Disturb his hours of reft with reftlefs 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 harden'd 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 time's help to defpair,
Let him have time to live a loathed flave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave;
And time to fee one that by alms doth live,
Difdain to him difdained scraps to give.
Let him have time to fee his friends his foes,
And merry fools to mock at him refort:
Let him have time to mark how flow time
In time of forrow, 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 abufing of his time.
O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curfe him that thou taught'ft this ill!
At his own fhadow let the thief run mad,
Himself himself feek every hour to kill!
Such wretched hands fuch wretched blood should spill:
For who fo base would fuch an office have
As flanderous death's-man to so base a slave?
The bafer is he, coming from a king,
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
That makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
The moon being clouded presently is miss'd,
But little stars may hide them when they list.
The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceiv'd fly with the filth away;
But if the like the fnow-white fwan defire,
The stain upon his filver down will stay.
Poor grooms are fightless night, kings glorious day.
Gnats are unnoted wherefoe'er they fly,
But eagles gaz'd upon with every eye.
Out idle words, fervants to shallow fools!
Unprofitable founds, weak arbitrators!
Bufy 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 cafe is paft the help of law.
In vain I rail at opportunity,
At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;
In vain I cavil with mine infamy,
In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite :
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.
The remedy indeed to do me good,
Is to let forth my foul, defiled, blood.
Poor hand, why quiver'ft thou at this decree?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee,
But if I live, thou liv'ft in my defame:
Since thou could'st not defend thy loyal dame,
And waft afraid to fcratch her wicked foe,
Kill both thyself and her for yielding fo.
This faid, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,
To find fome defperate inftrument of death.
But this no-flaughter-houfe no tool imparteth,
To make more vent for passage of her breath,
Which thronging through her lips fo vanisheth
As fmoke from Etna, that in air confumes,
Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.
In vain, quoth fhe, I live, and feek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,
Yet for the self-fame purpose feek a knife:
But when I fear'd, I was a loyal wife;
So am I now:-O no, that cannot be ;
Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.
that is gone, for which I fought 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 flander's livery;
A dying life to living infamy;
Poor helpless help, the treasure ftolen away,
To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!
Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
The stained tafte of violated troth;
I will not wrong thy true affection fo,
To flatter thee with an infringed oath ;
This baftard graff shall never come to growth:
He shall not boast, who did thy stock pollute,
That thou art doting father of his fruit.
Nor fhall he smile at thee in fecret thought,
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
But thou shalt know thy intereft was not bought
Bafely 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 forc'd offence.
I will not poifon thee with my attaint,
Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excufes;
My fable ground of fin I will not paint,
To hide the truth of this falfe night's abuses :
My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes like fluices,
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-tun'd warble of her nightly forrow,
And folemn night with flow-sad gait descended
To ugly hell; when lo, the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to fee,
And therefore ftill in night would cloister'd be.
Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And feems to point her out where she sits weeping;
To whom she fobbing speaks: O eye of eyes,
Why pry'st thou through my window? leave thy peeping;
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are fleeping:
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
For day hath nought to do what's done by night.
Thus cavils she with every thing the fees:
True grief is fond and tefty as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant forrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
Like an unpractiz'd swimmer plunging still,
With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
So fhe, deep-drenched in a fea of care,
Holds difputation with each thing she views,
And to herself all forrow doth compare ;
No object but her paffion's ftrength renews;
And as one shifts, another straight ensues :
Sometime her grief is dumb, and hath no words;
Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords.
The little birds that tune their morning's joy,
Make her moans mad with their fweet melody.
For mirth doth fearch the bottom of annoy;
Sad fouls are flain in merry company;
Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
True forrow then is feelingly fuffic'd,
When with like femblance it is fympathiz'd.
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