Far from the purpose of his coming thither,
He makes excuses for his being there.
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear;
Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
And in her vaulty prison stows the day.

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
Intending1 weariness with heavy spright;
For, after supper, long he questionéd 2

With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night :
Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;

And every one to rest himself betakes,

Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wakes.

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
The sundry dangers of his will's obtaining;
Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,

Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining;
Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;

And when great treasure is the meed proposed, Though death be adjunct, there's no death supposed.

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
That what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,"

1 Intending, pretending.

2 Questioned, conversed.

3

3 This is the reading of the original edition of 1594. That of

1616 reads,

are with gain so fond,

That oft they have not that which they possess ;

They scatter and unloose it.”

Malone adopts the reading of the original, and he thus explains it:

And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess.

Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,

That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honor, wealth, and ease, in waning age,
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one, we gage;

As life for honor in fell battles' rage;

Honor for wealth; and oft that wealth doth

cost

The death of all, and all together lost.

So that in venturing ill we leave to be

The things we are, for that which we expect ;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,

In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have so then we do neglect

The thing we have, and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing, by augmenting it.

Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
Pawning his honor to obtain his lust;
And for himself himself he must forsake:
Then where is truth if there be no self-trust?
When shall he think to find a stranger just,

"Poetically speaking, they may be said to scatter what they have not, i. e. what they cannot be truly said to have; what they do not enjoy, though possessed of it." This is clearly a misinterpretation. The reasoning of the two following stanzas is directed against the folly of venturing a certainty for an expectation, by which we "make something nothing." The meaning, then, though obscurely expressed, is, that the covetous are so fond of gaining what they have not, that they scatter and unloose from their bond (safe hold) that which they possess.

When he himself himself confounds,1 betrays

To slanderous tongues, and wretched, hateful days?

Now stole upon the time the dead of night,
When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes;
No comfortable star did lend his light,

No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries;
Now serves the season that they may surprise

The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still,

While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.

And now this lustful lord leaped from his bed,
Throwing his mantle rudely o'er his arm ;
Is madly tossed between desire and dread ;
Th' one sweetly flatters, th' other feareth harm;
But honest Fear, bewitched with lust's foul charm,
Doth too oft betake him to retire,

Beaten away by brain-sick, rude Desire.

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly,
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly :

"As from this cold flint I enforced this fire,
So Lucrece must I force to my desire."

Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
And in his inward mind he doth debate

1 Confounds. Malone interprets this as destroys; but the meaning is sufficiently clear if we accept confounds in its usual

sense.

What following sorrow may on this arise;
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise

His naked armor of still-slaughtered lust,
And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust :

"Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine!
And die unhallowed thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine!
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:

Let fair humanity abhor the deed

That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.1

"O, shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
O, foul dishonor to my household's grave!
O, impious act, including all foul harms!
A martial man to be soft fancy's slave; 2
True valor still a true respect should have;
Then my digression 3 is so vile, so base,
That it will live engraven in my face.

"Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive, And be an eyesore in my golden coat;

Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive, 4

1 Weed, garment. The word is more commonly used in the

plural, as in Milton's "Paradise Regained:

"But now an aged man in rural weeds."

II.

But in the same scene of Coriolanus (Act II. Sc. 11.) we have both weed and weeds.

2 Fancy's slave, love's slave.

3 Digression is here used in the sense of transgression.

4 Here is one of the frequent examples with which the works of Shakspeare and his contemporaries abound, of applying the usages of chivalry to the more remote antiquity of Greece and

To cipher me how fondly I did dote;
That my posterity, shamed with the note,
Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
To wish that I their father had not been.

"What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy:
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

"If Collatinus dream of my intent,

Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage
Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?

This siege that hath engirt his marriage,
This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,
This dying virtue, this surviving shame,
Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?

"O, what excuse can my invention make,
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake?
Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed?
The guilt being great the fear doth still exceed;

Rome. The poem of Lucrece contains many such allusions. In particular, towards the close we have this line:

Knights by their oaths should right poor ladies' harms.” This was indeed an anticipation of chivalry; but the poet could in no way so forcibly express the spirit which animated the avengers of Lucrece, and which the injured lady here invokes, as by employing the language of chivalry. The use of the word ladies in this line is as much an anachronism as that of knights; but what other words will express the meaning intended ?