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And far the weaker with so strong a fear:

My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;

No rightful plea might plead for justice there:

His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;

And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.

'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!

Or at the least this refuge let me find;

Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,

Immaculate and spotless is my mind;

That was not forc'd; that never was inclin'd

To accessary yieldings, but still pure

Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'

Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,

With head declin'd, and voice damm'd up with woe,

With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,

From lips new-waxen 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.

As through an arch the violent roaring tide

Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste;

Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride

Back to the strait that forc'd him on so fast;

In rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past:

Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw.

To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.

Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,

And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:

'Dear Lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth

Another power; no flood by raining slaketh.

My woe too sensible thy passion maketh

More feeling-painful: let it then suffice

To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

'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;

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 to me,

With swift pursuit to venge 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,

Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.

But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,

The protestation stops. 'O, speak,' quoth she,

'How may this forced stain be wip'd from me?

'What is the quality of mine offence,

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?

The poison'd fountain clears itself again;

And why not I from this compelled stain?

With this, they all at once began to say,

Her body's stain her mind untainted clears;

While with a joyless smile she turns away

The face, that map which deep impression bears

Of hard misfortune, carv'd in it with tears.

'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,

By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.

Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,

She throws forth Tarquin's name: 'He, he,' she 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,

That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'

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:

Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd

Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly

Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,

Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew;

Till Lucrece' father that beholds her bleed,

Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;

And from the purple fountain Brutus drew

The murderous knife, and, as it left the place,

Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;

And bubbling