The Rape of Lucrece

Introduction

The Rape of Lucrece was published in 1594, at a time when Shakespeare was still building his reputation beyond the London stage.

Drawing on one of ancient Rome’s most influential legends, Shakespeare presents a solemn and deeply psychological narrative about power, virtue, and the devastating consequences of a single violent act. Unlike the playful energy that opens Venus and Adonis, this poem moves immediately into darker territory.

Tarquin’s growing desire, Lucrece’s unwavering innocence, and the political forces surrounding them build toward a tragedy whose effects ripple far beyond the walls of Collatium.

Because The Rape of Lucrece spans 1,800 lines and shifts between introspection, moral debate, and dramatic action, the poem is divided here into narrative sections to help guide modern readers through its emotional turns. The headings are editorial additions for readability, but Shakespeare’s original text is preserved in full.

Full Poem: The Rape of Lucrece

Here is the complete text of The Rape of Lucrece, presented with narrative section headings to make this long work easier to navigate. Shakespeare’s original lines are preserved in full.

Section 1: Tarquin’s Desire Awakens

Lines 1–180

From the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathing Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
And girdle with embracing flames the waist
Of Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhapp’ly set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph’d in that sky of his delight,
Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven’s beauties,
Show’d forth their pride in his celestial face.

But she, that never cop’d with stranger eyes,
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
Nor read the subtle shining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margents of such books;
She touch’d no unknown baits, nor fear’d no hooks;
Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
More than his eyes were opened to the light.

He stories to her ears her husband’s fame,
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
And decks with praises Collatine’s high name,
Made glorious by his manly chivalry,
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:
Her joy with heaved-up hand she doth express,
And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.

Far from the purpose of his coming thither,
He makes excuses for his being there:
No cloudy show of stormy blust’ring weather
Doth in his looks appear; he doth prepare
For some hard message, and his eyes declare
A sad beginning of what he would speak;
Yet oft they saw his tongue to keep it weak.

And knowing Lucrece’ constancy,
He frames his wanton line upon her beautie;
He lays siege to the fort of chastity
With batter’d thoughts, that weakly aim at dutie;
What needed then apology or sute?
His lust by cunning works his own confusion,
And she, too noble for a faint conclusion.

O modest Lucrece! let not thy simple heart
Be haunted by the ghost of Tarquin’s guilt;
Though thy chaste breast be pearl of purest part,
Yet must thou bear the burden he hath built.
Shame folded up in blind concealing night
Becomes not thy fair presence nor delight.

Thus graceless Tarquin, in pursuit of sin,
Begins to climb the castle of her thought;
He thinks in time the cross he shall win
Wherein his vile intent hath hidden fought;
But she, lowly lady, fearfully denieth,
Fearing more the shame than death itself defyeth.

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour, which dishonour doth destroy;
And who doth not resist temptation’s strife
Loses that grace that keeps the world in joy.
So Lucrece fights, although she knows it not,
And Tarquin thrives in mischief’s subtle plot.

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 entombed is,
Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
To be admir’d of lewd unhallowed eyes.

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show’d like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat resembling dew of night.
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light
And, canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.

Her husband’s pillow next her head she laid;
Down wherein she often hath cast her eye
And, knowing Tarquin’s unchaste lust betray’d,
She felt her innocent thoughts begin to fly;
Yet still she slept, and in her slumber sigh’d,
As if she dream’d of some despiteful deed
That shamed her cheeks with blushing, as she lay in bed.

---

Section 2: Tarquin Rides to Collatium

Lines 181–330

About this hour Lucrece arose again,
And, after many a weary sigh and groan,
Fetcht from the bottom of her heart’s deep pain,
Their speaking silence into tears was blown;
She kiss’d the sheets, and in them found her joy;
And laid them up, the relics of her lord,
Thinking in them the better to employ.

And now this lustful lord leapt from his bed,
Throwing his mantle rudely o’er his arm;
And being troubled in his guilty head
He shakes aloft the bright pursuing charm,
To find a way to Lucrece’ chaste delight,
Whose body, sleeping, was his heart’s despite.

His conscious eyes, that still kept watchful guard,
Look’d at each passage for the coming day;
He was so weary of his inward jar,
And long’d to steal the sweetness of her play;
But still the night, that long’d to hide his ill,
Kept time with him till he might have his will.

Thus, in black thoughts, he broods upon his sin,
And smiles to think how many may be won
By shedding tears, or showing seeming grief,
Or by smooth words, or honest vows begun;
But all too soon he finds these arts are vain,
For still his purpose doth grow ripe again.

His horse, fair creature, was his only friend,
Whom he spurr’d on with eager, hot desire;
His hoofs do trample on the frost and rend
The silent ground with thunder, smoke, and fire;
Crossing the darkness where the watch-fires glow,
And nightly sentinels keep pacing slow.

He gallops near the silent Collatium walls,
Where no disturbing sound his ear offends;
The household slumbers, and the quiet falls
Upon the court that every door defends;
Only his steed, like some unmuzzled bear,
Breaks from his stall, and shakes the trembling air.

Now is he come unto the chamber-door
That shuts him from the heaven of his thought;
Wherein he knows Lucrece lies sleeping sore,
Her beauty guarded, and her honour bought
By law and custom, strong in every part,
Save in his lustful eye and traitor heart.

Thus he goes on, stirring up the heat
That gives a form and pressure to his crime;
Making the night with fervent thoughts replete,
And justifying wrong in reason’s time;
Till his own weak-built reasons make him strong
Enough to bear the weight of blackest wrong.

O, shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
O, foul dishonour to my household name!
O, treason of the blood against the charms
Of hospitality and gentle fame!
O, sin conceived of an unholy sire!
O, impious act of a defiled desire!

These exclamations, yet fraught with his guilt,
Still serve as prefaces unto his deed;
Yet through them runs the thread that he hath spilt,
To justify the cause of such foul seed;
For still his eye is bent on Lucrece’ bed,
And still his heart, with horror’s load, is led.

The locks between her chamber and his will,
That for their master’s gain my serve their turn,
Do now obey a thief, and let him still
The door slide open, while the candles burn;
He steals into the quiet of her peace,
And finds his lustful thoughts have found release.

---

Section 3: The Guest Becomes a Threat

Lines 331–490

The threshold grates the door to have him heard;
Night-wand’ring weasels shriek to see him there;
The cocks, his early neighbours, leave their beds
To crow and warn him of approaching fear;
The very locks cry out upon his crime,
And bolt and bar reveal his secret time.

Now with a faint, weak hand, and unrecover’d,
He stems the tide of fear and guilt so great;
And bending all his pow’rs, by passion cover’d,
He creeps into her chamber, fair and neat;
Where she lay fearing, trembling at her dream,
Which told her truth, and now doth louder seem.

He silently into her chamber steals,
And in her bosom breathes his baleful spite;
Her hand that yet defends her from his feels,
He takes away, and in her face doth write
The story of his grief, and his intent,
Which now too late she sees, and must lament.

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 entombed is,
Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
To be admir’d of lewd unhallowed eyes.

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show’d like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat resembling dew of night.
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light
And, canopied in darkness, sweetly lay
Till they might open to adorn the day.

Her husband’s pillow next her hand she laid;
Down wherein she often hath cast her eye,
And, knowing Tarquin’s unchaste lust betray’d,
She felt her innocent thoughts begin to fly;
Yet still she slept, and in her slumber sigh’d,
As if she dream’d of some despiteful deed
That shamed her cheeks with blushing as she lay in bed.

Her thoughts, through fancy’s glass, perceived deceit;
For from the sage and wrench of her fair bed
Her breath was drawn in short, sharp hasty heat,
As if it were the herald of her dread;
And in this mist was Tarquin’s shadow seen,
Which through her senses stole, and was unseen.

But as they open, swell’d with sudden fright,
Her pure and fresh complexion she displays;
She sees the villain’s face, but not the night
That blots the stars and dims the golden rays.
His eye, the engine of his lustful skill,
Did peer upon her with a greedy will.

Her quivering lips, by instinct of the heart,
Rise up and tremble at his dread approach;
Her spotless mind, full of affright and smart,
Calls him a traitor with an eager reproach.
Her tears, like pearls, fall one by one so fast,
He gathers them to dote on their sweet taste.

“O night,” quoth she, “why art thou so unkind,
To aid the dark intent of Tarquin’s mind?
Why dost thou lend thy gloom to hide his sin,
And leave me to the mercy of his grin?
O hateful night, thou dost my ruin frame,
While he, most vile, doth triumph in my shame.”

But all in vain her words to darkness fly;
The night hears nothing of her trembling cry.
His hand she feels upon her snow-white chest,
And in that touch her fate doth stand confest;
For now no help nor rescue can she make,
But in her grief her wounded soul must quake.

In vain she speaks, in vain she lifts her arm,
In vain her virtue pleads for further harm;
For Tarquin’s heart is steel’d with hot desire,
And in his breast there burns unlawful fire.
Her cries, her tears, her prayers he doth despise—
Too far gone now to hear her weeping cries.

---

Section 4: The Assault

Lines 491–610

The wolf hath seiz’d his prey, the poor lamb cries;
Till with her own white fleece her voice controll’d
Entombs her outcry in her lips and eyes,
Forc’d speechless by the ire of him she holds.
This helpless smoke of words doth flame from her,
Which, in the very moment, he doth stir.

She hath no power to bless or to resist,
But like a statue lies in hot distress;
For fear so voids his force that she must list
To suffer what she cannot well redress.
O, that her victory were as her grief,
Then should her tears have hopeless shame’s relief!

Her tender body in such peril lies
That it doth give his lust a peopled throne;
Her sad behaviour feeds his furious eyes,
And he, like tyrants, may be often shown
Devouring beauty where no beauty’s known,
And in that act he fears not law nor fate,
Since all his power is shielded by estate.

He calls her love, he calls her “dear delight,”
And plainly speaks though all his ‘haviour’s rough,
That she could stop his mouth with just despite,
Or shame him with a tear, would she speak enough.
But all too little of that voice she brings,
For sorrow keeps her tongue from utter’d things.

“O night,” quoth she, “why art thou dark and dreary?
Why do thy shadows cloak a villain’s deed?
Why dost thou lend thy peace to make me weary
And help the wicked sow this cursed seed?
How canst thou sleep while I am forc’d to wake,
Held in his grasp, too faint a stand to make?”

Her pleading words, her sighs, her trembling breath
Might move a heart of iron to relent;
But Tarquin’s heart is steel’d, and knows no death
Save that which ends the crime on which he’s bent.
His conscience, like a poisonous adder, lies
Sleeping, till wrongs do make it wake and rise.

Now he commits his crime’s extremest reach,
And where he should relent, he bends the more;
She prays, she weeps, she cries with broken speech,
But all in vain, for he hath shut the door
Of mercy with his hand, and lets no sound
Pierce through the night to make his heart unbound.

Her little resistance and her great distress
Cry to his soul, yet all are cries unheard.
He takes her patience for consentingness,
And makes the ruin of her honour stirr’d.
Her inward soul with fear doth faint and start,
And from her cheeks her blood leaps to her heart.

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence,
And she like a distress’d and weary creature
Falls on her bed in stormy violence,
Whose waters overflow her faultless feature.
Her eyes, like marigolds, unfold their face
To weep the sorrow of her forced disgrace.

Her bosom beats with unforgiving blows,
Her nails scratch anger on her tender skin;
Her hair she tears, her garments down she throws,
And in such rage no comfort can begin.
She hates herself, though guiltless of her shame,
And calls upon the gods to curse his name.

Then, like a fair flower smitten by a storm,
She droops, and all her sweetness is decay’d;
Her modesty lies spoil’d, no virtue warm
Can raise again the honour he betray’d.
O grief beyond all grief! O cursed night
That hid thee, Tarquin, from the world’s just sight!

---

Section 5: Lucrece’s Grief and Self-Blame

Lines 611–780

She says, her husband’s name, which love had taught her,
Proceeds from forth the chamber of her heart;
That name which all her thoughts have overwrought her,
That name whose reverence holds her soul apart.
She calls on Collatine to ease her pain,
And in his name her soul is bruis’d again.

“O Collatine,” she cries, “thou wronged lord,
Thy Lucrece here hath lost the name of wife;
Am I the same whose beauty thou ador’d,
Whose chaste renown was valued next thy life?
O Collatine, the stain that I have borne
Is not my sin but Tarquin’s villainy sworn.”

Thus pours she forth her valves of pouring sorrow,
Which, like a deluge, threatens her relief;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms soon borrow
Their swelling rage from grief’s unmeasur’d grief;
Which stops her breath, and at her heart doth knock,
As life would leave her at that fatal shock.

She tears the senseless linen with her nails
Which, sleeping, she had kiss’d so often late;
The warm impression of her husband’s vales
She finds still fresh, yet stained now by fate.
“Here,” quoth she, “fell the shame that scars my blood,
Here Tarquin press’d, and here my honour stood.”

Her eyes, like broken crystals, overflow,
Her hands wring out their sorrows in despair;
Her lips, which once breath’d music soft and low,
Now shape the form of curses on the air.
And every tear she sheds, in bitterness,
Seems double weight for her enforced distress.

“For me,” she cries, “no music now shall play,
No joy shall walk within my sorrow’s room;
No comfort shall outface this woeful day,
For all my world is shadow’d by this gloom.
My life, my love, my soul, my honour’s pride
Lie slain within me, never to be tied.”

Thus she laments, and then begins anew
To meditate on death as her relief;
Her trembling soul, divided through and through,
Finds in self-slaughter remedy for grief.
“O death,” quoth she, “why art thou slow to come?
Release me from this stained, polluted doom!”

Her little son, who yet might know no ill,
She thinks upon, and sighs his tender name;
“Alas,” quoth she, “thy mother’s breast must spill,
Ere thou canst know the cause of all her shame.
Would that my tears could wash away this stain,
And leave thee clean of thy poor mother’s pain!”

Her husband’s image next her sorrow greets,
And in her thoughts she frames his grieving face;
She sees the woe that his poor heart entreats,
When she shall tell the tale of her disgrace.
“O Collatine,” she cries, “thine eyes will weep,
And all my wrongs upon thy breast will creep.”

Then turns she to the silent looms that stand,
Where once her household labours sweetly lay;
She touches them with cold and trembling hand,
And thinks how oft her joy had pass’d that way.
Now all is ruin’d, all is chang’d to care,
And nothing lives but grief within her air.

Her tears run on, her lamentations grow,
Her spotless mind is burden’d with foul fears;
She beats her breast, her wounded spirit’s throe
Breaks forth again in new distracted tears.
“O shame,” quoth she, “why dost thou dwell with me
Whose heart is pure from Tarquin’s villainy?”

---

Section 6: The Tapestry of Troy

Lines 781–1030

By this, she hears a murm’ring sound below,
And in her chamber soon her maid appears;
To whom she gives her sorrow leave to flow,
And bids her bring the work that, through her tears,
She once began with joyful, hopeful eyes;
A story wrought of Troy’s unhappy cries.

The crimson web of slaughter and of fame,
Where princes fall and captive maidens weep;
Where Hector’s worth and Paris’ wanton shame
Lie mix’d with tears that Priam’s house did steep;
This tapestry she spreads before her sight,
To find her grief reflected in their plight.

She marks how Sinon, with his false tongue’s art,
Beguiled the Trojans of their sure defence;
How fear and frenzy overcame their heart,
And open’d to the Greeks their citadel dense;
She reads the treason in that traitor’s face,
And sees in him the pattern of disgrace.

She views the strife where valiant Hector fell,
Where aged Priam bow’d beneath his fate;
She sees the flames that ravish’d tower and dell,
And hears the cries that fill’d the walls of late.
In every scene some sorrow she espies,
And in each sorrow sees her own arise.

“Lo here,” quoth she, “the traitor Sinon stands,
Whose perjur’d soul betray’d a royal host;
So Tarquin’s oath, made with polluted hands,
Hath brought my honour to eternal cost.
Both false in friendship, both in malice bold,
Both stain’d with sins that never shall be told.”

She finds in Hector’s tears her husband’s woe,
In Priam’s fall her father’s overthrow;
In Hecuba’s lament her own deep throe,
And in poor Andromache’s despairing show
The image of herself, undone and lost,
By one man’s lust, whose gain is all her cost.

“Here may I read,” quoth she, “the tale of wrong,
That fills my breast with anguish manifold;
Here may I see how sorrow waxeth strong,
And how grief’s picture in the heart is roll’d.
These ancient cries, these lamentable sights,
Are mirrors of my days and wretched nights.”

With weary eyes she scans the woven scene,
And every thread seems steep’d in blood like hers;
The Trojan mothers, frantic and unclean,
Seem to her soul like sorrow’s ministers.
She finds in them the story of her doom,
And sees in Troy the shadow of her tomb.

Then with a sigh she folds the work again,
And lays it by, as if it were her grave;
Her thoughts return unto her present pain,
And in her breast her silent sorrows rave.
No tapestry, though full of others’ woe,
Can ease the weight her wounded spirits know.

She calls again upon the powers above,
And for a moment steadies her despair;
For though her honour lies beneath his glove,
Her will remains, unstain’d and firm and fair.
Her mind resolves upon a course most grave,
To show her truth, her name, her soul to save.

---

Section 7: The Confession to Collatine and Her Father

Lines 1031–1300

Now is she resolv’d to tell her tale of woe,
And send for those whose lives her life commands;
Her message flies to Collatine below,
And to her sire, who near the threshold stands.
She bids them come, with haste and heavy heart,
For she must speak ere vital spirits depart.

The messenger, with tears in trembling eyes,
Runs through the house with sorrow at his back;
He calls aloud, and Collatine replies,
Amaz’d to hear such sudden words of lack.
Straight to her chamber both the kinsmen speed,
Where sits Lucrece, o’erwhelm’d with inward bleed.

Her father’s presence gives her spirits strength;
Her husband’s eye renews her faltering breath;
She bends before them both, and at the length
Prepares to speak the cause of her near death.
Her freshly bleeding cheeks, her heavy sighs,
Tell more than any speech beneath the skies.

“O father,” quoth she, “O my Collatine,
Whose name was once my comfort and my crown,
Behold thy Lucrece, stain’d without a sign
Of guilt in heart, though guilt on me is thrown.
My body’s soil is Tarquin’s cursed gain,
My soul’s unrest is free from any stain.”

Collatine stands as one new-struck with grief;
Her father’s trembling limbs can scarce sustain
The burden of such woe beyond relief,
For in her words they hear a deadly bane.
Yet both cry out, “Thy soul is clear from blame;
Thy wrong is Tarquin’s sin, his only shame!”

But she, with tears, denies their kind reply;
She wrings her hands, she beats her breast again;
“Alas,” quoth she, “that ever I must die,
And yet my name live tainted with this stain!
Though I am guiltless, guilt doth on me lie,
And death must cleanse that which no tears can dry.”

Then, kneeling low, she tells them every deed—
How Tarquin came, how night conceal’d his crime;
How all her prayers could give no force nor speed
To change his lust nor soften him in time.
Her sobs break up the sentence of her woe,
Yet through each pause the truth of wrong doth grow.

Her father groans as if his soul would burst;
Collatine’s tears run down his sorrow’d face;
Both curse the Tarquin name, as one accurst
Whose deeds have brought their house to such disgrace.
They vow revenge, they pledge their spirits’ might,
To blot the Tarquin lineage from Rome’s sight.

But she, more firm than all their wrathful cries,
Commands them cease and mark her final breath:
“My honour lives not where my body lies,
Nor shall my name outlive this shameful death.
I cannot live and keep my virtue whole—
This dagger shall restore my wounded soul.”

With that, she draws the steel from where it hung,
And to her heart she sets the fatal point;
Her trembling hand, though weak, grows fierce and young,
As if her soul her sinews did anoint.
And crying, “Lo, my blood for my disgrace!”
She stabs herself in that same guilty place.

Her father shrieks, her husband stands aghast,
And to her side they spring with frantic haste;
But life already from her breast hath pass’d,
And in her wound their tears and cries are cast.
Her spirit flies, yet leaves behind such power
As makes her death the seed of Rome’s new hour.

---

Section 8: Lucrece’s Suicide

Lines 1301–1500

And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
The murd’rous knife, and, as it left the place,
Her blood, in poor revenge, held striving new
To blush and beautify her wounded face.
And by-and-by a dumb dead stare she lays,
Which once again her husband’s sorrow sways.

Her lifeless body, like a pale sweet flower
New-cropp’d, whose leaves her tender stalk betray,
Falls in their arms, made faint through Tarquin’s power,
And on her breast her snowy garment lay.
Her father, weeping, wipes the deadly stain,
While Collatine doth call her back again.

“O Lucrece,” cries he, “my once-honour’d wife,
My soul’s delight, the treasure of my hope,
What ruthless hand hath stolen away thy life,
And left me in this wilderness to grope?
What cursed star hath cross’d thy fate and mine,
That both our joys lie murder’d in thy shrine?”

Her father, too, with trembling hands uprears
Her cold, cold face to kiss its marble snow;
For every wrinkle that he sees appears
A score of death that makes his bosom glow.
He beats his breast, he tears his silver hair,
And fills the chamber with a father’s prayer.

Then Brutus, who till now had hid his grief,
Stood forth, and from his breast a sigh did rise
That shook the room, and offer’d some relief
To those who marked the fire within his eyes.
His silence broke, he vow’d with lifted hand,
“No Tarquin shall again pollute this land!”

“O Romans,” quoth he, “see what monstrous deed
Hath stain’d your peace and marr’d this noble house!
What shame hath Tarquin spawn’d, what tyrant’s seed
Hath grown beneath your sufferance allow’d?
This dead Lucrece shall rouse your sleeping might,
And give your swords the justice of the night.”

Thus from her blood he draws a burning oath
That all shall swear to drive the Tarquins thence;
The father weeps, the husband stamps his loath,
While Brutus fans the flame of their offence.
“By this chaste blood,” quoth he, “we swear and vow
T’avenge her death and break her murderer’s brow!”

They lift her body, borne with many tears,
And to the marketplace they bear her straight;
The Roman people, wonder-struck with fears,
Gather in throngs to hear of her estate.
The sight of Lucrece, pale as winter’s breath,
Calls forth their wrath and steels their hearts to death.

Then Brutus speaks: “Not Tarquin’s sword alone
Hath slain this noble lady of our land;
’Twas your obedience that upheld his throne,
Your patient bearing of his guilty hand.
Awake, O Rome! Awake from slavish sleep,
And let this blood a crimson harvest reap!”

With that, the cries of vengeance fill the air,
And swords are drawn as if by nature’s wave;
The Tarquins flee, o’erwhelm’d with deep despair,
Nor dare they Rome’s avenging madness brave.
And from this act, by Lucrece’ death made strong,
Springs Rome’s new freedom from its ancient wrong.

---

Section 9: Brutus’s Outcry and the Fall of the Tarquins

Lines 1501–1855

The Romans all in council did conspire
To banish Tarquin and his hateful brood;
And with the heat of Brutus’ righteous ire,
They arm’d themselves in that revengeful mood.
The tyrant’s name became a scorned thing,
And liberty return’d on freedom’s wing.

Lucrece’ sad fate, like some eternal scar,
Was graven deep within the Roman breast;
And every groan that rose from near or far
Seem’d framed to curse the Tarquin’s guilty nest.
Her story, told from door to door again,
Made cowards brave and kindled hearts of men.

The matrons wept to hear her virtuous strife,
The fathers mourn’d the loss of such a maid;
The youths were stirr’d to guard a sister’s life,
And vow’d to keep pure honour unbetray’d.
All Rome became as if it mourn’d a queen,
So sore it grieved for what their eyes had seen.

Then Brutus, with the dagger drawn from her,
Held it aloft before the crowded square:
“This blood,” quoth he, “shall stain your hearts with stir,
Till all injustice from this land we tear.
By Lucrece’ wound we swear our liberty,
By her chaste spirit Rome at last stands free.”

The cries of thousands echo through the town,
Their lifted voices shake the very ground;
And Tarquin, trembling in his stolen crown,
Hears Rome awake with that avenging sound.
He hastes to flee, nor ever dares look back,
For freedom rises in his tyrant’s track.

Thus from the death of one chaste innocent
Burst forth a flame that cleans’d a kingdom’s wrong;
Her fall became a nation’s argument,
Her blood a trumpet of awakening song.
And from her wound a new republic grew,
Built on the vows her dying spirit drew.

The tale is told, and sorrow’s book is clos’d,
Her honour written in eternal fame;
Her body’s shame in death’s cold palm repos’d,
Her name made holy by a righteous flame.
And Tarquin’s brood, by justice’s sharp decree,
Lie banish’d from the land where they would be.

Thus ends her story and begins Rome’s own,
A tale of grief that bloom’d in freedom’s flower;
Where one wrong’d wife, with dying breath and groan,
Gave liberty its first and fairest hour.
For by her fall the tyrant’s reign did cease,
And in her death her country found its peace.

*End of the Poem*

Originally published in 1594. Public domain.

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Analysis

Shakespeare turns a stark Roman legend into a powerful reflection on guilt, purity, and the shattering consequences of violated trust.

The Rape of Lucrece is one of Shakespeare’s most psychologically intense works. Unlike Venus and Adonis, where comedy dissolves into tragedy, this poem is solemn from the beginning. The story of Tarquin’s assault on Lucrece was well-known from Livy and Ovid, but Shakespeare transforms it into a deeply human drama, focusing less on the political aftermath and more on the emotional devastation that precedes it.

Tarquin is portrayed with disturbing clarity. His soliloquies reveal a mind trapped between conscience and desire, fully aware of the wrong he intends yet determined to carry it out. Shakespeare exposes the self-justifying mechanisms of violent men: Tarquin believes his power entitles him to possession, and he reshapes morality to fit his lust. The poem shows that tyranny begins long before the act, in the quiet corruption of thought.

Lucrece, by contrast, is depicted with profound sympathy. Her grief is not passive. Shakespeare gives her space to think, rage, doubt, condemn herself unfairly, and attempt to make sense of a world that suddenly feels shattered. Her long meditation on the tapestry of Troy is one of the most remarkable psychological passages in Renaissance poetry. As she reads the woven tragedies of ancient figures, she sees her suffering mirrored everywhere, and art becomes a silent witness to her trauma.

Her decision to reveal Tarquin’s crime—and then take her own life—is framed not as surrender but as a final assertion of agency. In a society where a woman’s honour was tied to her chastity, Lucrece chooses the only path she believes will restore truth and expose injustice. Her death becomes a catalyst that transforms private wrong into public revolution. Brutus’s outcry connects her suffering to the moral decay of the monarchy, and Rome’s people rise to reclaim their freedom.

What makes the poem endure is its emotional intelligence. Shakespeare does not allow the assault to define Lucrece’s soul. Instead, he presents her clarity, moral strength, and internal struggle as central to the poem’s meaning. Tarquin’s violence is condemned not only by the characters but by the poem itself, which refuses to grant him complexity equal to hers. His power feels hollow; her grief reshapes a nation.

In the end, The Rape of Lucrece is about more than a crime. It is about how virtue can be weaponized by corrupt power, how trauma echoes through families and societies, and how the suffering of one woman becomes the spark that rewrites a nation’s destiny. Shakespeare gives Lucrece a voice strong enough to outlive her oppressor, turning her tragedy into Rome’s awakening.