But she, that never cop'd with stranger eyes, Writ in the glassy margents of such books;" She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks; More than his eyes were open'd to the light. He stories to her ears her husband's fame, And decks with praises Collatine's high name, Her joy with heav'd-up hand she doth express, Far from the purpose of his coming thither, For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed, e With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night: Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight; And every one to rest himself betakes, Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wakes. As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining; And when great treasure is the meed propos'd, Those that much covet are with gain so fond, Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain, The aim of all is but to nurse the life As life for honour in fell battles' rage; Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost So that in vent'ring ill we leave to be The things we are, for that which we expect ; In having much, torments us with defect a This is the reading of the original edition of 1594. That of 1616 reads Malone adopts the reading of the original, and he thus explains it: "Poetically speaking, they may be said to scatter what they have not, i. e. what they cannot be truly said to have; what they do not enjoy, though possessed of it." This is clearly a misinterpretation. The reasoning of the two following stanzas is directed against the folly of venturing a certainty for an expectation, by which we" make something nothing." The meaning then, though obscurely expressed, is that the covetous are so fond of gaining what they have not, that they scatter and unloose from their bond (safe hold) that which they possess. Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make, And for himself himself he must forsake: Now stole upon the time the dead of night, The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still, And now this lustful lord leap'd from his bed, His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth, Here pale with fear he doth premeditate Confounds. Malone interprets this as destroys; but the meaning is sufficiently clear if we accept confounds in its usual sense. His naked armour of still-slaughter'd lust, "Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not Let fair humanity abhor the deed That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed." “O shame to knighthood and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my household's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! "Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive, Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,d That my posterity, sham'd with the note, a Weed-garment. The word is more commonly used in the plural, as in Milton's Paradise Regained :' "But now an aged man in rural weeds.” But in the same scene of Coriolanus' (Act II., Scene 3) we have both weed and weeds. d Here is one of the frequent examples with which the works of Shakspere and his contemporaries abound, of applying the usages of chivalry to the more remote antiquity of Greece and Rome. The poem of 'Lucrece' contains many such allusions. In particular, towards the close we have this line :: "Knights by their oaths should right poor ladies' harms." This was indeed an anticipation of chivalry; but the poet could in no way so forcibly express the spirit which animated the avengers of Lucrece, and which the injured lady here invokes, as by employing the language of chivalry. The use of the word ladies in this line is as much an anachronism as that of knights; but what other words will express the meaning intended? Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin "What win I if I gain the thing I seek? For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? "If Collatinus dream of my intent, Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage “O what excuse can my invention make, 66 Had Collatinus kill'd my son or sire, Or lain in ambush to betray my life, But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend, "Shameful it is;-ay, if the fact be known: Hateful it is: there is no hate in loving: I'll beg her love ;-but she is not her own;a * Malone says the words such as shameful it is are “supposed to be spoken by |