O time, cease thou thy course, and last no longer, By this starts Collatine as from a dream, Till manly shame bids him possess his breath, The deep vexation of his inward soul That no man could distinguish what he said. 9 O time, cease thou thy course, and LAST no longer,] Thus the quarto. The octavo 1616 reads: haste no longer." which has been followed by all the modern editions. MALONE. And bids Lucretius GIVE HIS SORROW PLACE ;] So, Queen Margaret, in King Richard III. : "And let my griefs frown on the upper hand." STEEvens. 2 And then in KEY-COLD Lucrece' bleeding stream-] This epithet is frequently used by our author and his contemporaries. So, in King Kichard III. : "Poor key-cold figure of a holy king." MALONE. MALONE. Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain, Then son and father weep with equal strife, The one doth call her his, the other his, O, quoth Lucretius, I did give that life, 3 At last it RAINS, and busy WINDS GIVE O'ER] So, in Macbeth: "That tears shall drown the wind." Again, in Troilus and Cressida : STEEVENS. "Where are my tears?-rain, rain, to lay this wind." Again, in King Henry VI. Part III.: "Would'st have me weep? why now thou hast thy will: Again, in King John: "But this effusion of such manly drops, "This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul—." * O, quoth Lucretius, I did GIVE THAT LIFE, MALONE. Which SHE TOO EARLY and TOO LATE hath spill'd.] The same conceit occurs in the third part of King Henry VI. : "O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, "And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!" STEEVENS. "Which she too early and too late hath spill'd." Too late here means too recently. So, in King Richard III. : "Too late he died, that might have kept that title, I ow'd her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd, Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side, Began to clothe his wit in state and pride, But now he throws that shallow habit by, Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe1? Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds? Is it revenge to give thyself a blow, For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds? Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?] So, in Romeo and Juliet: "Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not To rouse our Roman gods with invocations, Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac'd, By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas'd. Now by the Capitol that we adore, And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd, By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd, This said, he struck his hand upon his breast, When they had sworn to this advised doom, They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence; To show her bleeding body thorough Rome, 5 That they will suffer these abominations, &c.] The construction is that they will suffer these abominations to be chased, &c. MALONE. And by chaste Lucrece' soul, that late COMPLAIN'D Her wrongs to us-] To complain was anciently used in an active sense, without an article subjoined to it. So, in Fairfax's translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, 1600: "Pale death our valiant leader hath oppress'd; * Who wondering at him, did his words ALLOW :] prove of what he said. So, in King Lear: Did ap And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence: 8 8 The Romans PLAUSIBLY] That is, with acclamations. To express the same meaning, we should now say, plausively: but the other was the phraseology of Shakspeare's age. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 1426, edit. 1605: "This change was very plausible or well pleasing to the nobility and gentry." Bullokar in his English Expositor, 8vo. 1616, interprets plausible thus: "That which greatly pleaseth, or rejoiceth." MALONE. Plausibly may mean, with expressions of applause. Plausibilis, Lat. Thus, in the Argument prefixed to this poem : wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent, and a general acclamation, the Tarquins were all exiled." STEEVENS. 9 To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.] In examining this and the preceding poem, we should do Shakspeare injustice, were we to try them by a comparison with more modern and polished productions, or with our present idea of poetical excellence. In It has been observed, that few authors rise much above the age in which they live. If their performances reach the standard of perfection established in their own time, or surpass somewhat the productions of their contemporaries, they seldom aim further; for if their readers are satisfied, it is not probable that they should be discontented. The poems of Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece, whatever opinion may be now entertained of them, were certainly much admired in Shakspeare's life-time. thirteen years after their first appearance, six impressions of each of them were printed, while in nearly the same period his Romeo and Juliet (one of his most popular plays) passed only twice through the press. They appear to me superior to any pieces of the same kind produced by Daniel or Drayton, the most celebrated writers in this species of narrative poetry that were then known. The applause bestowed on the Rosamond of the former author, which was published in 1592, gave birth, I imagine, to the present poem. The stanza is the same in both. No compositions were in that age oftener quoted, or more honourably mentioned, than these two of Shakspeare. In the preliminary and concluding notes on Venus and Adonis, various proofs of the truth of this assertion may be found. Among others, Drayton, in the first edition of his Matilda, has pronounced the following eulogium on the preceding poem: |