The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to compose a "graver labour". Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece has a serious tone throughout.

The poem begins with a prose dedication addressed directly to the Earl of Southampton, which begins, "The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end." It refers to the poem as a pamphlet, which describes the form of its original publication of 1594.

The dedication is followed by "The Argument", a prose paragraph that summarizes the historical context of the poem, which begins in medias res.

The poem contains 1,855 lines, divided into 265 stanzas of seven lines each. The meter of each line is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is ABABBCC, a format known as "rhyme royal", which was used by Geoffrey Chaucer before Shakespeare and by John Milton and John Masefield after him.

Setting

The poem is set just before the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. The poem's locations are Rome, Ardea, twenty-four miles south of Rome, and Collatium, ten miles east of Rome.

Characters

Lucrece – An honorable woman

Collatine – Lucrece's husband, an officer in the Roman army

Tarquin (Sextus Tarquinius) – Son of king Lucius Tarquinius and an officer in the Roman army, who rapes Lucrece

Lucretius – Lucrece's father

Junius Brutus – Friend to Collatine and Lucretius

A Messenger

Lucius Tarquinius (Tarquin the Proud) – King of Rome and Tarquin's father

Servius Tullius – Father-in-law of Lucius Tarquinius

Publius Valerius – Friend of Collatine and Lucretius

Synopsis

One evening, in the town of Ardea, where a battle is being fought, two leading Roman soldiers, Tarquin and Collatine, are talking.