The focus of my paper will be on how Brutus responds to the suicide of Lucrece in Shakespeare's poem, and trace possible influences. I am quite pleased to discover that while Augustine might be an important source for how Brutus couches his response, Gower and Chaucer are not, for, there is no mention in either of their accounts of Brutus speaking as he does in Shakespeare's poem, which means I can save time by not mentioning them. These are the writers I will be focussing on:
- Livy
- Ovid
- Augustine
- Machiavelli
- Shakespeare
In Shakespeare's Lucrece, I am chiefly interested in stanza 261:
Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds.
Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.
The Rape of Lucrece: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1505/pg1505-images.html
Gower on Lucrece
Hic narrat quod, cum Tarquinus in obsidione Ciuitatis Ardee, vt eam destrueret, intentus fuit, Arrons filius eius Romam secreto adiens in domo Collatini hospitatus est; vbi de nocte illam castissimam dominam Lucreciam ymaginata fraude vi oppressit: vnde illa pre dolore mortua, ipse cum Tarquino patre suo tota conclamante Roma in perpetuum exilium delegati sunt.
Thus be thei comen bothe tuo,
And Brutus cam with Collatin,
Which to Lucrece was cousin,
And in thei wenten alle thre
To chambre, wher thei myhten se
The wofulleste upon this Molde,
Which wepte as sche to water scholde.
The chambre Dore anon was stoke,
Er thei have oght unto hire spoke;
Thei sihe hire clothes al desguised,
And hou sche hath hirself despised,
Hire her hangende unkemd aboute,
Bot natheles sche gan to loute
And knele unto hire housebonde;
And he, which fain wolde understonde
The cause why sche ferde so,
With softe wordes axeth tho,
‘What mai you be, mi goode swete?’
And sche, which thoghte hirself unmete
And the lest worth of wommen alle,
Hire wofull chiere let doun falle
For schame and couthe unnethes loke.
And thei therof good hiede toke,
And preiden hire in alle weie
That sche ne spare forto seie
Unto hir frendes what hire eileth,
Why sche so sore hirself beweileth,
And what the sothe wolde mene.
And sche, which hath hire sorwes grene,
Hire wo to telle thanne assaieth,
Bot tendre schame hire word delaieth,
That sondri times as sche minte
To speke, upon the point sche stinte.
And thei hire bidden evere in on
To telle forth, and therupon,
Whan that sche sih sche moste nede,
Hire tale betwen schame and drede
Sche tolde, noght withoute peine.
And he, which wolde hire wo restreigne,
Hire housebonde, a sory man,
Conforteth hire al that he can,
And swor, and ek hire fader bothe,
That thei with hire be noght wrothe
Of that is don ayein hire wille;
And preiden hire to be stille,
For thei to hire have al foryive.
But sche, which thoghte noght to live,
Of hem wol no foryivenesse,
And seide, of thilke wickednesse
Which was unto hire bodi wroght,
Al were it so sche myhte it noght,
Nevere afterward the world ne schal
Reproeven hire; and forth withal,
Er eny man therof be war,
A naked swerd, the which sche bar
Withinne hire Mantel priveli,
Betwen hire hondes sodeinly
Sche tok, and thurgh hire herte it throng,
And fell to grounde, and evere among,
Whan that sche fell, so as sche myhte,
Hire clothes with hire hand sche rihte,
That noman dounward fro the kne
Scholde eny thing of hire se:
Thus lay this wif honestely,
Althogh she deide wofully.
Tho was no sorwe forto seke:
Hire housebonde, hire fader eke
Aswoune upon the bodi felle;
Ther mai no mannes tunge telle
In which anguisshe that thei were.
Bot Brutus, which was with hem there,
Toward himself his herte kepte,
And to Lucrece anon he lepte,
The blodi swerd and pulleth oute,
And swor the goddes al aboute
That he therof schal do vengance.
And sche tho made a contienance,
Hire dedlich yhe and ate laste
In thonkinge as it were up caste,
And so behield him in the wise,
Whil sche to loke mai suffise.
And Brutus with a manlich herte
Hire housebonde hath mad up sterte
Forth with hire fader ek also
In alle haste, and seide hem tho
That thei anon withoute lette
A Beere for the body fette;
Lucrece and therupon bledende
He leide, and so forth out criende
He goth into the Market place
Of Rome: and in a litel space
Thurgh cry the cite was assembled,
And every mannes herte is trembled,
Whan thei the sothe herde of the cas.
And therupon the conseil was
Take of the grete and of the smale,
And Brutus tolde hem al the tale;
And thus cam into remembrance
Of Senne the continuance,
Which Arrons hadde do tofore,
And ek, long time er he was bore,
Of that his fadre hadde do
The wrong cam into place tho;
So that the comun clamour tolde
The newe schame of Sennes olde.
And al the toun began to crie,
‘Awey, awey the tirannie
Of lecherie and covoitise!’
And ate laste in such a wise
The fader in the same while
Forth with his Sone thei exile,
And taken betre governance.
Bot yit an other remembrance
That rihtwisnesse and lecherie
Acorden noght in compaignie
With him that hath the lawe on honde,
That mai a man wel understonde,
As be a tale thou shalt wite,
Of olde ensample as it is write.
p.260-5012~
Gower, Vol III, Book vii: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71433/71433-h/71433-h.htm#Page_481
Chaucer, The Legend of Lucretia
Modern translation:
Her friends asked what trouble might
Be on her, who was dead? She, weeping,
For shame could not a word to air bring,
Nor their faces dared she to behold.
But of Tarquinius at last she told,
Her pitiful case, and this thing horrible.
The woe to tell of were impossible,
As she and all her friends made moan.
Even if folk’s hearts had been of stone,
It might have made them her trouble rue,
Her heart was so wifely and so true.
She said that to her guilt and blame
Her husband should not owe a foul name,
She would not suffer that in any way.
And they all answered by their faith
They forgave her all, for that was right;
Guilt was not hers: she’d lacked the might,
And told her of examples, many a one.
But all for naught; for thus she spoke anon:
‘Be that as it may, as regards forgiving;
I’ll not forgive myself for anything.’
Then secretly she brought forth a knife,
And therewith bereft herself of life.
And as she fell she looked down indeed,
And of her clothes yet she took heed;
For in her falling she yet had care
Lest her feet or any part lay bare,
So well did she love purity and truth.
For her all the town of Rome felt ruth,
And Brutus by her chaste blood he swore
That Tarquin should be banished evermore
And all his kin; the people he did call
And openly the tale he told them all
And had her carried openly on a bier
Through all the town, that men might see and hear
The terrible result of that oppression.
Nor ever was there king in Rome’s town
From that day; and she was thought of there
As a saint, and her saint’s day held dear,
By their law. And ended thus Lucretia,
The noble wife, as Livy does make clear.
I tell it because in love she was so true,
Nor of her own will did she change for new.
And for the constant heart, true and kind,
That men may ever in such women find;
Where they set their heart, there does it dwell.
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/GoodWomen.php#anchor_Toc186791816
See also: Louise Sylvester, Reading Narratives of Rape: The Story of Lucretia in Chaucer, Gower and Christine de Pizan: https://www.academia.edu/64566849/Reading_Narratives_of_Rape_The_Story_of_Lucretia_in_Chaucer_Gower_and_Christine_de_Pizan
Two kinds of pleasure are available to the reader: first, the pleasure of the consumption and interpretation of text, the erotic association of which is now well documented, and which was well understood in the medieval period. There is, secondly, the particular pleasure which may be afforded by the subject matter which is simultaneously sexual and violent.
Kathryn Gravdal's important book Ravishing Maidens set the agenda forreading representations of rape in medieval literary texts, in particular in its focus on the ways in which rape is 'troped' within the different genres she selects for study. The importance of troping in connection with the reception of rape in literary texts is emphasized by her definition of the term:
"By 'trope' I mean a literary device that presents an event in such a
way that it heightens figurative elements and manipulates the
reader's ordinary response by suspending or interrupting that
response in order to displace the reader's focus onto other formal
or thematic elements. The mimesis of rape is made tolerable
when the poet tropes it as moral, comic, heroic, spiritual, or
erotic." [Kathryn Gravdal]
Louise Sylvester pp,117-118
Augustine on Lucretia
It is worth reading the whole of this and defending Augustine against the claim of some that he "blamed the victim.":
https://faculty.washington.edu/miceal/lgw/lucretia/Augustine.html
See also: https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2023/08/augustine-city-god-first-culture-war-paul-krause.html
Augustine Quotes Virgil
In "The City of God," Augustine quotes the Roman poet Virgil. The lines are from Virgil's epic poem "Aeneid," Book VI, where Aeneas visits the underworld:
"Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,
And all for loathing of the day,
In madness threw their lives away."
And if she with the others wishes to return,
'Fate bars the way: around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,
And bind with ninefold chain."
Augustine uses this quote to illustrate points about despair, suicide, and the afterlife.