Page 2319 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Stood many Trojan mothers sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
And to their hope they such odd action yield
That through their light joy seemed to appear,

Like bright things stain’d, a kind of heavy fear. [1435]

And from the strond of Dardan where they fought,
To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought

With swelling ridges, and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and than [1440]
Retire again, till meeting greater ranks
They join, and shoot their foam at Simois’ banks.

To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,

To find a face where all distress is stell’d.
Many she sees where cares have carved some, [1445]
But none where all distress and dolour dwell’d,
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,
Staring on Priam’s wounds with her old eyes,

Which bleeding under Pyrrhus’ proud foot lies.

In her the painter had anatomiz’d [1450]
Time’s ruin, beauty’s wrack, and grim care’s reign;
Her cheeks with chops and wrinkles were disguis’d:

Of what she was no semblance did remain.
Her blue blood chang’d to black in every vein,
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, [1455]
Show’d life imprison’d in a body dead.

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,

And shapes her sorrow to the beldam’s woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes; [1460]
The painter was no god to lend her those,

And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.