The Rape of Lucrece Quotes

“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without orator.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“But no perfection is so absolute
That some inpurity doth not pollute.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“She smiled with so sweet a cheer
That had Narcissus seen her as she stood
Self-love had never drowned him in the flood”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so;
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
For one's offence why should so many fall,
To plague a private sin in general?”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“And my true eyes have never practis'd how

To cloak offences with a cunning brow”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason:
Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

'Thou makest the vestal violate her oath;
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast,
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.
How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?
The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds:
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:
Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

'When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:
They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“No man inveigh against the withered flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“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 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.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;. Sometime 'tis mad and too much talk affords.
William Shakespeare, 'The Rape of Lucrece'.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one we gage;
As life for honour in fell battles' rage;
Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
The death of all, and all together lost.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
And shapes her sorrow to the beldam's woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes:
The painter was no god to lend her those;
And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
To give her so much grief and not a tongue.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“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 willful eye he tired.
With more than admiration he admired
Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine:
And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine;
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:
Let fair humanity abhor the deed
That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.”
― william shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“The deep vexation of is inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
That no man could distinguish what he said.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“This forced league doth force a further strife.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies:
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“If ever man were moved with woman moans,
Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans:”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece