Page 2324 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance, [1595]
Met far frome home, wond’ring each other’s chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: «What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befall’n, that thou dost trembling stand?

Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent? [1600]
Why art thou thus attir’d in discontent?
Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,

And tell thy grief, that we may give redress».

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,

Ere once she can discharge one word of woe. [1605]
At length address’d to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know

Her honour is ta’en prisoner by the foe;
While Collatine and his consorted lords
With sad attention long to hear her words. [1610]

And now this pale swan in her wat’ry nest
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending:

«Few words», quoth she, «shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending.
In me moe woes than words are now depending; [1615]
And my laments would be drawn out too long,

To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.

«Then be this all the task is hath to say:
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay [1620]
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;

And what wrong else may be imagined
By foul enforcement might be done to me,
From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.

«For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight, [1625]
With shining falchion in my chamber came