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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    Not Peer Reviewed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.

    Thus ebs and flowes the currant of her sorrow,
    1570And time doth wearie time with her complayning,
    Shee looks for night, & then shee longs for morrow,
    And both shee thinks too long with her remayning.
    Short time seems long, in sorrowes sharp sustayning,
    Though wo be heauie, yet it seldome sleepes,
    1575 And they that watch, see time, how slow it creeps.

    Which all this time hath ouerslipt her thought,
    That shee with painted Images hath spent,
    Being from the feeling of her own griefe brought,
    By deepe surmise of others detriment,
    1580Loosing her woes in shews of discontent:
    It easeth some, though none it euer cured,
    To thinke their dolour others haue endured.

    But now the mindfull Messenger come backe,
    Brings home his Lord and other companie,
    1585Who finds his LVCRECE clad in mourning black,
    And round about her teare-distained eye
    Blew circles stream'd, like Rain-bows in the skie.
    These watergalls in her dim Element,
    Foretell new stormes to those alreadie spent.
    Which
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