page10 (1/2)

Part II Roman 9 The Rape Of Lucrece

Shakespeare wrote four plays and one narrative poeendary, or fictional Of these, it is the poem, The Rape of Lucrece, that deals with the earliest event, the legendary fall of the Roman monarchy in 509 bc

If I were treating all Shakespeare's works in a single chronological grouping, The Rape of Lucrece would be placed between Troilus and Cressida and Ti the Greek and Roman works, The Rape of Lucrece appears as the first of the Roroup

The love

The Rape of Lucrece was published about May 1594, a year after Venus and Adonis This later poeer andtoo Like the earlier poee I-3), and the additional year seems to have increased the inti patron At least the dedication begins:

The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end;

- Dedication

Lust-breathed Tarquin

The first stanza of the poees the story into action at once:

Froed Ardea all in post,

Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,

Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host

- lines 1-3

The year, according to legend, is 509 bc, and Rome is still no more than a city-state It had been founded about two and a half centuries before (753 bc is the traditional date) and has been governed by a line of kings Ruling in the city now is the seventh king to sit on the Rolish as Tarquin) and he has been given the surnaant tyranny

Tarquin forced the senatorial aristocracy into subes and by refusing to replace those who died a natural death

He kept hiuard about himself, and ruled as a military despot Nevertheless, he maintained a kind of popularity with the coressive foreign policy that brought in loot fro tribes

The aristocracy could only wait and hope that some particular event would take place to alienate the populace generally from the despotic monarch

It is not, however, King Tarquin who is referred to in the third line of the poem, but his son, Tarquinius Sextus, the heir to the throne

The Roainst the Volscians, a tribe who occupied territory just south of Roe to Ardea, one of the Volscian cities, just twenty e that Tarquin Sextus is hurrying

Lucrece the chaste

The incident Shakespeare is about to relate is to be found in the first book of the History of Ro people), and also in the Fasti (Annals), written by Shakespeare's favorite ancient writer, Ovid

Despite the fact that the incident is taken from ancient writers, it is not at all likely that it is historically accurate In 390 bc, a little over a century after the time of Tarquin, Rome was taken and sacked by the barbarian Gauls and the historical records were destroyed All of Roends based on uncertain kernels of fact

The legends narrated by Livy and others were, however, accepted as sober fact right down to modern times, and certainly Shakespeare accepted this tale as such He goes on for the remainder of the first verse to tell the reason for the prince's haste:

And to Collatiun bears the lightless fire

Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire

And girdle with e flames the waist

Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste

- lines 4-6

Prince Tarquin has a cousin, also named Tarquin, whose estates are near Collatia (which Shakespeare calls "Collatium"), a small town ten miles east of Rome He was therefore Tarquin of Collatia, or in Latin: Tarquinius Collatinus In order to distinguish hi, and from Tarquinius Sextus, the prince, he lish, Collatine

At the siege of Ardea (and a siege is usually a boring occupation) the Ro their wives, each boasting of the virtue and chastity of his own This is the sort of thing one would scarcely think men would seriously do, yet it is common in ro of part of the action in Cye II-58), for instance

In fact, the unreal romanticism of this discussion is part of what causes historians to suspect the account of the Rape of Lucrece to be a fable It is very likely a tale n to account for the establishin with, later taken as sober history

But, history or fiction, this is the tale Of the Ro the chastity and sobriety of his wife, Lucretia, a name of which Lucrece is a shortened version

It caer eventually, and the Roht dash ho so, they found that all the wives but Lucrece were having a good ti Lucrece, however, was at hoed in the housewifely task of spu

Collatine had won his wager, but in a deeper sense, he had lost, for Prince Tarquin, having seen Lucrece's beauty and chastity, conceived a powerful desire to make love to her Once all the aristocrats were back at the siege, he left again, this tiratify that desire

had Narcissus seen her

Tarquin is not at ease He is not an utterly abandoned villain and he feels the guilt and disgrace of the reprehensible thing he is doing-yet he cannot help hiuest and Lucrece asks for news of her husband Tarquinher husband ell

she smiled with so sweet a cheer

That, had Narcissus seen her as she stood,

Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood

- lines 264-66

Narcissus is the youngto kiss his reflection in water (see page I-10)

a cockatrice' dead-killing eye

When night comes, Prince Tarquin invades Lucrece's bedroom and tells her that if she will not yield, he will take her anyway and kill a slave, whom he will accuse as her lover The situation paralyzes Lucrece with horror, which the poe:

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye

He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;

- lines 540-4l

Tarquin's words have the effect on her that a cockatrice's eye would have The legendary cockatrice, the infinitely poisonous snake, kills with a e I-150)

A similar metaphor from the other direction is then used:

So his unhallowed haste her words delays,

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays

- lines 552-53

The reference is to Orpheus' descent into the underworld to win back his wife Eurydice (see page I-47) Hisof the underworld was made captive by beauty, so chaste Lucrece was paralyzed by evil

still-pining Tantalus

Tarquin rapes Lucrece, then hastens away,her behind, miserable and innocent

To Lucrece, all the world is now fit only for cursing There is no coood is wealth, for instance? The aged one, and cannot buy youth back with his gold:

But like still-pining Tantalus he sits

And useless barns the harvest of his wits,

- lines 858-59

Tantalus is always the very personification of punishe I-13)

Fortune's wheel

Nor does time heal matters in her now utterly pessi to

turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel

- line 952

Fortune (Tyche), an ie I-135), was often pictured with a turning wheel That represented the manner in which men's fortunes rose and fell in indifferent alternation

la Philomele

One thing she deterht not iine his desecrated wife to be whole, and so that Tarquin norance This conclusion brings her solace and she ends her wailing for a while:

By this, la Philomele had ended

This well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow,

- lines 1079-80

Philo woman in the Greek one an even crueler rape than that of Lucrece, and as eventually turned into a nightingale which nightly sang the sad song of her ale" and is frequently used in this way by Shakespeare

Indeed, Shakespeare used this particular e I-405), which ritten shortly before The Rape of Lucrece

The rapist in Philo named Tereus, and Lucrece sees the coines before her:

For burthen-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,

While thou on Tereus descants better skill;