238 Lo here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,
With head declined, and voice damm'd up with woe,
With sad-set eyes, and wretched arms across,
From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
The grief away, that stops his answer so:
But wretch'd as he is, he strives in vain ;
What he breathes out, his breath drinks up again.
239 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, recall'd in rage, being past:
Even so he sighs, his sorrows make a saw,
To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.
240 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 raining slaketh.
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
More feeling-painful: let it then suffice
To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.
241 And for my sake, when I might charm thee so, For she that was thy Lucrece,-now attend me ; Be suddenly revengèd on my foe,
Thine, 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.
242 'But ere I name him, you, fair lords,' quoth she, (Speaking to those that came with Collatine),
Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,
With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;
For 'tis a meritorious fair design
To chase injustice with revengeful arms :
Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'
243 At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
The protestation stops. 'O speak,' quoth she,
'How may this forced stain be wiped from me?
244 What is the quality of mine offence,
Being constrain❜d with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
My low-declined honour to advance ?
May any terms acquit me from this chance?
The poison'd fountain clears itself again ;
And why not I from this compelled stain ?'
245 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 excuse's giving.'
246 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.'
247 Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheath'd:
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 cancell'd destiny.
248 Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew;
Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed,
Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
The murderous knife, and as it left the place,
Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;
249 And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side,
Who like a late sack'd island vastly 1 stood
Bare and unpeopled, in this fearful flood.
Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain’d.
250 About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood, a watery rigol2 goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place :
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some watery token shows;
And blood untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrefied.
251 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 Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
If children predecease progenitors,
We are their offspring, and they none of ours.
252 'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age newborn ;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bareboned death by time outworn ;
Oh, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn!
And shiver'd all the beauty of my glass,
That I no more can see what once I was.
2530 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 Lucrece, live again, and see
Thy father die, and not thy father thee!'
254 By this starts Collatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space;
Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
And live, to be revenged on her death.
255 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.
256 Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;
At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er :
Then son and father weep with equal strife,
Who should weep most for daughter or for wife.
257 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 wail'd by Collatine.'
258 'Oh,' quoth Lucretius, 'I did give that life, Which she too early and too late1 hath spill'd.' Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife, I owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.' 'My daughter' and 'My wife' with clamours fill'd The dispersed air, who, holding Lucrece' life, Answer'd their cries, 'My daughter' and 'My wife.'
259 Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side, Seeing such emulation in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
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