Lucrece The Chaste
At the beginning of The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare, Lucrece is introduced as “Lucrece the chaste”. Furthermore, a first description of her beauty is given by her husband Collatine, saying that her face is of “clear unmatched red and white“(l. 11) and her eyes are “mortal stars as bright as heaven´s beauties”. It occurs again a few stanzas later when Lucrece welcomes Tarquin in Collatium:
Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
Which of them both should underprop her fame.
When virtue bragg’d, beauty would blush for shame; When beauty boasted blushes, in despite Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white.
Her face is therefore described as the field in which beauty and chastity struggle against each other. Whereas her beauty lets her face “blush”, which reminds one of the color red, her virtue dyes these blushes “with silver white”. One the other hand, this means that there is no victor in the struggle between chastity and beauty. These lines are actually the starting point for the next three stanzas in which this topic is taken up and continued. For instance, it is explained that “when shame assail’d, the red should fence the white” and that “This heraldry in Lucrece´ face was seen, Argued by beauty´s red and virtue´s white”. Finally, Tarquin …show more content…
Here, the colors red and white each represent one of these. This metaphor can be found quite often to strengthen the harmony between the chastity and the beauty of Lucrece; but nevertheless Tarquin misinterprets both attributes and uses them in his argumentation to commit the rape, culminating in blaming Lucrece for this evil act. According to Quay, this means that Lucrece is not raped because she is a woman, but because she is constructed as a woman who is able to be raped. The reason for that is that Tarquin's desire is
Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
Which of them both should underprop her fame.
When virtue bragg’d, beauty would blush for shame; When beauty boasted blushes, in despite Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white.
Her face is therefore described as the field in which beauty and chastity struggle against each other. Whereas her beauty lets her face “blush”, which reminds one of the color red, her virtue dyes these blushes “with silver white”. One the other hand, this means that there is no victor in the struggle between chastity and beauty. These lines are actually the starting point for the next three stanzas in which this topic is taken up and continued. For instance, it is explained that “when shame assail’d, the red should fence the white” and that “This heraldry in Lucrece´ face was seen, Argued by beauty´s red and virtue´s white”. Finally, Tarquin …show more content…
Here, the colors red and white each represent one of these. This metaphor can be found quite often to strengthen the harmony between the chastity and the beauty of Lucrece; but nevertheless Tarquin misinterprets both attributes and uses them in his argumentation to commit the rape, culminating in blaming Lucrece for this evil act. According to Quay, this means that Lucrece is not raped because she is a woman, but because she is constructed as a woman who is able to be raped. The reason for that is that Tarquin's desire is