The Rape of Lucrece E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 76

Beschreibung

The Rape of Lucrece William Shakespeare - The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a graver work. Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece lacks the humorous tone of the earlier poem. Lucrece draws on the story described in both Ovid's Fasti and Livy's history of Rome. In 509 BC, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Tarquin, the king of Rome, raped Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, one of the king's aristocratic retainers. As a result, Lucrece committed suicide. Her body was paraded in the Roman Forum by the king's nephew. This incited a full-scale revolt against the Tarquins led by Lucius Junius Brutus, the banishment of the royal family, and the founding of the Roman republic.

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William Shakespeare

The Rape of Lucrece

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Dedication

TO THERIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

The Argument

Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame.

At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp for Collatine.

They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to consuls.

The Rape of Lucrece

FROM the besieged Ardea all in post,Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,And to Collatium bears the lightless fireWhich, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspireAnd girdle with embracing flames the waistOf Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of 'chaste' unhappily setThis bateless edge on his keen appetite;When Collatine unwisely did not letTo praise the clear unmatched red and whiteWhich triumph'd in that sky of his delight,Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;What priceless wealth the heavens had him lentIn the possession of his beauteous mate;Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,That kings might be espoused to more fame,But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and doneAs is the morning's silver-melting dewAgainst the golden splendor of the sun!An expired date, cancell'd ere well begun:Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuadeThe eyes of men without an orator;What needeth then apologies be made,To set forth that which is so singular?Or why is Collatine the publisherOf that rich jewel he should keep unknownFrom thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereigntySuggested this proud issue of a king;For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,Braving compare, disdainfully did stingHis high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vauntThat golden hap which their superiors want.

But some untimely thought did instigateHis all-too-timeless speed, if none of those:His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,Neglected all, with swift intent he goesTo quench the coal which in his liver glows.O rash false heat, wrapp'd in repentant cold,Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old!

When at Collatium this false lord arrived,Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame,Within whose face beauty and virtue strivedWhich of them both should underprop her fame:When virtue bragg'd, beauty would blush for shame;When beauty boasted blushes, in despiteVirtue would stain that o'er with silver white.

But beauty, in that white intituled,From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,Which virtue gave the golden age to gildTheir silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,When shame assail'd, the red should fence the white.

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,Argued by beauty's red and virtue's whiteOf either's colour was the other queen,Proving from world's minority their right:Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;The sovereignty of either being so great,That oft they interchange each other's seat.

Their silent war of lilies and of roses,Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;Where, lest between them both it should be kill'd,The coward captive vanquished doth yieldTo those two armies that would let him go,Rather than triumph in so false a foe.

Now thinks he that her husband's shallow tongue,--The niggard prodigal that praised her so,--In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:Therefore that praise which Collatine doth oweEnchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.

This earthly saint, adored by this devil,Little suspecteth the false worshipper;For unstain'd thoughts do seldom dream on evil;Birds never limed no secret bushes fear:So guiltless she securely gives good cheerAnd reverend welcome to her princely guest,Whose inward ill no outward harm express'd:

For that he colour'd with his high estate,Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;That nothing in him seem'd inordinate,Save something too much wonder of his eye,Which, having all, all could not satisfy;But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,That, cloy'd with much, he pineth still for more.

But she, that never coped with stranger eyes,Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,Nor read the subtle-shining secreciesWrit in the glassy margents of such books:She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks;Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,More than his eyes were open'd to the light.

He stories to her ears her husband's fame,Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;And decks with praises Collatine's high name,Made glorious by his manly chivalryWith bruised arms and wreaths of victory:Her joy with heaved-up hand she doth express,And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.

Far from the purpose of his coming hither,He makes excuses for his being there:No cloudy show of stormy blustering weatherDoth yet in his fair welkin once appear;Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,Upon the world dim darkness doth display,And in her vaulty prison stows the Day.

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,Intending weariness with heavy spright;For, after supper, long he questionedWith modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;And every one to rest themselves betake,Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolvingThe sundry dangers of his will's obtaining;Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;And when great treasure is the meed proposed,Though death be adjunct, there's no death supposed.