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- LUCRECE
13the
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'
(1.
1
841);
Chaucer
had
similarly
celebrated
her
(1.
16^6)
as
The
verray
wyf,
the
verray trewe
Lucrece.
But,
generally speaking, Shakespeare's
poem
has
closer affinity
Affinity
with
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)
:
—
Sed
tremit,
ut
quondam
stabulis
deprensa
relictis
parua sub
infesto
cum
iacet
agna
lupo.
Chaucer
(II.
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
make mone?
Shakespeare catches
far
more
of
the
Ovidian
strain in
(J77-9—
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