Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes:
For sorrow, like a heavy hanging bell,
Once set a ringing, with his own weight goes;
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.
So Lucrece set a-work, sad tales doth tell
To pencil'd pensiveness, and colour'd sorrow;
She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.
She throws her eyes about the painted round,
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament:
At last she sees a wretched image bound,
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent ;
His face, tho' full of cares, yet show'd content.
Onward to Troy with these blunt swains he goes,
So mild, that patience seem'd to scorn his woes.
In him the painter labour'd with his skill,
To hide deceit, and give the harmless show,
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;
Cheeks, neither red, nor pale, but mingled so,
That blushing red, no guilty instance gave,
Nor ashy pale, the fear that false hearts have.
But like a constant and confirmed devil,
He entertain'd a show so seeming just ;
And therein so insconc'd this secret evil,7
That jealousy itself could not mistrust,
False creeping craft and perjury should thrust,
Into so bright a day such black-fac'd storms,
Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.
The well skill'd woman this wild image drew
For perjur'd Sinon, whose inchanting story
The credulous old Priam after slew;
Whose words like wild-fire burnt the shining glory
Of rich-built Ilion; that the skies were sorry,
And little stars shot from their fixed places,
When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.
This picture she advisedly perus'd,
And chid the painter for his wond'rous skill:
Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abus'd,
So fair a form lodg'd not a mind so ill :
author's plays; and from this stanza it is probable the word was formerly pronounced sw unds. MALONE.
[6] No ex imples or symptoms of guilt. MALONE.
[7] Read his secret, &c. and by that means conceal'd his secret treachery. A sconce was a species of fortification.
And still on him she gaz'd, and gazing still,
Such signs of truth in his plain face she spy'd,
That she concludes the picture was bely'd.
It cannot be (quoth she) that so much guile,
She would have said, can lurk in such a look ;
But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while,
And from her tongue, can lurk, from cannot took :
It cannot be, she in that sense forsook,
And turn'd it thus; it cannot be, I find,
But such a face should bear a wicked mind.
For e'en as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober sad, so weary, and so mild,
(As if with grief or travel he had fainted)
To me came Tarquin armed, so beguil'd
With outward honesty, but yet defil'd
With inward vice as Priam him did cherish,
So did I Tarquin, so my Troy did perish.
Look, look, how list'ning 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 eyes drop 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 for 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.
[8] To me came Tarquin with the same armour of hypocrisy that Sinon wore. Beguiled is beguiling. Our author frequently confounds the active and passive participle. MALONE.
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.
Tho' woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,
And they that watch, see time how slow it creeps,
Which all this time hath over-slipt 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, tho' 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 watergalls, 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, tho' sod in tears, look red and raw,
Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares,
He has no power to ask her how she fares,
But stood like old acquaintance in a trance,
Met far from home, wond'ring each other's chance.
At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befallen, 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 woe:
At length address'd, to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares, to let them know
[9] The water-gall is some appearance attendant on the rainbow. The word is current among the shepherds of Salisbury-plain. [1] Address'd-ready, prepared. MALONE.
Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe:
While Colatine, and his consorted lords,
With sad attention long to hear her words.
And now this pale swan in her wat'ry nest,
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.
Few words, quoth he, 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 all 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 sets 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' adult'rate 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 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.
O teach me how to make mine own excuse,
Or at the least, this refuge let me find;
Tho' my gross blood he 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 prison'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 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 ;
When 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 :2
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
[2] Should we not read :
"In rage sent out, recall'd, the rage being past.”
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