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Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
(And far the weaker with so strong a fear)
My bloody judge forbad 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 robb'd, the prisoner dies..

Oh! teach me how to make mine own excuse,
Or at the least, this refuge let me find;
Tho' 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 inclin'd, and voice damm'd up with woe;
With sad wet 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 straight 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 woe of his, poor she attendeth,
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:
Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power, no flood my raining slacketh;
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
More feeling painful; let it then suffice

To drown one 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 thall 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 Colatine)
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 hath not said,
The protestation stops. O speak, quoth she,
How may this forced stain be wip'd from me?

What is the quality of my offence,
Being constrain'd 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 poison'd 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 carv'd in it with tears.

No, no, quoth she, no dame hereafter living,
By my excuse shall claim excuses 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 lord, '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 thro' her wounds doth fly
Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

Stone-still, astonish'd, with this deadly deed,
Stood Colatine, and all his lordly crew,
Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed,
Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw :
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew

The murd'rous knife, and as it left the place,.
Her blood, in pure 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 sack'd island vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.

Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,

And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd

About the mourning and congealed face

Of that black blood, a watʼry rigol goes,

Which seems to weep upon the tainted place ;.
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some wat❜ry tokens shows:
And blood untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrify'd..

Daughter, dear daughter, old Lucretius cries,
That life was mine, which thou hast here depriv'd ;
If in the child the father's image lies,

Where shall I live, now Lucrece is unliv'd?
Thou wast not to this end from me deriv'd,
If children predecease progenitors,

We are their offspring, and they none of ours.

Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance, my old age new-born ;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time out-worn:

✪ from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn ! And shiver'd all the beauty of my glass, That I no more can see what once I was.

O time! cease thou thy course, and last no longer,
If thou surcease to be, that should survive:
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the fault'ring feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive;
Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see
Thy father die, and not thy father thee.

By this starts Colatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place:
And then in clay-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space :

Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
And live to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul,
Hath serv'd a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
Who made that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
He 'gins to talk; but thro' his lips do throng
Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
That no man could distinguish what he said.

Yet sometimes Tarquin was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if his name he tore :
This windy tempest, till it blew up rain,
Held back his sorrow's tide to make it more,
At last it rains, and busy winds gives o'er:

Then son and father weep with equal strife,
Who should weep most. for daughter, or for wife

The one doth call her his, the other his ;
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay,
The father says, she's mine; O mine she is,
Replies her husband, do not take away
My sorrows interest, let no mourner say,
He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
And only must be wail'd by Colatine.

O! quoth Lucretius, I did give that life,
Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.
Woe! woe! quoth Colatine, she was my wife,
I own'd her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd,
My daughter and my wife with clamours fill'd
The disperst air, who holding Lucrece's life,
Answer'd their cries, my daughter and my wife.

Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation in their woe,

Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show;
He with the Romans was esteemed so,
As silly jeering ideots are with kings,

For sportive words, and uttering foolish things.

But now he throws that shallow habit by,
Wherein deep policy did him disguise,
And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,
To check the tears in Colatinus' eyes.
Thou wronged lord of Rome, quoth he, arise;
Let my unsounded self, suppos'd a fool,
Now set thy long experienc'd wit to school.

Why, Colatine, is woe the cure for woe?

Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow

For his foul act, by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds:

Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.

Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
In such lamenting dew of lamentations ;
But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part,
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,

That they will suffer these abominations

(Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac❜d) By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas'd.

Now by the Capitol that we adore !

And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd!

By heaven's fair sun, that breeds the fat earth's store ! By all our country rites in Rome maintain'd!

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