me of this shame, For if I die, my honour lives in thee, But if I live, thou liv’st in my defame. Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, And wast afeared to scratch her wicked foe, Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.”

This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth, To find some desp’rate instrument of death; But this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth To make more vent for passage of her breath, Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes, Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

“In vain,” quoth she, “I live, and seek in vain Some happy mean to end a hapless life. I feared by Tarquin’s falchion to be slain, Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife. But when I feared I was a loyal wife; So am I now.—O no, that cannot be! Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

“O that is gone for which I sought to live, And therefore now I need not fear to die. To clear this spot by death, at least I give A badge of fame to slander’s livery, A dying life to living infamy. Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away, To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!

“Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know The stained taste of violated troth; I will not wrong thy true affection so, To flatter thee with an infringed oath. This bastard graff shall never come to growth; He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute That thou art doting father of his fruit.

“Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought, Nor laugh with his companions at thy state; But thou shalt know thy int’rest was not bought Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate. For me, I am the mistress of my fate, And with my trespass never will dispense, Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

“I will not poison thee with my attaint, Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coined excuses; My sable ground of sin I will not paint, To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses. My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices, As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.”

By this, lamenting Philomel had ended The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow, And solemn night with slow sad gait descended To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow. But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, And therefore still in night would cloistered be.

Revealing day through every cranny spies, And seems to point her out where she sits weeping, To whom she sobbing speaks: “O eye of eyes, Why pry’st thou through my window? Leave thy peeping, Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping. Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, For day hath naught to do what’s done by night.”

Thus cavils she with everything she sees. True grief is fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild. Continuance tames the one; the other wild, Like an unpractised 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 passion’s 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 pleased with grief’s society; True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed When with like semblance it is sympathized.

’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 ache more; Great grief grieves most at that would do it good; Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood, Who, being stopped, 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 feathered breasts, And in my hearing be you mute and dumb; My restless discord loves no stops nor rests. A woeful 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 disheveled 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 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 pilled from the lofty pine, His leaves will wither and his sap decay; So must my soul, her bark being pilled 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 called 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-eclipsed 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 hild Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfilled 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, The 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 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 stained 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; Extremely 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, to 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, The 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 Showed 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 Griped 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-besieged 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, 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 wrack, and grim care’s reign. Her cheeks with chops 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 beldam’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; 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.

“Why should the private pleasure of some one 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 swounds; 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.