from The Rape of Lucretia

Rembrandt van Rijn

Lucretia

Titian

Tarquin and Lucretia

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Lucretia

from
The Rape of Lucretia

…..
'Lucrece,' quoth he, 'this night I must enjoy thee:

If thou deny, then force must work my way,

For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee:

That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay,

To kill thine honour with thy life's decay;

And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,

Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

'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 rimes,

And sung by children in succeeding times.
…….
…….
'Yet die I will not till my Collatine

Have heard the cause of my untimely death;

That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,

Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.

My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,

Which by him tainted, shall for him be spent,

And as his due writ in my testament.

'Mine honour I'll bequeath unto the knife

That wounds my body so dishonoured.

'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;

The one will live, the other being dead:

So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;

For in my death I murder shameful scorn:

My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.

'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,

What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?

My resolution, love, shall be thy boast,

By whose example thou reveng'd mayst be.

~ William Shakespeare ~

Peter Quince at the Clavier

Franz von Stuck

Susannah Bathing

Guido Reni

Susannah and the Elders

Peter Quince at the Clavier

I
Just as my fingers on these keys

Make music, so the self-same sounds

On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;

And thus it is that what I feel,

Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,

Is music. It is like the strain

Waked in the elders by Susanna;
Of a green evening, clear and warm,

She bathed in her still garden, while

The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
The basses of their beings throb

In witching chords, and their thin blood

Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

Johann Carl Loth

Susannah and the Elders

Guido Cagnacci

Susanna and the Elders

II
In the green water, clear and warm,

Susanna lay.

She searched

The touch of springs,

And found

Concealed imaginings.

She sighed,

For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood

In the cool

Of spent emotions.

She felt, among the leaves,

The dew

Of old devotions.
She walked upon the grass,

Still quavering.

The winds were like her maids,

On timid feet,

Fetching her woven scarves,

Yet wavering.
A breath upon her hand

Muted the night.

She turned --

A cymbal crashed,

Amid roaring horns.

Artemisia Gentileschi
Susannah and the Elders

Antón van Dyck
Susannah and the Elders

Theodore Chasseriau

Suzanne au Bain

III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,

Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried

Against the elders by her side;
And as they whispered, the refrain

Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame

Revealed Susanna and her shame.
And then, the simpering Byzantines

Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

Felix Vallotton

Chaste Suzanne

Jean-Jacques Henner

The Chaste Susannah

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind --

The fitful tracing of a portal;

But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.

So evenings die, in their green going,

A wave, interminably flowing.

So gardens die, their meek breath scenting

The cowl of winter, done repenting.

So maidens die, to the auroral

Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings

Of those white elders; but, escaping,

Left only Death's ironic scraping.

Now, in its immortality, it plays

On the clear viol of her memory,

And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

~ Wallace Stevens ~