Sextus. Night, be as secret as thou art close, as close As thou art black and dark! thou ominous queen Of tenebrous silence, make this fatal hour As true to rape as thou hast made it kind To murder and harsh mischief! Cynthia, mask thy cheek, And, all you sparkling elemental fires, Choke up your beauties in prodigious fogs, Or be extinct in some thick vaporous clouds, Lest you behold my practice! I am bound Upon a black adventure, on a deed That must wound virtue, and make beauty bleed. Pause, Sextus, and, before thou runn’st thyself Into this violent danger, weigh thy sin. Thou art yet free, beloved, graced in the camp, Of great opinion[5.58] and undoubted hope, Rome’s darling, in the universal grace Both of the field and Senate, where these fortunes Do make thee great in both. Back! yet thy fame Is free from hazard, and thy style from shame. O Fate! thou hast usurped such power o’er man That where thou plead’st thy will no mortal can On then, black mischief! hurry me the way; Myself I must destroy, her life betray; The hate of king and subject, the displeasure Of prince and people, the revenge of noble, And the contempt of base, the incurred vengeance Of my wronged kinsman Collatine, the treason Against divinest Lucrece--all these total curses, Foreseen not feared, upon one Sextus meet, To make my days harsh--so this night be sweet! No jar of clock, no ominous hateful howl Of any starting hound, no horse-cough breathed from the entrails Of any drowsy groom, wakes this charmed silence And starts this general slumber. Forward still: To make thy lust live, all thy virtues kill. [_He draws a curtain;_ Lucrece _is discovered in bed_.] Here, here, behold! beneath these curtains lies That bright enchantress that hath dazed my eyes. Oh, who but Sextus could commit such waste On one so fair, so kind, so truly chaste? Or like a ravisher thus rudely stand, To offend this face, this brow, this lip, this hand? Or at such fatal hours these revels keep, With thought once to defile thy innocent sleep? Save in this breast, such thoughts could find no place, Or pay with treason her kind hospitable grace; But I am lust-burnt all, bent on what’s bad, That which should calm good thought makes Tarquin mad.-- Madam! Lucrece! Lucrece. Who’s that? O me! beshrew you! Sextus. Sweet, ’tis I. Lucrece. What I? Sextus. Make room. Lucrece. My husband Collatine? Sextus. Thy husband’s at the camp. Lucrece. Here is no place for any man save him. Sextus. Grant me that grace. Lucrece. What are you? Sextus. Tarquin, and thy friend, and must enjoy thee. Lucrece. Heaven such sins defend![5.59] Sextus. Why do you tremble, lady? cease this fear: I am alone; there’s no suspicious ear That can betray this deed: nay, start not, sweet.