The Sonnets and Other Poems (13 page)

‘Poor hand, why quiver’st 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’st in my defame.
Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame
      And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe,
      Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.’

This said, from her
betumbled couch
¹⁰³⁷
she starteth,
To find some desp’rate instrument of death.
But this, no slaughterhouse, no tool
imparteth
¹⁰³⁹
To make more vent for passage of her breath,
Which
thronging
¹⁰⁴¹
through her lips, so vanisheth
      As smoke from
Aetna
¹⁰⁴²
that in air
consumes
      Or that which from dischargèd cannon
fumes
¹⁰⁴³
.

‘In vain,’ quoth she, ‘I live and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a
hapless
¹⁰⁴⁵
life.
I feared by Tarquin’s
falchion
¹⁰⁴⁶
to be slain,
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife;
But when I feared I was a loyal wife.
      So am I now — O no, that cannot be!
      Of that
true type
¹⁰⁵⁰
hath Tarquin rifled me.

‘O, that is gone for which I sought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die.
To clear this
spot
¹⁰⁵³
by death, at least I give
A
badge of fame to slander’s
¹⁰⁵⁴
livery
,
A dying life to living infamy:
      Poor helpless help, the treasure stol’n away,
      To burn the guiltless casket where it lay.

‘Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
The stainèd taste of violated troth,
I will not wrong thy true affection so,
To
flatter
¹⁰⁶¹
thee with an
infringèd
oath.
This bastard
graff
¹⁰⁶²
shall never come to growth:
      He shall not boast who did thy
stock
¹⁰⁶³
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
int’rest
¹⁰⁶⁷
was not bought
Basely with gold, but stol’n from forth thy gate.
For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
      And
with my trespass never will dispense
¹⁰⁷⁰
      Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

‘I will not poison thee with my
attaint
¹⁰⁷²
Nor fold my fault in
cleanly coined
¹⁰⁷³
excuses.
My
sable ground
¹⁰⁷⁴
of sin I will not paint
To hide the truth of this false
night’s
¹⁰⁷⁵
abuses.
My tongue shall utter all, mine eyes like sluices,
      As from a mountain-spring that feeds a
dale
¹⁰⁷⁷
,
      Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.’

By
this
¹⁰⁷⁹
, lamenting
Philomel
had ended
The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow,
And solemn night with slow, sad gait descended
To ugly hell, when, lo, the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow.
      But
cloudy
¹⁰⁸⁴
Lucrece 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
pry’st thou
¹⁰⁸⁹
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 nought to
do
¹⁰⁹²
what’s done by night.’

Thus cavils she with everything she sees:
True grief is
fond
¹⁰⁹⁴
and
testy
as a child,
Who
wayward
¹⁰⁹⁵
once, his mood with naught agrees:
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them
mild
¹⁰⁹⁶
,
Continuance
¹⁰⁹⁷
tames the one, the other wild,
      Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,
      With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

So she,
deep-drenchèd
¹¹⁰⁰
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
¹¹⁰³
,
And as one shifts, another
straight
¹¹⁰⁴
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 sweet melody,
For
mirth doth search the bottom of annoy
¹¹⁰⁹
.
Sad souls are slain in merry company,
Grief best is pleased with grief’s society:
      True sorrow then is
feelingly sufficed
¹¹¹²
      When
with like semblance it is sympathized
¹¹¹³
.

’Tis double death to drown in
ken
¹¹¹⁴
of shore,
He ten times
pines
¹¹¹⁵
that pines beholding food,
To see the
salve
¹¹¹⁶
doth make the wound ache more,
Great grief grieves most at
that
¹¹¹⁷
would do it good,
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
      Who, being stopped, the
bounding
¹¹¹⁹
banks o’erflows:
      Grief
dallied
¹¹²⁰
with
nor law nor
limit knows.

‘You mocking-birds,’ quoth she, ‘your tunes entomb
Within your hollow-swelling feathered breasts,
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb,
My
restless
¹¹²⁴
discord loves no
stops nor rests
:
A woeful hostess
brooks
¹¹²⁵
not merry guests.
     
Relish
¹¹²⁶
your nimble notes to
pleasing ears
:
      Distress likes
dumps
¹¹²⁷
when time is kept with tears.

‘Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my
dishevelled
¹¹²⁹
hair.
As the dank earth weeps at thy
languishment
¹¹³⁰
,
So I at each sad
strain will strain
¹¹³¹
a tear
And with deep groans the
diapason
¹¹³²
bear:
      For
burden-wise
¹¹³³
I’ll hum on Tarquin still,
      While thou on
Tereus
¹¹³⁴
descants
better skill
.

‘And whiles
against a thorn thou bear’st thy part,
To keep thy sharp woes waking
¹¹³⁵
, wretched I,
To imitate thee well, against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye,
Who, if it
wink
¹¹³⁹
, shall thereon fall and die.
      These means, as
frets
¹¹⁴⁰
upon an instrument,
      Shall tune our heartstrings to true languishment.

‘And
for
¹¹⁴²
, poor bird, thou sing’st not in the day,
As shaming
¹¹⁴³
any eye should thee behold,
Some dark deep
desert
¹¹⁴⁴
,
seated from the way
,
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold
Will we find out, and there we will unfold
      To creatures
stern
¹¹⁴⁷
, sad tunes to change their
kinds
:
      Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.’

As the poor frighted deer that stands
at gaze
¹¹⁴⁹
,
Wildly determining which way to fly,
Or one
encompassed
¹¹⁵¹
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 reproach’s debtor
¹¹⁵⁵
.

‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack, what were it
But with my body my poor soul’s pollution
¹¹⁵⁷
?
They that lose half with greater patience bear it
Than they whose whole is swallowed in
confusion
¹¹⁵⁹
.
That mother
tries
¹¹⁶⁰
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
¹¹⁶⁴
?
Whose love of either to myself was nearer
¹¹⁶⁵
When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
Ay 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
¹¹⁷⁰
, her quiet interrupted,
Her mansion battered by the enemy,
Her sacred temple spotted, spoiled, corrupted,
Grossly engirt
¹¹⁷³
with daring infamy.
Then let it not be called impiety,
      If in this
blemished fort
¹¹⁷⁵
I make some hole
      Through which I may convey this troubled soul.

‘Yet die I will not till my Collatine
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 stainèd blood to Tarquin I’ll bequeath,
      Which by him tainted shall for him be
spent
¹¹⁸²
,
      And as his due writ in my
testament
¹¹⁸³
.

‘My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonourèd.
’Tis honour to
deprive
¹¹⁸⁶
dishonoured life:
The one will live, the other being dead.
So of shame’s ashes shall my
fame
¹¹⁸⁸
be bred,
      For in my death I murder shameful scorn:
      My shame so dead, mine honour is newborn.

‘Dear lord of that
dear jewel
¹¹⁹¹
I have lost,
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
My
resolution
¹¹⁹³
, love, shall be thy boast,
By whose example thou revenged may’st be.
How Tarquin must be
used
¹¹⁹⁵
, read it in me:
      Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
      And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.

‘This brief abridgement of my will I make:
My soul and body
to
¹¹⁹⁹
the skies and ground,
My resolution, husband, do thou take,
Mine honour be the knife’s that makes my wound,
My shame be his that did my fame
confound
¹²⁰²
,
      And all my fame that lives
disbursèd
¹²⁰³
be
      To those that live and think no shame of me.

‘Thou, Collatine, shalt
oversee
¹²⁰⁵
this will —
How was I
overseen
¹²⁰⁶
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
¹²¹³
from her bright eyes,
With
untuned
¹²¹⁴
tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,
Whose swift obedience to her mistress
hies
¹²¹⁵
,
For fleet-winged duty with
thought’s feathers
¹²¹⁶
flies.
      Poor Lucrece’ cheeks unto her maid seem so
      As winter
meads
¹²¹⁸
when sun doth melt their snow.

Her mistress she doth give demure good morrow
With soft, slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
And
sorts
¹²²¹
a sad look to her lady’s sorrow,
For why
¹²²²
her face wore sorrow’s livery,
But durst not ask of her
audaciously
¹²²³
      Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsèd so,
      Nor why her fair cheeks over-washed 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
¹²²⁸
wet
Her
circled eyne
¹²²⁹
,
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 conduits coral cisterns
¹²³⁴
filling:
One
justly
¹²³⁵
weeps, the other takes in hand
No cause, but
company
¹²³⁶
, of her drops spilling.
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,
      Grieving themselves
to guess at others’ smarts
¹²³⁸
,
      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
¹²⁴¹
:
The weak oppressed, th’impression of
strange kinds
¹²⁴²
Is formed in them by force, by fraud, or
skill
¹²⁴³
.
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
      No more than wax shall be accounted evil
      Wherein is stamped the
semblance
¹²⁴⁶
of a devil.

Their smoothness, like a goodly
champaign
¹²⁴⁷
plain,
Lays open
¹²⁴⁸
all the little worms that creep.
In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
Cave-keeping
¹²⁵⁰
evils that
obscurely
sleep.
Through crystal walls each little
mote
¹²⁵¹
will peep,
      Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
      Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.