"More feeling-painful: let it then suffice "And for my sake, when I might charm thee so, "For she that was thy Lucrece,—now attend me; "Be suddenly revenged on my foe, “Thine, mine, his own; suppose thou dost defend me "From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me "Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die; “But ere I name him, you, fair lords," quoth she, "For 'tis a meritorious fair design, "To chase injustice with revengeful arms: Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms." At this request, with noble disposition "What is the quality of mine offence, 66 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? With this, they all at once began to say, "By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving." Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break, 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, 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 breath'd: Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny. Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed, And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide About the mourning and congealed face vastly] i. e. like a waste. 56 rigol] i. e. circle. 66 And blood untainted still doth red abide, Daughter, dear daughter," old Lucretius cries, "That life was mine, which thou hast here de priv'd. "If in the child the father's image lies, “ Where shall I live, now Lucrece is unliv'd? "Thou wast not to this end from me deriv'd. "If children predecease progenitors, "We are their offspring, and they none of ours. "Poor broken glass, I often did behold "In thy sweet semblance my old age newborn; "But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old, 66 Shows me a barebon'd death by time outworn; "0, 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. O 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!" By this starts Collatine as from a dream, And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream Till manly shame bids him possess his breath, The deep vexation of his inward soul That no man could distinguish what he said. Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain, Then son and father weep with equal strife, The one doth call her his, the other his, 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." |