Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

  • 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    Not Peer Reviewed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)

    Reuealing day through euery crannie spies,
    And seems to point her out where she sits weeping,
    To whom shee sobbing speakes, ô eye of eyes,
    Why pry'st thou throgh my window? leaue thy pee-(ping,
    1090Mock with thy tickling beams, eies that are sleeping;
    Brand not my forehead with thy percing light,
    For day hath nought to do what's done by night.
    Thus cauils shee with euerie thing shee sees,
    True griefe is fond and testie as a childe,
    1095Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees,
    Old woes, not infant sorrowes beare them milde,
    Continuance tames the one, the other wilde,
    Like an vnpractiz'd swimmer plunging still,
    With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
    1100So shee deepe drenched in a Sea of care,
    Holds disputation with ech thing shee vewes,
    And to her selfe all sorrow doth compare,
    No obiect but her passions strength renewes:
    And as one shiftes another straight insewes,
    1105 Somtime her griefe is dumbe and hath no words,
    Sometime tis mad and too much talke affords.
    The little birds that tune their mornings ioy,
    Make her mones mad, with their sweet melodie,
    "For mirth doth search the bottome of annoy,
    1110"Sad soules are slaine in merrie companie,
    "Griefe best is pleas'd with griefes societie;
    "True sorrow then is feelinglie suffiz'd,
    "When with like semblance it is simpathiz'd.
    "Tis double death to drowne in ken of shore,
    1115"He ten times pines, that pines beholding food,
    "To see the salue doth make the wound ake more:
    "Great griefe greeues most at that wold do it good;
    "Deepe woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
    Who being stopt, the boūding banks oreflowes,
    1120 Griefe dallied with, nor law, nor limit knowes.