Look, when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat, In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding, So his unhallow'd haste her words delays, Yet, foul, night-waking cat, he doth but dally, While in his holdfast foot the weak mouse panteth; Her sad behavior 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 plaining: Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining. Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks, She conjures him by high almighty Jove, By heaven and earth, and all the power of both, That to his borrow'd bed he make retire, And stoop to honor, not to foul desire. Quoth she, Reward not hospitality With such black payment as thou hast pretended; 1 6 To strike a poor, unseasonable doe. My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me; Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me ; Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me : 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, 1 Intended, proposed to thyself. • 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 wrong'st his honor, wound'st his princely name. Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same, Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king; For kings, like gods, should govern every thing. How will thy shame be seeded 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 remember'd,1 no outrageous thing From vassal actors can be wiped away; Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay. This deed will make thee only loved for fear, For princes are the glass, the school, the book, Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look. Bear it in your mind. And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn? Must he in thee read lectures of such shame? To privilege dishonor in thy name? Thou back'st reproach against long-lived laud, 'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee, When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say, He learn'd 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; That from their own misdeeds askaunce their eyes! • To thee, to thee, my heaved-up hands appeal, Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier; I sue for exiled majesty's repeal; Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire: And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne, 'Have done,' quoth he: ' my uncontrolled tide Turns not, but swells the higher by this let: 1 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 hearsed, 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 fouler grave; 1 Obstruction. |