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  • Title: Lucrece (Quarto, 1594)
  • Editor: Hardy M. Cook

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-411-0

    Copyright Hardy M. Cook. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Hardy M. Cook
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Lucrece (Quarto, 1594)

    THE RAPE OF LVCRECE.

    960Why work'st thou mischiefe in thy Pilgrimage,
    Vnlesse thou could'st returne to make amends?
    One poore retyring minute in an age
    Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
    Lending him wit that to bad detters lends,
    965 O this dread night, would'st thou one howr come (backe,
    I could preuent this storme, and shun thy wracke.

    Thou ceaselesse lackie to Eternitie,
    With some mischance crosse TARQVIN in his flight.
    Deuise extreames beyond extremitie,
    970To make him curse this cursed crimefull night:
    Let gastly shadowes his lewd eyes affright,
    And the dire thought of his committed euill,
    Shape euery bush a hideous shapelesse deuill.

    Disturbe his howres of rest with restlesse trances,
    975Afflict him in his bed with bedred grones,
    Let there bechaunce him pitifull mischances,
    To make him mone, but pitie not his mones:
    Stone him with hardned hearts harder then stones,
    And let milde women to him loose their mildnesse,
    980 Wilder to him then Tygers in their wildnesse.
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