Page 2315 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Much like a press of people at a door,
Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

At last she thus begins: «Thou worthy lord
Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
Health to thy person! next, vouchsafe t’afford − [1305]

If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see −
Some present speed to come and visit me.
So I commend me, from our house in grief;

My woes are tedious, though my words are brief».

Here folds she up the tenure of her woe, [1310]

Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.
By this short schedule Collatine may know
Her grief, but not her grief’s true quality;

She dares not thereof make discovery,
Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse, [1315]
Ere she with blood had stain’d her stain’d excuse.

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her,

When sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her [1320]
From that suspicion which the world might bear her:
To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter

With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,
For then the eye interprets to the ear [1325]
The heavy motion that it doth behold,
When every part a part of woe doth bear.

’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words. [1330]

Her letter now is seal’d, and on it writ
«At Ardea to my lord with more than haste».