THE RAPE OF LUCRECE –STILL DISTURBING

I first read Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece many years ago when I was a teenager, and passed over it pretty quickly because at that time I was more interested in the plays, but I returned to it a few years ago when I worked as language/text coach on The Norwegian Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. The libretto for that was written by Ronald Duncan, based on a French play by André Obey. The story though is essentially the same in all these versions, and stems from the classical tale as told by Ovid in Fasti and Livy in his History of Rome. The opera fleshed out the narrative somewhat, introducing characters who are only mentioned in Shakespeare’s version, and staged much more of the pretext to the unfortunate act of transgression. Shakespeare does away with most of this background in a prose ”Argument” printed before the start of the poem, thus diving straight into the central action of the piece: The rape of Lucrece.

Thus, the poem concerns almost entirely the two main characters –the unfortunate Lucrece, and her husband’s supposed friend Sextus Tarquinius who forces himself upon her. The first part of the long poem belongs to him, the second to Lucrece. It’s at times a hard, disturbing read, and as a poem it is both a serious counter-poem to the frothier, mythological Venus and Adonis that precedes it, and a harbinger of some of the tragedies to come. Like Venus and Adonis it is essentially a drama, with lots of action and talking and atmosphere, but its power lies in Shakespeare’s brilliant, succinct language. It’s more direct, less playful than in the former poem, yet brimming with astounding pictures and a true command of the sounds of particular words. It is here I really start to sense the skillful way Shakespeare uses vowel sounds to convey various emotions –which he puts to use so brilliantly in many of the plays that follow. And I feel Shakespeare has worked hard on this piece –By that I don’t mean that it seems laboured, but more considered and weighty than the delightful musicality of Venus and Adonis. Like all of Shakespeare it is best served when read aloud, and each 7-line verse is a miniature drama of its own. (Venus and Adonis had verses of 6 lines, so the rhythm here is quite different, though both poems, like the sonnets, pack their punch into the final couplet of each verse.
When working on the opera there was relatively little I could use from Shakespeare to illuminate the Ronald Duncan text or Britten’s music, but it was intriguing to see how such different creative forces tackled essentially the same story. Duncan’s text clarified much that was difficult or obscure in Shakespeare (who is guilty of some digression here and there it must be said), and Britten’s haunting music captured what Shakespeare managed with mere music of words and poetry.

This work, like Venus and Adonis before it, was enormously popular in Shakespeare’s own time and saw many re-printings in his lifetime. Nowadays, hardly anyone bothers to read it (do they read long poems at all?), and admittedly it is not at all a ”feel-good” read. But it is gripping, disturbing, sad, tragic and moving. And you are encountering a master poet and dramatist in one.

Favourite Line:

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
For day hath naught to do what’s done by night.