LUCRECE, her Aunt.

Before the second act there was heard a sweet noise of still pipes, which sounding, Lucrece entered, attended by a maiden of honour with a covered goddard of gold, and, drawing the curtains, she offereth unto Gismunda to taste thereof; which when she had done, the maid returned, and Lucrece raiseth up Gismunda from her bed, and then it followeth ut in act ii.

Before the second act there was heard a sweet noise of still pipes, which sounding, Lucrece entered, attended by a maiden of honour with a covered goddard of gold, and, drawing the curtains, she offereth unto Gismunda to taste thereof; which when she had done, the maid returned, and Lucrece raiseth up Gismunda from her bed, and then it followeth ut in act ii.

Before this act the hautboys sounded a lofty almain, and Cupid ushereth after him Guiscard and Gismunda, hand in hand; Julio and Lucrece, Renuchio and another maiden of honour.

FINIS ACTUS I. ACT II, SCENE 1. GISMUNDA AND LUCRECE.

[GISMUNDA departeth into her chamber, LUCRECE abiding on the stage.

Uncouple all our hounds; lords, to the chase Fair sister Lucre[ce], what's the news with you? LUCRECE.

Enjoys she not her health? Say, sister: ease me of this jealous fear? LUCRECE.

Resolve me; what afflicts my daughter so? LUCRECE.

[GISMUNDA and LUCRECE depart into GISMUNDA'S chamber.

ACT III., SCENE 2. LUCRECE cometh out of GISMUNDA'S chamber solitary.

After the song, which was by report very sweetly repeated by the Chorus, LUCRECE departeth into GISMUNDA'S chamber, and GUISCARD cometh out of the palace with JULIO and RENUCHIO, gentlemen, to whom he turneth, and saith: GUISCARD.

A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on The Rape of Lucrece: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris: But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.

The note on Lucrece was, I conjecture, on line 1111: 'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'

Witness his VENUS and ADONIS; his LUCRECE; his sugared Sonnets, among his private friends; &c. As PLAUTUS and SENECA are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins: so SHAKESPEARE among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.

The Rape of Lucrece, a Roman Tragedy, acted at the Red Bull, 1638.

Besides his plays, which are too well known to require listing, he wrote "Sonnets," "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece."

Nor was he deficient in tragic power, as the tremendous study for a Lucrece in the Uffizzi collection sufficiently proves.

There were love stories in verse, like Arthur Brooke's Romeo and Juliet (the source of Shakspere's tragedy), Marlowe's fragment, Hero and Leander, and Shakspere's Venus and Adonis, and Rape of Lucrece, the first of these on an Italian and the other three on classical subjects, though handled in any thing but a classical manner.

It is significant of his dramatic habit of mind that dialogue and soliloquy usurp the place of narration, and that, in the Rape of Lucrece especially, the poet lingers over the analysis of motives and feelings, instead of hastening on with the action, as Chaucer, or any born story-teller, would have done.

Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 5. 35-iii. 287, n. 2; Othello, ii. 1. 59-ii. 408; iii. 3. 165-v. 30, n. 3; iii. 3. 346-iii. 347, n. 3; v. 2. 345-v. 416, n. 1; Rape of Lucrece, l. IIII, iv.

Lucrece, by Emily Hahn.

Corneille was merciful, and in the fifth act bred in his 'Menteur' a new fancy for Lucrece, so that the marriage at cross purposes was rather agreeable to him.

Even at a very early age he endeavored to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Adonis and Lucrece.

He secured Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) and the first edition of the Rape of Lucrece for two guineas, and accounted half a crown a fair average price for quarto copies of Elizabethan plays.