Page 2295 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
And with the wind in greater fury fret;
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’ haste [650]

Add to his flow, but alter not his taste».

«Thou art», quoth she, «a sea, a sovereign king,
And lo there falls into thy boundless flood
Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,

Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood. [655]
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
Thy sea within a puddle’s womb is hearsed,
And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.

«So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave:

Thou nobly base, they basely dignified; [660]
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride.
The lesser thing should not the greater hide:
The cedar stoops not to the base shrub’s foot,

But low shrubs wither at the cedar’s root. [665]

«So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state» −
«No more», quoth he, «by heaven I will not hear thee.
Yield to my love: if not, enforced hate

Instead of love’s coy touch, shall rudely tear thee.
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee [670]
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
To be thy partner in this shameful doom».

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,

For light and lust are deadly enemies:
Shame folded up in blind concealing night, [675]
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seiz’d his prey, the poor lamb cries,

Till with her own white fleece her voice controll’d
Entombs her outcry in her lips’ sweet fold.