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The Earl of Southampton, painted in 1594, aged 21, the year that Shakespeare dedicated The Rape of Lucrece to him

The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia.

In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work". Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece lacks the humorous tone of the earlier poem.

Lucrece draws on the story described in both Ovid's Fasti and Livy's history of Rome. In 509 BC, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Tarquin, the king of Rome, raped Lucretia (Lucrece), wife of Collatinus, one of the king's aristocratic retainers. As a result, Lucrece committed suicide. Her body was paraded in the Roman Forum by the king's nephew, Lucius Junius Brutus. This incited a full-scale revolt against the Tarquins, the banishment of the royal family, and the founding of the Roman republic.

Shakespeare retains the essence of this story, adding that Tarquin's lust for Lucrece springs from her husband's own praise of her. Shakespeare later used the same idea in Cymbeline, in which Imogen is symbolically raped by Giacomo, who is inspired by her husband Posthumus's praise of her virtues.

The rapist Tarquin is also mentioned in Macbeth's soliloquy from Act 2 Scene 1 of Macbeth. Tarquin's actions and cunning are compared with Macbeth's indecision - both rape and regicide are unforgiveable crimes.

Lucrece is described as if she were a work of art, objectified in as if she were a material posession. Tarquin's rape of her is described as if she were a fortress under attack -- conquering her various physical attributes. Although Lucrece is raped, the poem offers an apology to absolve her of guilt (lines 1240-46). Like Shakespeare's other raped women, Lucrece gains symbolic value: through her suicide, her body metamorphoses into a political symbol.

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Charney, Maurice (2000) Shakespeare on Love & Lust New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN: 0-231-10429-4

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Rape of Lucrece

• The Rape of Lucrece, available at Project Gutenberg.
• The Rape of Lucrece: A Study Guide
• The Rape of Lucrece Full Text.
• The Online Text of Rape of Lucrece

	The complete works of William Shakespeare
Tragedies:	Romeo and Juliet | Macbeth | King Lear | Hamlet | Othello | Titus Andronicus | Julius Caesar | Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus | Troilus and Cressida | Timon of Athens
Comedies:	A Midsummer Night's Dream | All's Well That Ends Well | As You Like It | Cymbeline | Love's Labour's Lost | Measure for Measure | The Merchant of Venice | The Merry Wives of Windsor | Much Ado About Nothing | Pericles, Prince of Tyre | Taming of the Shrew | The Comedy of Errors | The Tempest | Twelfth Night, or What You Will | The Two Gentlemen of Verona | The Two Noble Kinsmen | The Winter's Tale
Histories:	King John | Richard II | Henry IV, Part 1 | Henry IV, Part 2 | Henry V | Henry VI, part 1 | Henry VI, part 2 | Henry VI, part 3 | Richard III | Henry VIII
Poems and Sonnets:	Sonnets | Venus and Adonis | The Rape of Lucrece | The Passionate Pilgrim | The Phoenix and the Turtle | A Lover's Complaint
Apocrypha and Lost Plays	Edward III | Sir Thomas More | Cardenio (lost) | Love's Labour's Won (lost) | The Birth of Merlin | Locrine | The London Prodigal | The Puritan | The Second Maiden's Tragedy | Richard II, Part I: Thomas of Woodstock | Sir John Oldcastle | Thomas Lord Cromwell | A Yorkshire Tragedy | Fair Em | Mucedorus | The Merry Devil of Edmonton | Arden of Faversham | Edmund Ironside
See also:	Shakespeare on screen | Titles based on Shakespeare | Characters | Problem Plays | Ghost characters | Reputation | New Words | Influence on English Language | Authorship Question | Chronology of Shakespeare plays | Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays - Oxfordian