Classic Audiobook Collection - The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare ~ Full Audiobook [poetry]

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare audiobook. Genre: poetry William Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece is a gripping narrative poem that transforms a foundational Roman legend into an intimate study of power, honor, and the cost of public virtue. Set in the court of King Tarquin, the story follows Lucrece, a noblewoman celebrated for her integrity and devotion, whose household becomes the target of Tarquin's son, Sextus Tarquin. Inflamed by desire and pride, he rides by night to Lucrece's home, welcomed under the rules of hospitality, and then tests those rules with coercion and threats. What follows is not only an act of violence but a psychological and moral battle rendered in richly rhetorical verse: Lucrece's anguish, shame, and furious clarity unfold alongside the predator's self-justifying arguments and the wider social structures that enable him. As Lucrece struggles to name what has been done to her and to reclaim agency in a world that measures women by reputation, the poem expands into a meditation on tyranny, political decay, and how private catastrophe can ignite public reckoning. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:06:22) Chapter 01 (00:19:56) Chapter 02 (00:30:27) Chapter 03 (00:50:24) Chapter 04 (01:05:08) Chapter 05 (01:13:34) Chapter 06 (01:22:13) Chapter 07 (01:32:12) Chapter 08 (01:42:17) Chapter 09 (01:54:38) Chapter 10 (02:01:56) Chapter 11 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Recording by Martin Gieson. The dedication To the right honourable Henry Reisley, Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield. 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. Where 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. argument. Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride, surnamed superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruellyred, 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, everyone commended the virtues of his own wife, among whom Colotinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome, and intending by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched. Only Colotinus 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 nobleman yielded Colotinus the vows. victory, and his wife the fame. At that time, Sextus Tarquinius, being inflamed with Lucreus's 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 Lucreys at Colartium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her,

and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucreys, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatched messengers, one to roam for her father, another to the camp for Coletine. They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius, and finding Lucris, a tired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her reverie, Renge revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and with all 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 the 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. End of the argument. Recording by Martin Gieson in Hazelmere, Surrey. Section 1 of The Rape of Lucrease.

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Gieson. The Rape of Lucrease, by William Shakespeare, Section 1. From the besieged Ardea, all in post, born by the trustless wings of false desire, Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host, and two colartium bears the lightless fire, which in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire and girdle with embracing flames the waste of colatine fair love, Lucreys the Chaste. Happily that name of chaste unhappily set this baitless edge on his keen appetite,

when Colertyne unwisely did not let to praise the clear, unmatchedered red and white, which triumphed 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, unlocked the treasure of his happy state. What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent in the possession of his beauteous mate, reckoning his fortune at such high proud rate that kings might be espouse it to more fame, but king nor peer to such a peerless dame. Oh, happiness enjoyed but of a few, and if possessed, as soon decayed and done,

as is the morning's silver melting dew against the greek, golden splendour of the sun. An expired date cancelled ere well begun. Honour and beauty in the owner's arms are weakly fortress from a world of harms. Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator. What needeth then apologies be made, to set forth that which is so singular? Or why is Colertyne the publisher of that rich jewel? He should keep unknown from thievish ears, because it is his own. But chance his boast of Lucre's sovereignty suggested 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 sting his high-pitched thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt that golden hap, which their superiors want. But some untimely thought did instigate his own. all too timeless speed, if none of those. His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state, neglected all. With swift intent he goes to quench the coal which in his liver glows.

Oh, rash, false heat, wrapped in repentant cold, thy hasty spring still bluish, lasts, and ne'er grows old. When at Colatium this false lord arrived, well was he welcomed by the Roman dame, within whose face beauty and virtue strived which of them both should underprop her fame. When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame. When beauty boasted blushes, Indespite Virtue would stain that ore with silver white. But beauty in that white in type tulid from Venus doves does challenge that fair field.

Then Virtue claims from beauty beauty's red, Which Virtue gave the golden age to gild their silver cheeks. and called it then their shield, teaching them thus to use it in the fight. When shame assailed, the red should fence the white. This heraldry in Lucre's face was seen, argued by beauties red and virtues white. Of 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 viewed in her fair faces field, in their pure ranks his traitor eye enclose where lest between them both it should be killed the coward captive vanquishet doth yield to 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 her beauty wrong, which far exceeds his barren skill to show. Therefore, that praise which Colotine doth owe enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise, in silent wonder of still-gazing eyes. This earthly saint, adorred by this devil, little suspecteth the false worshipper.

For unstained thoughts do seldom dream on evil. Birds never limed, no secret bushes fear. So guiltless, she securely gives good cheer, and reverend welcome, to her princely guest, whose inward ill, no outward harm expressed. For that he coloured with his high estate, hiding base sin in plats of majesty, that nothing in him seemed inordinate, save sometime too much wonder of his eye, which, having all, all could not satisfy. but poorly rich so wanteth in his store that cloyed 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 secrecies writ in the glassy margents of such books

she touched no unknown bates nor feared no hooks nor could she moralise his wanton sight more than his eyes were opened to the light he stories to her ears her husband's fame won in the fields of fruitful italy and decks with praises colatine's high name made glorious by his man-lawful chivalry with 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 weather doth 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, Intentiful, in weariness with heavy sprite, for after supper long he questioned it with modest lucrease and wore out the night. Now lead and slumber with life's strength doth fight, and everyone to rest themselves betake, save thieves and cares, and troubled minds that wake. as one of which doth tarquin lie revolving the sundry dangers of his wills 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 meat proposed though death be adjunct, there's no death supposed.

Those that much covert are with gain so fond, For what they have not, That which they possess, they scatter, and unloose it from their bond, And so, by hoping more, they have but less, Or gaining more, the profit of excess is but to surf it, and such griefs sustain that they prove bankrupt in this poor rich gain. The aim of all is but to nurse the life with honour, wealth and ease in waning age. And in this aim there is such thwarting strife that one for all, or all for one we gauge,

as life for honour in fell battles rage honour for wealth and oft that wealth doth cost the death of all and all together lost so that in venturing ill we leave to be the things we are for that which we expect and this ambitious foul infirmity in having much torment us with defect of that we have. So then do we neglect the thing we have, and all for want of wit, make something nothing, by augmenting it. Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make, pawning his honour to obtain his lust,

and for himself, himself he must force. Then where is truth if there be no self-trust? When shall he think to find a stranger just when he himself himself confounds, betrays to slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days? of Section 1, recording by Martin Gieson in Hazelmere, Surrey. Section 2 of the Rape of Lucrease. This Libre box recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Gieson.

The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare, Section 2. Now Stole upon the Time. the dead of night when heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes no comfortable star did lend his light no noise but owls and wolves death-boating cries now serves the season that they may surprise the silly lambs pure thoughts are dead and still while lust and and murder awake to stain and kill. And now this lustful lord leaped from his bed, throwing his mantle rudely or his arm, is madly tossed between desire and dread. The one sweetly flatters, the other feareth harm.

But honest fear, bewitched with lust's foul charm. doth too too oft be take him to retire beaten away by brain-sick rude desire. His fortune on a flint he softly smiteth, That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly, Whereat a wax and torch forthwith he lighteth, which must be lodestar to his lustful eye, and to the flame thus speaks advisedly. As from this cold flint I enforced this fire, so Lucrease must I force to my desire. Here pale with fear he doth premeditate the dangers of his loathsome enterprise,

and his inward mind he doth debate what following sorrow may on this arise. Then looking scornfully, he doth despise his naked armour of still-slaughtered lust, and justly thus controls his thoughts unjust. Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not to die. Arken her whose light exceleth thine, And die unhallowed thoughts, Before you blot with your uncleanness, That which is divine.

Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine. Let fair humanity abhor the deed That spots and stains, Loves modest, snow-white weed. O shame to knighthood and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my household's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!

True valour still a true respect should have! my digression is so vile, so base, that it will live engraven in my face. Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive, and be an eyesore in my golden coat. Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive, to cipher me how fondly I did dot, that my posterity, shamed with the note, shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin to wish that I, their father, had not been. What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.

Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? or sells eternity to get a toy, For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, Would with the sceptre straight be stricken down? If Colotinus dream of my intent, Will he not wake, And in a desperate rage post hither,

this vile purpose to prevent. This siege that hath engirt his marriage, this blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage, this dying virtue, this surviving shame, whose crime will bear an ever-during blame. Oh, what excuse can my invention make

when thou shalt charge me with so black a deed. Will not my tongue be mute? My frail joints shake. Mine eyes forego their light. My false heart bleed. The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed. And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly, but coward-like, with trembling terror, die.

Had Colotinus killed my son or sire, Or lain in ambush to betray my life, Or were he not, my dear friend, This desire might have excuse to work upon his wife, As in revenge or quittal of such strife, But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend the shame and fault finds no excuse nor end shameful it is i if the fact be known hateful it is there is no hate in loving i'll beg her love but she is not her own the worst is but denial and reprieu

my will is strong past reasons weak removing who fears a sentence or an old man's sore shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe thus graceless holds he disputation between frozen conscience and hot burning will and with good thoughts makes dispensation urging the worse a sense, for vantage still, which in a moment doth confound and kill all pure effects, and doth so far proceed that what is vile shows like a virtuous deed. Coth he, she took me kindly by the hand, and gazed for tidings in my eager eyes, fearing some hard news from the warlike band where her beloved colatinas lies. Oh, how her fear did make her colour rise! First red as roses that on lawn we lay, then white as lawn the roses took away, and how her hand, in my hand being locked,

forced it to tremble with her loyal fear, which struck her sad, and then it faster rocked, until her husband's welfare did she hear, whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer, that had Narcissa seen her as she stood, self-love had never drowned him in the flood. Why hunt I then for colour or excuses? All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth. Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses. Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth. Affection is my captain, and he leadeth.

And when his gaudy banner, is displayed, the coward fights and will not be dismayed. Then childish fear, a vaunt, debating, die, respect and reason, wait on wrinkled age. My heart shall never countermand mine eye. Sad pause and deep regard, beseem the sage. My part is youth and beats these from the stage. Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize. Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?

End of Section 2. Recording by Martin Gieson in Hazelmere Surrey. Section 3 of the Rape of Lucreuse. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Gieson. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 3. As corn or grown by weeds,

so heedful fear is almost choked by unresisted lust. Away he steals with opening, listening ear, full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust, both which, as servitors to the unjust, so cross him with their opposite persuasion, that now he vows a league, and now invasion. Within his thought, her heavenly image sits, and in the self-same seat sits colotine. That eye which looks on her confluence his wits, that eye which him beholds as more divine, unto a view so false will not incline, But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,

Which once corrupted takes the worse apart, And therein heartens up his servile powers, Who, flattered by their leader's jock and show, Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours, and as their captain so their pride doth grow paying more slavish tribute than they owe by reprobate desire thus madly led the roman lord marcheth to lucre's bed the locks between her chamber and his will each one by him enforced tires his ward. But as they open, they all rate his ill, which drives the creeping thief to some regard. The threshold grates the door to have him heard. Night-wandering weasels

shriek to see him there. They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear. As each unwilling portal yields him way. Through little vents and crannies of the place the wind wars with his torch to make him stay, and blows the smoke of it into his face, extinguishing his conduct in this case. But his hot heart which fond desire doth scorch, puffs forth another wind that fires the torch. And being lighted, by the light, he spies Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks. He takes it from the rushes where it lies, and gripping it the kneeled his finger pricks, as who should say this glove to wanton tricks is not inured.

return again in haste, thou seest our mistress, ornaments are chaste. But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him. He in the worst sense construes their denial. The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him, he takes for accidental things of trial. Or as those bars which stop the hourly. who with a lingering stay his course doth let till every minute pays the hour his debt. So, so, quoth he, these letts attend the time, like little frosts that sometimes threat the spring, to add a more rejoicing to the prime, and give the sneeped birds more cause to sing.

pain pays the income of each precious thing huge rocks high winds strong pirates shelves and sands the merchant fears ere rich at home he lands now he is come unto the chamber door that shuts him from the heaven of his thought with a yielding latch and latch and with no more hath barred him from the blessed thing he sought. So from himself impiety hath wrought, that for his prey to pray he doth begin, as if the heavens should countenance his sin. But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer, having solicited the eternal power that his foul thoughts might compass his fair, fair, and they would stand auspicious to the hour. Even there he starts, quoth he, I must deflower.

The powers to whom I pray appore this fact. How can they then assist me in the act? Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide. My will is backed with Resolution. Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried. The blackest sin is cleared with Absolution. Against love's fire, fierce frost hath disillusion. The eye of heaven is out, and misty,

night covers the shame that follows sweet delight. This said his guilty hand plucked up the latch, and with his knee the door he opens wide. The dove sleeps fast that this night owl will catch. Thus treason works ere traitors be espied. who sees the lurking serpent steps aside, but she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing, lies at the mercy of his mortal sting. Into the chamber, wickedly he stalks, and gazeth on her yet unstained bed. The curtains being close about he.

walks, rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head. By their high treason is his heart misled, which gives the watchword to his hand full soon to draw the cloud that hides the silver moon. Look, as the fair and fiery pointed sun, rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight. Even so the curtain drawn, his eyes begun to wink, being blinded with a greater light. Whether it is that she reflects so bright that dazzlet them, or else some shame supposed, but blind they are and keep themselves enclosed. Oh, had they in that darkson prison died, then had they seen the period of their ill,

then Colertyne again by Lucre sighed in his clear bed might have repose it still. But they must hope this blessed league to kill. and holy-thoughted Lucreus, to their sight must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight. Her lily hand, her rosy cheek lies under, cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss, who therefore angry seems to part in sunder, swelling on either side to want his bliss. between whose hills her head in tummies, where like a virtuous monument she lies, to be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes. Without her bed her other fair hand was, on the green coverlet, whose perfect white

showed like an April daisy on the grass, with pearly sweat resembling dew of night. Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light, and canopied in darkness sweetly lay, till they might open to adorn the day. Her hair, like golden threads, played with her breath. Oh, modest wantons, wanton modesty, showing life's triumph in the map of death, and death's dim look in life's mortality. Each in her sleep themselves so beautify, as if between them twain there were no strife, but that life lived in death, and death in life. her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue a pair of maiden worlds unconquer'd save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew and him by oath they truly honoured these worlds in tarquin new ambition bred who like a foul usurper who like a foul usurper went about from this fair throne to heave the owner out what could he see but mightily he noted what did he note but strongly he desired

what he beheld on that he firmly doted and in his will his willful eye he tired with more than admiration he admired he admired he admired he admired her azure veins her alabaster skin her coral lips her snow-white dimplet chin as the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied so o'er this sleeping soul doth tarquin stay his rage of lust by grazing qualified, slacked, not suppressed, for standing by her side his eye, which late this mutiny restrains unto a greater uproar tempts his veins, and they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting, obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting, in, bloody death and ravishment delighting, nor children's tears, nor mother's groans respecting, swell in their pride, the onset still expecting.

Anon his beating heart, a laram striking, gives the hot charge, and bids them do their liking. His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye. His eye commence the leading to his hand. His hand, as proud of such a dignity, smoking with pride, marched on to make his stand on her bare breast, the heart of all her land, whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand as his hand did scale, left their round turrets, destitute, and pale. They, mustering to the quiet cabinet where their dear governess and lady lies, to tell her she is dreadfully beset, and fright her with confusion of their cries, she, much amazed,

breaks ope her locked-up eyes, who peeping forth this tumult to behold are by his flaming torch dimmed and controlled. Imagine her as one in dead of night from forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking, that thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite, whose grim aspect sets every day. joint a shaking. What terror tis! But she, in worse a-taking, from sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view the sight which makes supposed terror true. Wrapped and confounded in a thousand fears, like to a new killed bird she trembling lies. She dares not look, yet winger,

There appears quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes. Such shadows are the weak brains forgeries, who angry that the eyes fly from their lights in darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights. His hand that yet remains upon her breast, rude ram to batter such an ivory wall, may feel her heart. Poor citizen, distressed, wounding itself to death, rise up and fall, beating her bulk that his hands shakes with all. This moves in him more rage and lesser pity to make the breach and enter this sweet city. First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin to sound a parley to his heartless foe, who o'er the white sheet pierce her whiter chin, the reason of this rash alarm to know,

which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show. But she with vehement prayers, urges, still, under what colour he commits this ill? Thus he replies, The colour in thy face, that even for anger makes the lily pale, And the red rose blush at her own disgrace, shall plead for me and tell my loving tale. Under that colour am I come to scale thy never conquered force? The fault is thine, for those thine eyes betray thee unto mine. Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide.

Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night, where thou with patience must my will abide, my will that marks thee for my earth's delight, which I to conquer, sought with all my might but as reproof and reason beat it dead by thy bright beauty was it newly bred i see what crosses my attempt will bring i know what thorns the growing rose defends i think the honey guarded with a sting all this beforehand count self comprehends, but will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends. Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty, and dotes on what he looks, gainst law or duty. I have debated, even in my soul, what wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed. but nothing can affections course control or stop the headlong fury of his speed i know repentant tears ensue the deed

reproach disdain and deadly enmity yet strike i to embrace mine infamy this said he shakes aloft his roman blade which like a vizabeth which like a fain falcon towering in the skies, coucheth the fowl below with his wings shade, whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies. So under his insulting fortune lies lies harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells with trembling fear. As foul here Falcons Bells. End of Section 3. Recording by Martin Gessen in Hazelmere, Surrey. Section 4 of The Rape of Lucrease.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 4. Lucrease, quoth he, This night I must enjoy thee. If thou deny, then force must work my way. For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee. That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay, To kill thine honour with thy life's decay. And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him, swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him. So thy surviving husband shall remain the scornful mark of every open eye. Thy kinsman hang their heads at this disdain, thy issue blurred with nameless bastardy. And thou, the author of their obloquy, shall have thy trespass.

sighted up in rhymes, and sung by children in succeeding times. But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend. The fault unknown is as a thought unacted. A little harm done to a great good end, for lawful policy remains enacted. The poisoner simple sometimes is compacted. in a pure compound. Being so applied, his venom in effect is purified. Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,

tender my suit. Bequeath not to their lot the shame that from them no device can take, the blemish that will never be forgot, worse than a slavish wipe or birth-hours blot. for marks descried in men's nativity on nature's faults not their own infamy here with a cockatrice dead killing eye he rouses up himself and makes a pause while she the picture of pure piety like a white hind under the gripes sharp claws pleads in a wilderness where are no laws, to the rough beast that knows no gentle right, nor ought to bays but his foul

appetite. But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat, in his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding, from earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get, which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding, hindering their present fall by this dividing. So his unhallowed haste, her words delays, and moody Pluto winks, while Ophius plays. Yet foul night-working cat he doth but dully, while in his holdfast foot the weak mouse Panteth, her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly, A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth.

His ear her prayers admits, But his heart granteth no penetrable entrance to her planing. Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining. Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fixed in the remorseless wrinkles of his face. Her modest eloquence with size is mixed, which to her oratory adds more grace. She puts the period off and from his place, and midst the sentence so her accent breaks that twice she doth begin ere once she speaks. She conjures him by high almighty Jove,

By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath, By her untimely tears, Her husband's love, By holy human law and common troth, By heaven and earth, And all the power of both, that to his borrowed bed he make retire, and stoop to honour, not too foul desire.

Quoth she, Reward not hospitality with such black payment as thou hast pretended. Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee, mar not the thing that cannot be amended, end thy ill aim before the shoot be ended. He is no woodman that doth bend his bow to strike a poor unseasonable dough. My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me. Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me. Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me. Thou looks not like deceit,

do not deceive me. My sighs like whirlwind's labour hence to heave thee. If ever man were moved with woman's moans, be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans, all which together like a troubled ocean beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart, to soften it with their continual motion, for stones dissolved to water do convert. Oh, if no harder than a stone thou art, melt at my tears and be compassionate, soft pity enters at an iron gate. In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee, Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame? To all the host of heaven I complain me, Thou wrongst his honour wounds his princely name.

Thou art not what thou seest, And if the same thou seest not what thou art, A god, a king, For kings like God should govern everything. How will thy shame be seated in thine age When thus thy vices bud before thy spring? If in thy hope thou darest do such outrage, What darest thou not when once thou art a king?

O be remembered, no outrageous thing from vassal actors can be wiped away. Then king's misdeeds cannot be hid in clay. This deed will make thee only loved for fear. But happy monarchs still are feared for love. With foul offenders thou perforce must bear, When they in thee the like offences prove, If but for fear of this thy will remove. for princes are the glass, the school, the book where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.

And wilt thou be the school where lust shall learn? Must he indeed read lectures of such shame? Will thou be glass wherein it shall discern authority for sin, warrant for blame, to privilege dishonor in thy name? Thou backst reproach against long-living laud, and makest fair reputation but a bawd. Hast thou command, by him that gave it thee from a pure heart command thy rebel will. Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity, for it was lent thee all that brood to kill. Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil, when patterned by thy fault foul sin may say he learned to sin, and thou didst teach the way?

Think but how vile a spectacle it were to view thy present trespass in another. Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear. Their own transgressions partially they smother. This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother. Oh, how are they wrapped in with infamies that from their own misdeeds askance their eyes? To thee. To thee my heaved uphand's appeal,

Not to seducing lust thy rash relier. I sue for exiled majesty's repeal. Let him return, and flattering thoughts return. higher. His true respect will prison false desire and wipe the dim mist from thy doting e'en. That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine. Have done, quoth he, my uncontrolled tide turns not, but swells the higher by this let. Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, and with the wind in greater fury fret, the petty streams that pay a daily debt to their salt sovereign with their fresh falls haste add to his flow, but alter not his taste.

Thou art, quoth she, a sea, a sovereign king. And lo, there falls into thy boundless flood, black lust, dishonor, shame, misgoverning, who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood. If all these petty ills shall change thy good, thy sea within a puddle's womb is hurst, and not the puddle in thy sea dispersed. So shall these slaves be king and thou their slave, Thou nobly base, they basely dignified. Thou their fair life and they thy fowler grave. Thou loathe in their shame, they in thy pride.

The lesser thing should not the greater hide. The cedar stoops not to the bay shrubs foot, But low shrubs wither at the cedars root. So let thy thoughts, lovassals to the cedar, to the cedar, thy state, no more, quoth he, by heaven I will not hear thee. Yield to my love, if not, enforced hate instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee. That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee unto the base bed of some rascal groom to be thy partner in this shameful doom. This said, he sets his foot upon the light, for light and lust are deadly enemies. Shame folded up in blind,

sealing night, when most unseen then most doth tyrannize. The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries, till with her own white fleece her voice controlled entombs her outcry in her lips sweet fold. For with the nightly linen that she wears, he pens her piteous clamors in her head, cooling his hot face in the chastest tears that ever modest eyes with sorrow shed. Oh, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed. The spots whereof could weeping purify, her tears should drop on them perpetually. But she hath lost a dearer thing than life, and he hath won what he would lose again. This forcet league doth force a further strife.

This momentary joy breeds months of pain. This hot desire converts to cold disdain. Pure chastity is rifled of her store, And lust, the thief, far poorer than before. Look as the full-fed hound or gorget hawk, Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight, Make slow pursuit, Or altogether balk the prey wherein by nature they delight.

So surfeit-taking tarquin fares this night. His taste, delicious, indigestion souring. devours his will that lived by foul devouring. Oh, deeper sin than bottomless conceit can comprehend in still imagination. Drunken desire must vomit his receipt, ere he can see his own abomination. While lust is in his pride, no exclamation can curb his heat or rain his rash desire, till like a jade self-will himself doth tire. And then with lank and lean discolored cheek,

With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, Febly desire all recreant, poor and meek, Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case. The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with grace. For there it revels, And when that decays the guilty rebel for remission praise. So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome. who this accomplishment so hotly chased.

For now against himself he sound this doom, that through the length of times he stands disgraced. Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced, to whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, to ask the spotted princess how she fares. She says, her subjects with foul insurrection have battered down her consecrated wall, and by their mortal fault brought in subjection,

her immortality, and made her thrall to living death and pain perpetual, which in her prescience she controlled still, but her foresight could not forestall their will. Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth, a captive victor that has lost in gain, bearing away the wound that nothing healeth, the scar that will despite of cure remain, leaving his spoil perplexed in greater pain.

She bears the load of lust he left behind, and he the burden of a guilty mind. End of Section 4. Recording by Elizabeth Klett Section 5 of the Rape of Lucrease. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Klett. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 5

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence. She like a wearied lamb lies panting there. He scowls and hates himself for his offense. She desperate with her nails her flesh doth tear. He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear. She stays, exclaiming on the direful night. He runs and chides his vanished, loath delight. He then, thence departs a heavy convertite. She there remains a hopeless castaway. He, in his speed, looks for the morning light. She pray she never may behold the day. For day, quoth she, nights scapes doth open lay, and my true eyes have never practiced how to cloak offenses with a cunning brow. They think naught but that every eye can see the same disgrace which they themselves behold, and therefore would they still in darkness be to have their unseen sin remain untold? For they their guilt with weeping will unfold, and grave like water that doth eat and steal. Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel. Here she exclaims against repose and rest,

and bids her eyes hereafter still be blind. She wakes her heart by beating on her breast, and bids it leap from thence where it may find some purer chest to close so pure a mind. Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite against the unseen secrecy of night. Oh, comfort-killing knight, image of hell, dim register and notary of shame, black stage for tragedies and murders fell, vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame, blind muffled bawd, dark-haired, Dark harbor for defame Grim cave of death

Whispering conspirator With close-tongued treason And the ravisher O hateful vaporous and foggy night Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light Make war against proportioned course of time Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb his wonted height

Yet ere he go to bed Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head With rotten damps ravish the morning air, Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths Make sick the life of purity, The supreme fair, Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick, And let thy misty vapors march so thick

That in their smoky ranks his smothered light May set at noon and make perpetual night. Were Tarquin Knight, as he is but knight's child, The silver-shining queen he would disdain, Her twinkling handmaids too by him defiled Through night's black bosom should not peep again. So should I have co-partners in my pain, And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,

As Palmer's chat makes short their pilgrimage. Where now I have no one to blush with me, To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine, To mask their brows and hide their infamy, But I alone must sit and pine, Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine, Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke, Let not the jealous day behold that face Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak, Immodesty lies martyred with disgrace. Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, That all the faults which in thy reign are made May likewise be sepulcured in thy shade. Make me not object to the tell-tale day.

The light will show, charactered in my brow, The story of sweet chastity's decay, The impious breach of holy wedlock vow. Yea, the illiterate that know not how to cipher What is writ in learned books, will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks. The nurse to still her child will tell my story and fright her crying babe with Tarkwin's name.

The orator to deck his oratory will couple my reproach to Tarkwin's shame. Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame, will tie the hearers to attend each line. How Tarkwin wronged me, I, colotine. Let my good name that senseless reputation, for Colatine's dear love be kept unspotted. If that be made a theme for disputation,

the branches of another root are rotted and undeserved reproach to him allotted, that is as clear from this attaint of mine as I ere this was pure to Colotine. Oh, unseen shame, invisible disgrace, O unfelt sore, crest-wounding private scar! Reproach is stamped in Colotinus face, And Tarquin's eye may read the Mo afar,

How he in peace is wounded, not in war. Alas, how many bears such shameful blows, Which not themselves but he that gives them knows. If, Colotine, thine, thine, lay in me, From me by strong assault it is bereft. My honey lost, and I, a dreamer, drone-like bee have no perfection of my summer left, but robbed and ransacked by injurious theft. In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept, and sucked the honey which thy chaste

bee kept. Yet am I guilty of thy honour's rack. Yet for thy honour did I entertain him. Coming from thee I could not put him back, for it had been dishonour to disdain him. Besides, of weariness he did complain him, and talked of virtue. O unlooked-for, evil, when virtue was profaned in such a devil! Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud, Or hateful cuckoos hatch and sparrows nests, Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud, Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts,

Or kings be breakers of their own behests? But no perfection is so absolutely. absolute, that some impurity doth not pollute. The aged man that coffers up his gold is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits, and scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold, but like still pining tantalus he sits, and useless barns the harvest of his wits, having no other pleasure of his gain but torment that it cannot cure his pain. So then he hath it when he cannot use it, and leaves it to be mastered by his young, who in their pride do presently abuse it.

Their father was too weak and they too strong, to hold their cursed blessed fortune long. The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours, even in the moment that we call them ours. Unruly blasts weight on the tender spring. Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers, The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing. What virtue breeds iniquity devours?

We have no good that we can say is ours, but ill annexed opportunity, or kills his life, or else his quality. End of Section 5. Section 6 of the Rape of Lucrez. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Clet. The Rape of Lucreis by William Shakespeare Section 6

O Opportunity thy guilt is great, tis thou that executeest the traitor's treason, thou set the wolf where he the lamb may get, whoever plots the sin thou point'st the season, Tis thou that spurnst at right, at law, at reason, and in thy shady cell where none may spy him, sits sin to seize the souls that wander by him. Thou makest the vestal violate her oath. Thou blows the fire when temperance is thawed. Thou smothers honesty, thou murder'stroth.

Thou foul abetter, thou notorious bawd. Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud. Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief, Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief. Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, thy private feasting to a public fast, thy smoothing titles to a ragged name, thy sugared tongue to bitter wormwood taste.

Thy violent vanities can never last. How comes it then, vile opportunity, being so bad such numbers seek for thee? When wilt thou be the humble, suppliant's friend, and bring him where his suit may be obtained. When wilt thou sort an hour great strife's to end, or free that soul which wretchedness hath chained? Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain. The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee, but they ne'er meet with opportunity. The patient dies while the physician sleeps, the orphan pines while the oppressor

feeds. Justice is feasting while the widow weeps. Advice is sporting while infection breeds. Thou grants no time for charitable deeds. Wrath, envy, treason, rape and murders rages. Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages. When truth and virtue have to do with thee, a thousand crosses keep them from thy aid. They buy thy help, but sin there gives a fee. He gratis comes, and thou art well a paid as well to hear as Grant what he had said. My colotine would else have come to me when Tarquin did, but he was stayed by thee. Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,

guilty of perjury and subornation, guilty of treason, forgery and shift, guilty of incest that abomination, an accessory by thine inclination to all sins past and all that are to come, from the creation to the general doom. Mis-shapeen time. Copes mate of ugly night.

Swift, subtle post, carrier of grisly care, Eater of youth, false slave to false delight. Base watch of woes, sins, packhorse, virtue snare, Thou nursest all and murderest all that are. Oh, hear me then, injurious, shifting time. Be guilty of my death. since of my crime. Why hath thy servant opportunity betrayed the hours thou gavest me to repose,

cancelled my fortunes, and enchained me to endless date of never-ending woes? Time's office is to find the hate of foes, to eat up errors by opinion bread, not spend the dowry of a lawful bed. Time's glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, And smear with dust their glittering golden towers. To fill with wormhole's stately monuments, To feed oblivion with decay of things, To blot old books and alter their contents, To pluck the quills from ancient raven's wings, To dry the old oak sap and cherish springs, To spoil antiquities of hammered steel,

And turn the giddy round of fortune's wheel, To show the belldom daughters of her daughter, To make the child a man, the man a child, To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter, To tame the unicorn and lion wild, To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled, To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops, and waste huge stones with little water-drops.

Why works thou mischief in thy pilgrimage, unless thou couldst return to make amends? One poor retiring minute in an age would purchase the a thousand thousand friends, lending him wit that to bad debtor's lens. Oh, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back, I could prevent this storm and shun thy rack. Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity, With some mischance cross Tarkwin in his flight,

Devise extremes beyond extremity To make him curse this cursed crimeful night. Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright, And the dire thought of his committed evil Shape every bush a hideous, shapeless devil. Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances, Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans, Let there bechance him pitiful mischances to make him moan,

But pity not his moans. Stone him with hardened hearts, harder than stones, And let mild women to him lose their mildness, Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness. Let him have time to tear his curled hair. Let him have time against himself to rave. Let him have time of times helped do despair. Let him have time to live a loathed slave.

Let him have time. a beggar's aughts to crave, and time to see one that by alms doth live, disdain to him disdained its 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 the abusing of his time. Oh, time, thou tutor both to good and bad. Teach me to curse him that thou taught this ill. At his own shadow let the thief run mad, himself himself seek every hour to kill. Such wretched hand, such wretched blood should spill, for whoso base would such an office

have as slanderous death's men 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 unperceive it 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,

King's glorious day. Nats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly, but eagles gazed upon with every eye. Hout, 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. End of Section 6. Section 7 of the Rape of Lucrez. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Clette. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 7. 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 quivers thou at this decree? Honor thyself to to rid me of this shame. For if I die, my honour lives in thee. But if I live, thou livest in my defame. Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame and was to fear to scratch her wicked foe, kill both thyself and her for yielding so. This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth, to find some desperate 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 vanishes as smoke from Aetna, that in air consumes, or that which from discharge it 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 falchon to be stain,

yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife. But when I feared I was a loyal wife, So am I now? Oh, no, that cannot be. Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me. Oh, 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 stolen away, To burn the guiltless casket where it lay. Well, well, dear Colotine, thou shalt know the stainted taste of violated troth. I will not wrong thy true affection so, to flatter thee with an infringed oath. This bastard graph 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 interest was not bought basely with gold but stolen 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 ataint, 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. Abuses, my tongue shall utter all. Mine eyes like sluces 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 low, the blushing morrow lends light To all fair eyes that light will borrow But cloudy Lucrez 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 priest 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 not to do what's done by night Thus cavils she with everything she sees

To grief is fond and testy as a child Who wayward wants his mood with naught agrees Old woes not infant sorrows Bear them mild Continuance tames the one The other wild like an unpracticed swimmer plunging still, with too much labor 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. Sometimes her grief is dumb and hath no words, sometimes his 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 or flows? Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. You mocking birds, quoth she, your tunes in tomb 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 like dumps when time is kept with tears. Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment. Make thy sad grove in my dishevelled 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, harkwind still, while thou untaryus descends better skill. And walls against a thorn thou bears thy part to keep thy sharp woes waking. Wretched eye to imitate thee well, against my heart will fix a sharp knife to a fright mine eye, who if it wink shall thereon fall and die? These memes as frets upon an instrument shall tune our heartstrings to true languishment. And four poor bird thou sinks not in the day, As shaming any eye should thee behold, Some dark, deep desert, seated room 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 frightened 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 reproaches debtor.

To kill myself, quoth she, Alack, what were it but 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 colatine.

I'm me. The bark peeled from the lofty pine, his leaves will wither and his sap decay. So must my soul her bark being peeled away. Her house is sacked, her quiet interrupted, her mansion battered by the enemy, her sacred temples spotted, spoiled, corrupted, grossly engirt with daring infamy.

Then let it not be called impiety, if in this blemished fort I make some whole, through which I may convey this troubled soul. Yet die I will not till my colatine 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 stainate blood to Tarkwin I'll bequeath, which by him tainted shall for him be spruce,

spent, and as his due writ in my testament. My honor I'll bequeath unto the knife that wounds my body so dishonorid. Tis honor to deprive dishonored 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 honor is newborn. End of section seven.

Section 8 of the Rape of Lucreuse. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 8 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 abridgment of my will I make, my soul and body to the skies and ground, my resolution husband do thou take, mine honour be the knives that makes my wound, my shame be his that did my fame confound. And all my fame that lives dispersed be to those that live

and think no shame of me. Thou, Coletine, 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 calls her maid, whose swift obedience to her mistress highs, for fleet-winged duty with thought's feathers flies. Poor Lucre's cheeks unto her maid seems so, as winter me, 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 sons

were cloud eclipsed so, nor why her fair cheeks overwashed 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 ein, 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 conduit's 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 other's 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, the 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 campaign 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 moat will peep. Though men can cover crimes with bold, stern loat, books. Poor women's faces are their own false books. No man in vain against the withered flower, but chide rough winter that the flower hath killed. Not that devoured, but that which doth

devour is worthy blame. Oh, let it not be hilled poor women's faults that they are so fulfilled, with men's abuses, those proud lords to blame, make weak-made women tenets to their shame. Whereof in Lucreys 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 Lucrease 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,

No, 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 Tarkwin gone away. But, lady, if your maid may be so bold, She would request to know your heaviness. O peace, quoth Lucreys, 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 labor, 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 and eager combat fight. What wit sets down is blotted straight with will. This is too curious good, this blunt and ill, Much like oppressive 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 to Ford, of ever love thy lucrease 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 Coletine 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 Ardia to my lord with more than haste.

The post attends, and she delivers it, charging the sour-faced groom to high as fast, as lagging fowls before the northern blast. Speed more than speed, but dull and slow she deems, extremely still urges 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 high. But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie, imagine every eye beholds their blame, for Lucreus 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 gauge. His kindled duty kindled her mistrust, that two red fires in both their faces blazed. She thought he blushed, as knowing Tarkwin's lust,

and, blushing with him, wistfully on him gazed. Her earnest eye did make him more amazed. The more 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 dutious 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. End of Section 8. Section 9 of the Rape of Lucrease. This Librefox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare

Section 9 At last she calls to mind Where hangs a piece of skillful painting Made for Priam's Troy Before the witch is drawn the power of Greece For Helen's rape the city to destroy Threatening cloud-kissing Ileon 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 reaped 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 laboring pioneer, begrimed with sweat and smear it all with dust, and from the towers of Troy there would appear the very eyes of men through loophole's 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's eyes blunt rage and rigor rolled, but the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent, showed deep regard and smiling government. Their pleading might you see Gravenester 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 curled up to the sky. About him were a press of gaping thwarting fain, faces, which seemed to swallow up his sound advice, all jointly listening, 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 neighbor's ear. Here one being thronged bears back, all bone 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, conceitful, so compact, so kind, that for Achilles' image stood his spear, gripped in an arm at 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 Darden where they fought, to Simwa's reedy banks the red blood ran, whose waves to imitate the battle sought, with swelling ridges, and their ranks began, to break upon the gallage shore,

and then retire again, till, meeting greater ranks, they join and shoot their foam at Sima's banks. To this well-painted piece is Lucreus come, to find a face where all distress is steled. Many she sees where cares have carved some, but none where all distress and doler dwelt, till she despairing Hecuba beheld,

staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes, which bleeding under Puris proud foot lies. In her the painter had anatomized, Times ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim cares rain. 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 Lucreys spends her eyes and shapes her sorrow to the bedlam'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 Lucreus. 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 offense, 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 swoons, 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 Lucrease, set a work, sad tales doth tell, to pencil-pensiveness and colored sorrow, She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow. She throws her eyes about the painting 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, 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. In him the painter laboured with his, skill, to hide deceit, and give the harmless show, an humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still, a brow unbent that seemed 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 entertained a show so seeming just, and therein so ensconced his

secret evil, that jealousy itself could not mistrust, false creeping craft and perjury should thrust into so bright a day such black-faced storms, or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms. The well-skilled workmen this mild image drew, for perjured Simon, whose enchanting story the credulous old Priam after slew, whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory, of rich-built Ilyan, that the sighs were sorry, and little stars shot from their fixed places, when their glass fell wherein they viewed their faces. This picture she advisedly perused, and chid the painter for his wondrous skill, saying some shape in Sinan's was abused, so fair a form lodged not a mind so ill. And still on him she gazed, and gazing still, such signs of truth in his

plain face she spied, that she concludes the picture was belied. "'It cannot be,' quoth she, "'that's 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 turned it thus. "'It cannot be, I find,

"'but such a face should bear a wicked mind. "'For even as subtle signs, Herein here is painted, so sober, sad, so weary and so mild, as if with grief or travail he had fainted, to me came Tarkwin armed, so beguiled with outward honesty, but yet defiled with inward vice, as Priam him did cherish, so did I Tarquin, so my Troy did perish. Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes to see those borrowed tears that Sineen sheds. Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise? For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds. His eye drops 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 devil's steel effects from lightless hell, for Sinan in his fire doth quake with 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 Synan's tears doth flatter, that he finds means to burn his Troy with water. Here, all enraged, such passion her assails, that patience is quite beaten from her breast.

She tears the senseless Sinen with her nails, comparing him to that unhappy guest, whose deed hath made herself herself detest. At last she smilingly with this gives oar. Fool, fool, quoth she, his wounds will not be sore. 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 sharp sustaining. Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps, and they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath overslipped 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, though none it ever cured, to think their duller others have endured. End of Section 9 Section 10 of the Rape of Lucreuse. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw.

The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare. Section 10 But now the mindful messenger come back, brings home his lord and other company, who finds his Lucrease clad in morning black, and round about her tear-disstained eye, blue circles streamed like rainbows in the sky. These water-galls in her dim ellis,

element, foretell new storms to those already spent. Which when her sad-beholding husband saw, amazingly in her sad face he stares, her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw, her lively color killed with deadly cares. He hath no power to ask her how she fares. Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance, met far from home, wondering 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 color spent? Why art thou thus attired and 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 addressed to answer his desire. She modestly prepares to let them know, her honor is tain prisoner by the foe, while Coletine and his consorted lords, with sad attention long to hear her words. And now this pale swan in her watery nest begins the sad dirge of her certain ending. Few words, quoth she, 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 want to rest thy weary head, and what wrong else may be imagined by foul enforcement might be done to me. From that, alas, thy Lucrease is not free. For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight, with shining falcon in my chamber came, a creeping creature, with a flaming light, and softly cried, 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-favored 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 fulfill the loathsome act of lust, and so did kill the letters 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 shepherds, shame still rest upon record, and never be forgot in mighty Rome, the adulterate death of Lucrease and her groom.

Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak, and far the weaker with so strong of fear. My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak. No rightful plea might plead for justice there. His scarlet lust came evidence to swear that my poor beauty had purloined his eyes, and when the judge is robbed the prisoner dies. Oh, teach me how to make mine own excuse, or at the least this refuge let me find, Though my gross blood be stained with this abuse, Immaculate and spotless is my mind, That was not forced, that never was inclined to accesseer yieldings but still pure,

Doth in her poisoned closet yet endure. Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss, with head declined and voice damned up with woe, With sad, set eyes and wretched arms across, From lips new wax and 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 outruns the eye that doth behold his haste, yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride back to the strait that forced him on so fast, in rage sent out, recalled 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 by reigning slaketh. 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 Lucrease, now attend me, Be suddenly revenged on my foe, Thou, mine, his own, Suppose thou dost defend me from what is past, The help that thou shalt 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 Colotine, 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 write poor lady's 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 berate. But she, that yet her sad task hath not said, the protestation stops. O speak, quoth she, How may this forcet stain be wiped from me? What is the quality of mine offence, being constrained with dreadful circumstance? May my pure mind with the foul act dispense, my low-declined honor to advance? May any terms acquit me from this chance? The poisoned 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, carved in it with tears. No, no, quoth she, no dame hereafter living, by my excuse shall claim excuses giving. End of Section 10. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw. Section 11 of the Rape of Lucrease. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw. The Rape of Lucrease by William Shakespeare.

Section 11 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 assays, she utters this, He, he, fair lords, tis he, That guides this hand to give this wound to me. Even here 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 through her wounds doth fly Life's lasting date from cancel destiny. Stone still, astonished with this deadly deed, stood Coletine and all his lordly crew,

till Lucre's father, that beholds her bleed, himself on her self-slaughtered body through, and from the purple fountain Brutus drew the murderous knife, and as it left the place, her blood in poor 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-sacked island, vastly stood, bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood. Some of her blood still pure and red remained, and some looked black, and that false tarquin stained.

About the morning and congealed face of that black blood a watery wriggle goes, which seems to weep upon the tainted place, and ever since, as pitying Lucre's wreaths' word, woes, corrupted blood some watery token shows. And blood untainted still doth red abide, blushing at that which is so putrified. Daughter, dear daughter, old Lucretius cries, That life was mine which thou hast here deprived. If in the child the father's image lies, Where shall I live now Lucrease is unlived? Thou wast not to this end from me derived. If children pre-decease 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-bones death by time outworn. O from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn, and shivered all the beauty of my glass, That I no more can see what once I was! time, cease thou thy course and last no longer, if they surcease to be that should survive. Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger, and leave the faltering feeble souls alive? The old bees die, the young possess their hive. Then live, sweet Lucrease, live again and see thy father die, and not thy father thee.

By this starts Coletine as from a dream, and bids Lucretius give his sorrow place. And then in key-cold Lucrease 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 served a dumb arrest upon his tongue

Who, mad that sorrow should his use control Or keep him from heart-easing words so long Begins to talk, but through his lips do throng weak words so thick come in his poor heart's aid that no man could distinguish what he said. Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain, but threw his teeth as if the name he tore. This windy tempest till it blow up rain held back his sorrows tied to make it more. At last it rains, and busy winds give oar. 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. Oh, mine she is, replies her husband. Do not take away my sorrow's interest. Let no mourner say he weeps for her, for she was only mine, and only must be wailed by Coletine. Oh, quoth Lucretius, I did give that life which she too early and too late hath spilled. Whoa, woe, quoth Colatine, she was my life.

My wife! I owed her, and tis mine that she hath killed. My daughter and my wife, with clamors filled the dispersed air, who, holding Lucreus life, answered their cries, my daughter and my wife. Brutus, who plucked the knife from Lucre's side, seeing such emulation in their woe, began to clothe his wit in state and pride, burying in Lucre's wound his folly show. He with the Romans was esteemed so, as silly jeering idiots 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 armed his long-hid wits advisedly, to check the tears in Colatine's eyes. Thou wronged lord of Rome, quoth he, arise, let my unsounded self, supposed a fool, now set thy long-experienced wit to school.

Why, Colotine, 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 relenting 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 disgraced, By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chaste. Now, by the capital that we adore, And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained, By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store, By all our country rights in Rome maintained, and by chaste Lucre's soul that late complained her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife, we will revenge the death of this true wife.

This said he struck his hand upon his breast, and kissed the fatal knife to end his vow, and to his protestation urged the rest, who wondering at him did his words allow, then jointly to the ground their knees they bow. And that deep vow, which Brutus made before, he doth again run. repeat, and that they swore. When they had sworn to this advised doom, they did conclude to bear dead Lucris thence, to show her bleeding body thorough Rome, and so to publish Tarkwin's foul offense, which being done with speedy diligence, the Romans plausibly did give consent to Tarkwin's everlasting banishment.

End of Section 11. Recording by Ariel Lipshaw. End of the R. of Lucrease by William Shakespeare.