Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger, 9 By this starts Collatine as from a dream, Till manly shame bids him possess his breath, The deep vexation of his inward soul Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain, Then, son and father weep with equal strife, The one doth call her his, the other his, Yet neither may possess the claim they lay. Oh! quoth Lucretius, I did give that life, SO THICK Come in his poor heart's aid,] "So thick" is with such rapidity. See Vol. iii. p. 457, and Vol. iv. p. 531. Woe, woe! quoth Collatine, she was my wife, Answer'd their cries, "my daughter and my wife." Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side, Began to clothe his wit in state and pride, For sportive words, and uttering foolish things: But now he throws that shallow habit by, Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe? Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds? For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds? Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart. To rouse our Roman gods with invocations, That they will suffer these abominations, Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced, Now, by the Capitol that we adore, And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained, By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store, I ow'D her,] i. e. "I own'd her," as in innumerable other places. By all our country rights in Rome maintained, This said, he struck his hand upon his breast, Who, wondering at him, did his words allow: When they had sworn to this advised doom 2 The Romans PLAUSIBLY did give consent] In Shakespeare's time, "plausibly" was generally used in the sense of received with applause. The poet says the same thing in other words in the argument at the commencement :-" Wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent and general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled," &c. FINIS. "Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted. At London are to be solde by William Aspley. By G. Eld for T. T. and 1609." 4to. 40 leaves. "A Louers complaint. By William Shake-speare," occupies eleven pages at the end of this volume. Some copies of "Shakespeare's Sonnets" have the following imprint: "At London By G. Eld for T. T. and are to be solde by Iohn Wright, dwelling at Christ Church gate. 1609." One of these, with the date, as now appears, cut off by the binder, was presented to the Bodleian Library by the late Mr. Caldecot; and another, in every respect complete, was lately discovered in Germany: a third copy with this peculiarity is in the British Museum, but the catalogue does not denote it. It seems probable that certain booksellers, who in the time of Shakespeare took copies of the volume for sale, had their own names and addresses placed at the bottom of the title-page. Such was sometimes the case with other works. |