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- LUCRECE
2y
indebtedness
to Shakespeare
does
not
go
beyond
the
bare
suggestion
of
that single
topic.
The
poet
Suckling,
SuckUng-s
one of
Shakespeare's
warmest
admirers
in the
generation
'^"PpJ^'
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(-i,%6-^6)
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
Suck-
ling's posthumously
collected
verse
{Fragmenta
Aurea^
1
6\6)
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/
In
idyj
^ Gerald Langbaine, in his account of Shakespeare in his Dramatick Poets^
i6^i, makes the comment: « What value [Suckling] had for this small piece
of LMcrece may appear from his supplement which he writ and which he has
pubhsht 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 Luaece the six-line stanza of Venui
and Adonis. Cf. Shakespeare's Cevturie ofPrayse^ pp. 105, zx6-j.
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