The Sonnets and Other Poems (15 page)

‘Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many
moe
¹⁴⁷⁹
?
Let sin, alone committed,
light
¹⁴⁸⁰
alone
Upon his head that hath transgressèd so.
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.
      For one’s offence why should so many fall,
      To
plague a private sin in general
¹⁴⁸⁴
?

‘Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here
Troilus
¹⁴⁸⁶
swoons
,
Here friend by friend in
bloody channel
¹⁴⁸⁷
lies,
And friend to friend gives
unadvisèd
¹⁴⁸⁸
wounds,
And one man’s lust these many lives confounds.
      Had
doting
¹⁴⁹⁰
Priam
checked
his son’s desire,
      Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.’

Here feelingly she weeps Troy’s painted woes,
For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
Once set on ringing, with his own weight
goes
¹⁴⁹⁴
;
Then little strength rings out the doleful
knell
¹⁴⁹⁵
.
So Lucrece,
set a-work
¹⁴⁹⁶
, sad tales doth tell
      To
pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow
¹⁴⁹⁷
:
      She lends them words and she their looks doth borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round,
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament.
At last she sees a wretched image bound
¹⁵⁰¹
,
That
piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent
¹⁵⁰²
.
His face, though full of cares, yet showed content.
      Onward to Troy with the
blunt swains
¹⁵⁰⁴
he goes,
      So mild, that patience seemed to scorn his woes.

In him the painter laboured with his skill
To hide deceit and give the
harmless show
¹⁵⁰⁷
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes
wailing still
¹⁵⁰⁸
,
A brow
unbent
¹⁵⁰⁹
that seemed to welcome woe,
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
      That blushing red no
guilty instance
¹⁵¹¹
gave,
      Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But, like a constant and confirmèd devil,
He
entertained a show
¹⁵¹⁴
so seeming just,
And therein so
ensconced
¹⁵¹⁵
his secret evil,
That jealousy itself could not mistrust
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
      Into so bright a day such black-faced storms
      Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well-skilled
workman
¹⁵²⁰
this mild image drew
For perjured Sinon whose
enchanting
¹⁵²¹
story
The credulous old Priam after slew,
Whose words like
wildfire
¹⁵²³
burnt the shining glory
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
      And little stars shot from their fixèd places,
      When their
glass
¹⁵²⁶
fell wherein they viewed their faces.

This picture she
advisedly
¹⁵²⁷
perused
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,
Saying,
some shape in Sinon’s was abused
¹⁵²⁹
:
So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill.
And still on him she gazed, and gazing still,
      Such signs of truth in his
plain
¹⁵³²
face she spied
      That she concludes the picture was
belied
¹⁵³³
.

‘It cannot be,’ quoth she, ‘that so much guile’ —
She would have said ‘can lurk in such a look,’
But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while
And from her tongue ‘can lurk’ from ‘cannot’ took.
‘It cannot be’ she in that sense forsook
      And
turned it
¹⁵³⁹
thus, ‘It cannot be, I find,
     
But
¹⁵⁴⁰
such a face should bear a wicked mind.

‘For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober-sad, so weary and so mild,
As if with grief or
travail
¹⁵⁴³
he had fainted,
To me came Tarquin armèd to
beguild
¹⁵⁴⁴
With outward honesty but yet defiled
      With inward vice: as Priam
him
¹⁵⁴⁶
did cherish,
      So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.

‘Look, look, how list’ning Priam wets his eyes
To see those borrowed tears that Sinon sheds!
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
For every tear he
falls
¹⁵⁵¹
a Trojan bleeds:
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds.
      Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity
      Are
balls of quenchless fire
¹⁵⁵⁴
to burn thy city.

‘Such devils steal
effects
¹⁵⁵⁵
from lightless hell,
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold
And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell.
These contraries such unity do hold
Only to flatter fools and make them bold:
      So Priam’s trust false Sinon’s tears doth flatter,
      That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.’

Here, all enraged, such passion her assails
That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
She tears the
senseless
¹⁵⁶⁴
Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that
unhappy
¹⁵⁶⁵
guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest.
      At last she smilingly with this
gives o’er
¹⁵⁶⁷
:
      ‘Fool, fool!’ quoth she, ‘His wounds will not be sore.’

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
And time doth weary time with her complaining.
She looks for night and then she longs for morrow,
And both she thinks too long with her remaining.
Short time seems long
in sorrow’s sharp sustaining
¹⁵⁷³
:
      Though woe be
heavy
¹⁵⁷⁴
, yet it seldom sleeps,
      And they that
watch
¹⁵⁷⁵
see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath
overslipped
¹⁵⁷⁶
her thought
That she with painted images hath spent,
Being
from
¹⁵⁷⁸
the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others’
detriment
¹⁵⁷⁹
,
Losing her woes in
shows
¹⁵⁸⁰
of discontent.
      It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
      To think their dolour others have endured.

But now the
mindful
¹⁵⁸³
messenger come back
Brings home his lord and other company,
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black,
And round about her
tear-distainèd
¹⁵⁸⁶
eye
Blue circles
streamed
¹⁵⁸⁷
, like rainbows in the sky.
      These
water-galls
¹⁵⁸⁸
in her
dim element
      Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
Amazedly in her sad face he stares.
Her eyes, though
sod
¹⁵⁹²
in tears, looked red and raw,
Her lively colour killed with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares.
      Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,
      Met far from home, wond’ring
each other’s chance
¹⁵⁹⁶
.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand
And thus begins: ‘What
uncouth
¹⁵⁹⁸
ill event
Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand?
Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?
Why art thou thus
attired in discontent
¹⁶⁰¹
?
      Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness
      And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.’

Three times with
sighs she gives her sorrow fire
¹⁶⁰⁴
,
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe.
At length
addressed
¹⁶⁰⁶
to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe,
      While Collatine and his
consorted
¹⁶⁰⁹
lords
      With sad attention long to hear her words.

And now this pale
swan in her wat’ry nest
Begins the sad
dirge
¹⁶¹²
of her certain ending
¹⁶¹¹
:
‘Few words’, quoth she, ‘shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending.
In me more woes than words are now
depending
¹⁶¹⁵
,
      And my laments would be drawn out too long
      To tell them all with one poor tirèd tongue.

‘Then be this all the task it hath to say:
Dear husband,
in the interest of
¹⁶¹⁹
thy bed
A stranger came and on that pillow lay
Where thou was
wont
¹⁶²¹
to rest thy weary head,
And what wrong else may be imaginèd
      By foul enforcement might be done to me,
      From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.

‘For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight
With shining
falchion
¹⁶²⁶
in my chamber came
A creeping creature with a flaming light
And softly cried, “Awake, thou Roman dame,
And
entertain
¹⁶²⁹
my love, else lasting shame
      On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
      If thou my love’s desire do contradict.

‘ “For some
hard-favoured groom
¹⁶³²
of thine,” quoth he,
“Unless thou
yoke thy liking
¹⁶³³
to my will,
I’ll murder straight and then I’ll slaughter thee
And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust and so did kill
      The lechers in their deed: this act will be
      My fame and thy perpetual infamy.”

‘With this I did begin to start and cry,
And then against my heart he sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
I should not live to speak another word.
So should my shame
still rest upon record
¹⁶⁴³
      And never be forgot in mighty Rome
     
Th’adulterate
¹⁶⁴⁵
death of Lucrece and her groom.

‘Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear.
My
bloody
¹⁶⁴⁸
judge forbade my tongue to speak,
No rightful plea might plead for justice there.
His
scarlet
¹⁶⁵⁰
lust came
evidence to swear
      That my poor beauty had
purloined
¹⁶⁵¹
his eyes,
      And when the judge is robbed the prisoner dies.

‘O, teach me how to make mine own excuse,
Or at the least this refuge let me find:
Though my
gross
¹⁶⁵⁵
blood be stained with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind:
That was not forced, that never was inclined
      To
accessary yieldings
¹⁶⁵⁸
, but still pure
      Doth in her poisoned
closet
¹⁶⁵⁹
yet endure.’

Lo, here, the hopeless
merchant
¹⁶⁶⁰
of this loss,
With head
declined
¹⁶⁶¹
, and voice dammed up with woe,
With sad set eyes and wretched arms
across
¹⁶⁶²
,
From lips
new-waxen
¹⁶⁶³
pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so.
      But, wretched as he is, he strives in vain:
     
What he breathes out his breath drinks up again
¹⁶⁶⁶
.

As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,
Yet in the
eddy
¹⁶⁶⁹
boundeth in
his pride
Back to the
strait
¹⁶⁷⁰
that forced him on so fast,
In rage sent out, recalled in rage, being past:
      Even so his sighs, his sorrows,
make a saw
¹⁶⁷²
,
      To push grief on and back the same grief draw.

Which speechless woe of his poor she
attendeth
¹⁶⁷⁴
,
And his
untimely frenzy
¹⁶⁷⁵
thus awaketh:
‘Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power
¹⁶⁷⁷
, no flood by raining slaketh.
My woe too
sensible
¹⁶⁷⁸
thy passion maketh
      More feeling-painful. Let it then suffice
      To drown
on
¹⁶⁸⁰
woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

‘And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
For she that was thy Lucrece, now
attend
¹⁶⁸²
me:
Be
suddenly
¹⁶⁸³
revengèd on my foe,
Thine, mine, his own
¹⁶⁸⁴
. 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.

‘But ere I name him, you fair lords,’ quoth she,
Speaking to those that came with Collatine,
‘Shall
plight your honourable faiths
¹⁶⁹⁰
to me,
With swift pursuit to
venge
¹⁶⁹¹
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.’

At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her
imposition
¹⁶⁹⁷
,
Longing to hear the hateful foe
bewrayed
¹⁶⁹⁸
.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not
said
¹⁶⁹⁹
,
      The
protestation
¹⁷⁰⁰
stops. ‘O, speak,’ quoth she,
      ‘How may this forcèd stain be wiped from me?

‘What is the
quality
¹⁷⁰²
of my offence,
Being constrained with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind
with the foul act dispense
¹⁷⁰⁴
,
My low-declinèd honour to
advance
¹⁷⁰⁵
?
May any
terms
¹⁷⁰⁶
acquit me from this
chance
?
      The poisoned fountain clears itself again,
      And why not I from this compellèd stain?’