THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

THE first edition of Lucrece, the source of all succeeding texts, was printed in 1594 for John Harrison by Richard Field, the original publisher of Venus and Adonis. If it is assumed that it represents the "graver labour" promised in the dedication of the earlier poem, the date of composition must have been 1593-94. Eight editions are known to have been issued by 1655.

The story of Lucrece was so widely familiar, and had been so often the theme of various kinds of artistic effort, that it is impossible to state accurately and exhaustively the sources from which Shakespeare drew his knowledge of it. The versions of Ovid and Livy, either in the original or in the translations of Golding and Painter, and that of Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women, seem certainly to have been known to him; and for the ornaments and digressions he seems to have laid under contribution many of his contemporaries. The apostrophe to Time is a commonplace, of which that to Opportunity is a Shakespearean variation. The description of the painting of the fall of Troy derives many details from Virgil's Æneid, Books i and ii. Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond (1592) seems to bear to Lucrece somewhat the same relation as Lodge's Glaucus and Scilla does to Venus and Adonis. It is written in the seven-lined stanza used here, and in the remorse of Rosamond it treats a theme closely parallel in tone and method to the laments of Lucrece.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.

THE love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutor'd lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life, still length'ned with all happiness. Your Lordship's in all duty, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE ARGUMENT

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murd' red, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea: during which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravish'd her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter invective against the tyranny of the king wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to consuls.