Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,1
And gazeth on her yet unstainéd bed.
The curtains being close, about he walks,
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:
By their high treason is his heart misled ;
Which gives the watchword to his hand full soon,
To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.
Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;
Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun
To wink, being blinded with a greater light:
Whether it is that she reflects so bright,
That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;
But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.
O, had they in that darksome prison died,
Then had they seen the period of their ill!
Then Collatine again by Lucrece' side
In his clear bed might have reposéd still:
But they must ope, this blessed league to kill;
1 Stalks. Malone says, "That the poet meant by the word stalk to convey the notion, not of a boisterous, but quiet movement, appears from a subsequent passage :—
For in the dreadful dark of deep midnight
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature.'"
Malone appears from a subsequent part of his note to confound stalk with stride. He says, "A person apprehensive of being discovered naturally takes long steps, the sooner to arrive at his point." But long steps are noisy steps; and therefore " Tarquin's ravishing strides cannot be the true reading of the famous passage in Macbeth. But stalk, on the contrary, literally means, to go warily or softly. It is the Anglo-Saxon stælcan-pedetentim ire. The fowler who creeps upon the birds stalks, and his stalking-horse derives its name from the character of the fowler's
And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight
Must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight.
Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
Who therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
Between whose hills her head entombéd is :
Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
To be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes.
Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Showed like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light,
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.
Her hair, like golden threads, played with her breath;
O modest wantons! wanton modesty!
Showing life's triumph in the map of death,
And death's dim look in life's mortality:
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify
As if between them twain there were no strife,
But that life lived in death, and death in life.
Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,
A pair of maiden worlds unconqueréd,
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,
And him by oath they truly honoréd.
These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred:
Who, like a foul usurper, went about
From this fair throne to heave the owner out.
What could he see but mightily he noted?
What did he note but strongly he desired?
What he beheld on that he firmly doted,
And in his will his wilful eye he tired.'
With more than admiration he admired
Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.
As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,
Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
So o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
His rage of lust by gazing qualified;
Slacked, not suppressed; for standing by her side,
His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins :
And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
Obdurate vassals, fell exploits effecting,
In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
Nor children's tears, nor mother's groans respecting,
Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting:
Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,
Gives the hot charge, and bids them do their liking.
His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
His eye commends the leading to his hand;
His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
Smoking with pride, marched on to make his stand
On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale. Left their round turrets destitute and pale.
1 Tired, satiated, glutted as a falcon tires on his prey.
They, mustering to the quiet cabinet
Where their dear governess and lady lies,
Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
And fright her with confusion of their cries:
She, much amazed, breaks ope her locked-up eyes,
Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
Are by his flaming torch dimmed and controlled.
Imagine her as one in dead of night
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
Whose grim aspéct sets every joint a shaking;
What terror 'tis! but she, in worser taking,
From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
The sight which makes supposéd terror true.
Wrapped and confounded in a thousand fears,
Like to a new-killed bird she trembling lies
She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:
Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries:
Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights
His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,
(Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall !)
May feel her heart, poor citizen, distressed,
Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
Beating her bulk,' that his hand shakes withal.
1 Bulk, the body, the whole mass. Johnson, however, defines
the word as the breast, or largest part of a man; deriving it from
the Dutch bulcke. A passage in Hamlet employs the word in the
same way as in the text before us:
“He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk."
This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,
To make the breach, and enter this sweet city.
First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin
To sound a parley to his heartless foe,
Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
The reason of this rash alarm to know,
Which he by dumb demeanor seeks to show;
But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
Under what color he commits this ill.
Thus he replies: "The color in thy face
(That even for anger makes the lily pale,
And the red rose blush at her own disgrace)
Shall plead for me, and tell my loving tale:
Under that color am I come to scale
Thy never-conquered fort; the fault is thine,
For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.
"Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:
Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,
Where thou with patience must my will abide,
My will that marks thee for my earth's delight,
Which I to conquer sought with all my might;
But as reproof and reason beat it dead,
By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.
"I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
I know what thorns the growing rose defends:
I think the honey guarded with a sting:
All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends:
But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends;
Turbervile, who preceded Shakspeare about twenty years, has this line:
"My liver leapt within my bulk."
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