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And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,

And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,

And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long;

And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes

Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

'Show me the strumpet that began this stir,

That with my nails her beauty I may tear.

Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur

This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;

Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here:

And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,

The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.

'Why should the private pleasure of some one

Become the public plague of many mo?

Let sin, alone committed, light alone

Upon his head that hath transgressed 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?

'Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,

Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;

Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,

And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,

And one man's lust these many lives confounds:

Had doting Priam check'd 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;

Then little strength rings out the doleful knell:

So Lucrece set a-work sad tales doth tell

To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;

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,

That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent:

His face, though full of cares, yet show'd content;

Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,

So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.

In him the painter labour'd with his skill

To hide deceit, and give the harmless show

An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,

A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;

Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so

That blushing red no guilty instance gave,

Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But, like a constant and confirmed devil,

He entertain'd a show so seeming just,

And therein so ensconc'd his secret evil,

That jealousy itself cold not mistrust

False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust

Into so bright a day such black-fac'd storms,

Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew

For perjur'd Sinon, whose enchanting story

The credulous Old Priam after slew;

Whose words, like wildfire, burnt the shining glory

Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,

And little stars shot from their fixed places,

When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.

This picture she advisedly perus'd,

And chid the painter for his wondrous skill;

Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abus'd;

So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:

And still on him she gaz'd; and gazing still,

Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,

That she concludes the picture was belied.

'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 turn'd it thus: 'It cannot be, I find,

But 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 he had fainted,)

To me came Tarquin armed; so beguil'd

With outward honesty, but yet defil'd

With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,

So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,

To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds.

Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?

For every tear he falls 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 to burn thy city.

'Such devils steal effects