TARQUIN

and

LUCRE CE

To the Right Honourable

HENRY

WRIOTHESLY,

Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

Right Honourable,

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end: whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a fuperfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable difpofition, not the worth of my untutor❜d lines, makes it affured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty fhould fhew greater: mean time, as it is, it is bound to your lordship: to whom I wifh long life, fill lengthened with all happiness.

Your Lordship's in all duty,

Will. Shakespear.

The ARGUMENT.

Lucius Tarquinius (for his exceffive pride furnamed Superbus) after he had caufed his father-inlaw, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly murdered, and contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's fuffrages, had poffeffed himself of the kingdom; went, accompanied with his fons, and other noblemen of Rome, to befiege Ardea. During which fiege, the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's fon, in their discourses after fupper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom Colatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucrece. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their fecret and fudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched only Colatinus finds his wife (though it were late in the night) spinning amongst her maids, the other ladies were found all dancing and revelling, or in several difports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Colatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time, Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece's beauty, yet fmothering his paflion for the prefent, departed with the reft back to the camp; from whence he fhortly after privily withdrew herself, and was (according to his state) royally entertained, and lodged by Lucrece at Colatium. The fame night, he treacherously ftealing into her chamber, violently ravished her; and early in the morning speeded away. Lucrece, in

this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth meffengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp for Colatine. They came, the one accomnied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius: and finding Lucrece attired in a mourning habit, demanded the caufe of her forrow. She first taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole matter of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one confent, they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people with the doer, and manner of the vile deed; with a bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the people were fo moved, that with one confent, and a general acclamation, the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state-government changed, from kings to confuls.

TARQUIN and LUCRE CE.

ROM the befieg'd Ardea all in post,

FRO

Born by the truftlefs wings of falfe defire,
Luft-breathing Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Colatium bears the lightless fire,
Which in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire,

And girdle, with embracing flames, the wafte
Of Colatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chafte, unhaply fet
This baitlefs edge on his keen appetite :
When Colatine unwifely did not let,
To praise the clear unmatched red and white,
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight;

Where mortal ftar, as bright as heaven's beauties,
With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treafure of his happy ftate:
What prizeless wealth the heavens had him lent,
In the poffeffion of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at fo high a rate,

That kings might be efpoufed to more fame,
But king nor prince to fuch a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And if poffefs'd, as foon decay'd and done!
As is the morning's filver melting dew,

(

Against the golden fplendor of the fun;

A date expir'd and cancel'd ere begun.