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- LUCRECE 13
the story as laid down by Ovid and Livy, and first anglicized by Chaucer, who frankly acknowledged his indebtedness to the two Latin writers. It is clear that Shakespeare studied the work of these three authors. Their narratives so closely resembled one another that it is not always easy to state with certainty from which of the three Shakespeare immediately derived this or that item of information.
Like Chaucer Shakespeare holds up Lucrece to eternal admiration as a type of feminine excellence—a type of ‘true wife’ (l. 1841); Chaucer had similarly celebrated her (l. 1686) as
The verray wyf, the verray trewe Lucrece.
But, generally speaking, Shakespeare’s poem has closer affinity with Ovid’s version (in the *Fasti*) than with that of any other predecessor. Like Ovid Shakespeare delights in pictorial imagery, and occasionally in *Lucrece* he appears to borrow Ovid’s own illustrations. Chaucer had already adapted some of the Ovidian similes which figure in Shakespeare. But Shakespeare seems to owe more suggestion to Chaucer’s source of inspiration than to Chaucer himself. The three poets, for example, compare Lucrece, when Tarquin has forcibly overcome her, to a lamb in the clutch of a wolf. Ovid writes (*Fasti*, ii. 799–800):—
*Affinity with Ovid.*
Sed tremit, ut quondam *stabulis* deprensa relictis parua sub infesto cum iacet agna lupo.
Chaucer (ll. 1798–9) accepts the illustration, but strips it of its vivid colouring:—
Ryght as a wolfe that fynt a lambe alone,
To whom shall she compleyne, or makë mone?
Shakespeare catches far more of the Ovidian strain in 677–9—
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