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- LUCRECE
17
Shakespeare
again enlarges the
restricted
bounds
of
the
classical
tale
by
introducing
a sympathizing
handmaiden.
Such
a
subsidiary character
(1212-302)
is
unknown
to
Ovid
or
Livy.
This new
episode
coincides,
possibly
by
accident,
with
a
scene in the
French
tragedy
of
Lucrece
of
^5^6.
No
other
parallel
is
met
with.
Shakespeare makes
effective
use
of
the
woman's
<
heaviness'
when
she
is
summoned
by
her
mistress after
the
latter
resolves
to
slay
herself
In
the
French drama
Lucrece's nurse
feelingly
endeavours
to dissuade
lier
from
her purpose.
The
appeal
to
personified
Opportunity
(11.
8^9
sq.)
seems an
original
device of Shakespeare, but
the
succeeding
apostrophe
to
Time
(11.
939
sq.)
covers
ground
which
many
poets
had
occupied
before.
Two
English
poets,
ThomasWatson
in
Hecatompathia
(i
J82,
Sonnets
xlvii
and
Ixxvii),
andGiles Fletcher
in
Licia
(1/93,
Sonnet
xxviii),
anticipated
at
many
points
Shakespeare's catalogue
of
Time's
varied
activities.
Watson acknowledged
that
his lines
were
borrowed
from
the
Italian
Serafino
and
Fletcher imitated
the
Neapolitan
Latinist
Angerianus
j
while
both
Serafino
and Angerianus
owed much
on
their part
to
Ovid's pathetic
lament
in
Tristia(iY.
6.
i-io).
Shakespeare
doubtless obtained
all
the
suggestion
that he
neededfrom
his
fellow
countrymen.
That Shakespeare knew Watson'sreflections
on
the topic seems
proved
by
his verbatim
quotation
of
one of
them
in
Much
Ado
about
Nothing
(i.
i.
271)
;
'In time the savage
bull
doth
bear the
yoke.'
Similarly
there are plain indications in Shakespeare's
Sonnets
that
Fletcher's
Licia
was familiar
to
him.'
In Ovid,
An
A?natoria, i.
131
sq.,
Ulysses, for Calypso's amusement,
paints the like
scene
with
a
wand
on
the
sand
of the
sea-shore and describes
his
sketch in
terms very
like
those in the
Heroldes.
But,
although Ovid
offered
hints for
Shakespeare's
picture,
Vergil supplied
the precise design.
'
Cf. Eliz,abethan Sonnets^ Introd.
by
the
present writer,
vol. i,
p. Ixxxiii,
andvol.
ii, p.
348
• Life of
Shakespeare^ 5th edition, pp.
81
».
a,
1
17
n. z,
and 11^
n.
i
,C
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