- cid
- bafkreia42lbcdt6saeayxvax4bk2smhvr5dnrki7kkugnaewyn6ggo37lu
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- 06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0154.jpg
- height
- 2400
- key
- pdf-page-1769752375862-ctvakiz1wc9
- ocr_model
- mistral-ocr-latest
- page_number
- 154
- size
- 518103
- text
- LUCRECE 15
household; Tarquin warns Lucrece he will place at her side ‘some worthless slave of thine’, i. e. of Lucrece (515). Chaucer and Bandello are both here in agreement with Shakespeare (cf. Chaucer’s ‘thy knave’ in *Legend*, 1807; and Bandello’s ‘uno dei tuoi servi’). From either, the English poet might have adopted the detail. In any case he owed nothing, at this point, to Painter.
In his expansive and discursive handling of the theme Bandello’s novel. Shakespeare differs from all his predecessors save one. In that regard he can only be compared with the Italian novelist Bandello. Bandello mainly depends on Livy and is sparing of poetic ornament. But he prolongs the speeches of the heroine with a liberality to which Shakespeare’s poem alone offers a parallel. Bandello’s long-winded novel was accessible in a French version—in the ‘Histoires Tragiques’ of François de Belleforest. Shakespearean students know that Bandello’s collection of tales, either in the original Italian, or in the French translation, was the final source of the plot of at least four of Shakespeare’s plays,—*Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing, Twelfth Night*, and *Hamlet*. It is not customary to associate Shakespeare’s poem of *Lucrece* with Bandello’s work, but, although the resemblances may prove to be accidental, they are sufficient to suggest the possibility that Shakespeare had recourse to the Italian novelist, when penning his second narrative poem.
One parallel between Bandello’s novel and Shakespeare’s *Lucrece* will suffice. Livy emphasizes more deliberately than Ovid the pretence of madness in Brutus, the avenger of Lucrece’s wrong. Bandello liberally developed Livy’s notice of Brutus’ mysterious behaviour on lines which Shakespeare seems to have followed. Brutus was, according to Shakespeare’s poem, ‘supposed a fool’ (1819):—
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T06:13:54.183Z
- text_extracted_by
- ocr-service
- text_has_content
- true
- text_images_count
- 0
- text_source
- ocr
- uploaded
- true
- width
- 1750