• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

In such relenting dew of lamentations,

But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part,

To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,

That they will suffer these abominations,

(Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac'd,)

By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas'd.

'Now, by the Capitol that we adore,

And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd,

By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store,

By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd,

And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd

Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,

We will revenge the death of this true wife.'

This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,

And kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow;

And to his protestation urg'd the rest,

Who, wondering at him, did his words allow;

Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;

And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,

He doth again repeat, and that they swore.

When they had sworn to this advised doom,

They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence;

To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,

And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:

Which being done with speedy diligence,

The Romans plausibly did give consent

To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

First published in 1599, this is an anthology of 20 poems, which were attributed to Shakespeare on the title page. However, only five of the poems (1, 2, 3, 5 and 16) are accepted by present-day scholars as being by Shakespeare, and three of them (3, 5 and 16) are taken from the play Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The Passionate Pilgrim was published by William Jaggard, later the publisher of Shakespeare's First Folio. The first edition survives only in a single fragmentary copy; its date cannot be fixed with certainty since its title page is missing, though many scholars judge it likely to be from 1599, the year the second edition appeared with the attribution to Shakespeare. The title page of this second edition states that the book is to be sold by stationer William Leake; Leake had obtained the rights to Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis in 1596 and published five octavo editions of that poem (the third edition through the eighth) in the 1599–1602 period. All 20 poems are provided in this edition for your consideration.

The 1599 title page

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

I.

WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although I know my years be past the best,

I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,

Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.

But wherefore says my love that she is young?

And wherefore say not I that I am old? 10

O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,

And age, in love, loves not to have years told.

Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,

Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.

II.

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

That like two spirits do suggest me still;

My better angel is a man right fair,

My worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side, 20

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her fair pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell:

For being both to me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell;

The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

III.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument, 30

Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.

My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;

Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,

Exhale this vapour