- description
- # Duckling's 'Supplement.'
## Overview
This subsection, titled "Duckling's 'Supplement.'," discusses the poet Suckling's "supplement" to a fragment of William Shakespeare's poem *Lucrece*. It details Suckling's interest in Shakespeare's work, his reproduction of a ten-line fragment from *Lucrece* (lines 386–96) in a modified six-line stanza format, and his addition of fourteen lines to create a twenty-four-line poem. This combined work was published in Suckling's posthumous collection, *Fragmenta Aurea*, in 1646.
## Context
This subsection is part of [Section III](arke:01KG6S5HRFGJ1FBM87NDW94Z5Z) and was extracted from the text file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA), which is part of the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53 collection](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y). It follows the subsection "[Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece.](arke:01KG6S6KP0FH4YFWS830MFRHH2)" and precedes "[Quarles' continuation, 1655.](arke:01KG6S6KP3TN1CBG7KZ5KKD5X9)", indicating its place within a broader discussion of adaptations and responses to Shakespeare's *Lucrece*.
## Contents
The content focuses on Suckling's engagement with Shakespeare's *Lucrece*. It explains that Suckling's "supplement" was inspired by a ten-line fragment (lines 386–96) from Shakespeare's poem, which he presented in a six-line stanza, differing from the original seven-line structure. Suckling then added fourteen lines of his own, resulting in a twenty-four-line poem published in *Fragmenta Aurea* (1646) under the title "A supplement to an imperfect Copy of Verses of Mr. Wil. Shakespears." A marginal note in the publication, "Thus far Shakespear," distinguished Shakespeare's attributed lines from Suckling's contribution. The subsection also includes a six-line rendering of the fifty-fifth stanza of *Lucrece* as an example and discusses possible reasons for Suckling's altered version, such as writing from memory or an incorrect copy, while dismissing the theory that it represents an early draft by Shakespeare himself.
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- Duckling's 'Supplement.'
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- Duckling's 'Supplement.'
indebtedness to Shakespeare does not go beyond the bare suggestion of that single topic. The poet Suckling, one of Shakespeare's warmest admirers in the generation succeeding the dramatist's death, gave curious proof of his interest in Shakespeare's poem. He claimed to find a detached fragment of verse, of which he failed apparently to recognize the provenance. The fragment consisted of the ten lines from *Lucrece* (386–96) which somewhat affectedly describe Lucrece asleep in bed; but the stanza was in six lines instead of in the authentic seven lines, and Suckling's text materially differed from that of the authorized version of *Lucrece*. To the mysterious excerpt Suckling added a 'supplement' of fourteen lines of his own. The twenty-four lines, in four stanzas of six lines each, were included in Suckling's posthumously collected verse (*Fragmenta Aurea*, 1646) under the heading 'A supplement to an imperfect Copy of Verses of Mr. Wil. Shakespears'. A marginal note running 'Thus far Shakespear' distinguished Suckling's share of the short poem from that which he assigned to the dramatist.¹ In 1655
¹ Gerald Langbaine, in his account of Shakespeare in his *Dramatick Poets*, 1691, makes the comment: 'What value [Suckling] had for this small piece of *Lucrece* may appear from his supplement which he writ and which he has publisht in his poems.' The first stanza of Suckling's poem runs:—
One of her hands, one of her cheeks lay under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kisse,
Which therefore swel'd and seem'd to part asunder,
As angry to be rob'd of such a blisse:
The one lookt pale, and for revenge did long,
Whilst t' other blush't, cause it had done the wrong.
This six-lined rendering of the fifty-fifth stanza of *Lucrece* (in seven lines) is not easy to account for. Suckling had perhaps written out the lines from memory, or from a hurried and incorrect copy. There seems less to recommend the opposing theory, which represents Suckling's crude quotation to be a first draft of the verse by Shakespeare himself, and an indication of an original intention on the poet's part to employ in *Lucrece* the six-line stanza of *Venus and Adonis*. Cf. Shakespeare's *Centurie of Prayse*, pp. 205, 226–7.
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26 LUCRECE
1 Arber, ii. 648.
- title
- Duckling's 'Supplement.'