1.58
A few days afterwards
Sextus Tarquin went, unknown to Collatinus, with one
companion to Collatia. He was hospitably received by
the household, who suspected nothing, and after
supper was conducted to the bedroom set apart for
guests. When all around seemed safe and everybody
fast asleep, he went in the frenzy of his passion
with a naked sword to the sleeping Lucretia, and
placing his left hand on her breast, said, "Silence,
Lucretia! I am Sextus Tarquin, and I have a sword in
my hand; if you utter a word, you shall die." When
the woman, terrified out of her sleep, saw that no
help was near, and instant death threatening her,
Tarquin began to confess his passion, pleaded, used
threats as well as entreaties, and employed every
argument likely to influence a female heart. When he
saw that she was inflexible and not moved even by
the fear of death, he threatened to disgrace her,
declaring that he would lay the naked corpse of the
slave by her dead body, so that it might be said
that she had been slain in foul adultery. By this
awful threat, his lust triumphed over her inflexible
chastity, and Tarquin went off exulting in having
successfully attacked her honour. Lucretia,
overwhelmed with grief at such a frightful outrage,
sent a messenger to her father at Rome and to her
husband at Ardea, asking them to come to her, each
accompanied by one faithful friend; it was necessary
to act, and to act promptly; a horrible thing had
happened. Spurius Lucretius came with Publius
Valerius, the son of Volesus; Collatinus with Lucius
Junius Brutus, with whom he happened to be returning
to Rome when he was met by his wife's messenger.
They found Lucretia sitting in her room prostrate
with grief. As they entered, she burst into tears,
and to her husband's inquiry whether all was well,
replied, "No! what can be well with a woman when her
honour is lost? The marks of a stranger, Collatinus,
are in your bed. But it is only the body that has
been violated, the soul is pure; death shall bear
witness to that. But pledge me your solemn word that
the adulterer shall not go unpunished. It is Sextus
Tarquin, who, coming as an enemy instead of a guest,
forced from me last night by brutal violence a
pleasure fatal to me, and, if you are men, fatal to
him." They all successively pledged their word, and
tried to console the distracted woman by turning the
guilt from the victim of the outrage to the
perpetrator, and urging that it is the mind that
sins, not the body, and where there has been no
consent there is no guilt. "It is for you," she
said, "to see that he gets his deserts; although I
acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from
the penalty; no unchaste woman shall henceforth live
and plead Lucretia's example." She had a knife
concealed in her dress which she plunged into her
heart, and fell dying on the floor. Her father and
husband raised the death-cry.