Page 2320 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

«Poor instrument», quoth she, «without a sound,
I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue, [1465]
And drop sweet balm in Priam’s painted wound,
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,

And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long,
And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies. [1470]

«Show me the strumpet that began this stir,

That with my nails her beauty I may tear!
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here, [1475]
And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,

The sire, the son, the dame and daughter die.

«Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe?
Let sin alone committed, light alone [1480]
Upon his head that hath transgressed so;

Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
For one’s offence why should so many fall,
To plague a private sin in general?

«Lo here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies, [1485]

Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds;
And one man’s lust these many lives confounds;

Had doting Priam check’d his son’s desire, [1490]
Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire».

Here feelingly she weeps Troy’s painted woes,
For sorrow, like a heavy hanging bell
Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;

Then little strength rings out the doleful knell. [1495]
So Lucrece set a-work, sad tales doth tell