# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

14

Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus,
after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be
cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs,
not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had
possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons
and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege
the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of
Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after
supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among
whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife
Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they posted to Rome; and
intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of
that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds
his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her
maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or
in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus
the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus
Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering
his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the
camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and
was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by
Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth
into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the
morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight,
hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father,
another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one
accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius;
and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause
of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her
revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and
withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent
they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted
the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a
bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the
people were so moved, that with one consent and a general
acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state
government changed from kings to consuls.

2

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

171

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
Intending weariness with heavy spright;
For, after supper, long he questioned
With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:
Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;
And every one to rest themselves betake,
Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

3

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

374

But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;
He in the worst sense construes their denial:
The doors, the wind, the glove, that did delay him,
He takes for accidental things of trial;
Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,
Who with a lingering slay his course doth let,
Till every minute pays the hour his debt.

4

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

500

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 aspect sets every joint a-shaking;
What terror or 'tis! but she, in worser taking,
From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
The sight which makes supposed terror true.

5

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

570

'So thy surviving husband shall remain
The scornful mark of every open eye;
Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,
Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:
And thou, the author of their obloquy,
Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,
And sung by children in succeeding times.

6

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

801

'They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves behold;
And therefore would they still in darkness be,
To have their unseen sin remain untold;
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'

7

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1018

'Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,
With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:
Devise extremes beyond extremity,
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night:
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright;
And the dire thought of his committed evil
Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.

8

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1046

'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!
At his own shadow let the thief run mad,
Himself himself seek every hour to kill!
Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill;
For who so base would such an office have
As slanderous death's-man to so base a slave?

9

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1060

'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceived fly with the filth away;
But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day:
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
But eagles gazed upon with every eye.

10

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1137

Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping;
To whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,
Why pry'st thou through my window? leave thy peeping:
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
For day hath nought to do what's done by night.'

11

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1144

Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
True grief is fond and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees:
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,
With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

12

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1376

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;
For then eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion that it doth behold,
When every part a part of woe doth bear.
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

13

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1390

The homely villain court'sies to her low;
And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye
Receives the scroll without or yea or no,
And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
Imagine every eye beholds their blame;
For Lucrece thought he blush'd to her see shame:

14

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1501

In her the painter had anatomized
Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign:
Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised;
Of what she was no semblance did remain:
Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,
Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.

15

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1599

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds!
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds:
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy pity,
Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.

16

Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare

1788

And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side,
Who, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.
Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.