Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Save sometime too much wonder of his eye, 

-Narrator
                               

Lucrece                                    Stanza 14, Line 4

Okay, recall that Lucrece is a long poem written by Will. It's not a play, nor a sonnet. It's seventeen pages long in my compilation, and it's written in seven line stanzas. It's going to be a little easier to understand this line if you can look at the whole stanza, so here is stanza fourteen in its entirety.

For that he colour'd with his high estate,
Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;
That nothing in him seem'd inordinate,
Save sometime too much wonder of his eye,
Which having all, all could not satisfy;
    But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,
    That, cloy'd with much, he pineth still for more.

This is stanza fourteen, out of 270, so we're near the beginning of the poem. As I've noted in previous posts, this poem is sometimes titled The Rape of Lucrece. In the stanza above Will is describing the rapist, Tarquin. He's arrived at Lucrece's house and he's going to be staying the night. Thus far Tarquin appears pretty ordinary except for the fact that he's already infatuated with the beauty of Lucrece. To paraphrase, nothing seems out of the ordinary, so far, except perhaps there's too much wonder in his eye.

Well that's going to be a problem, isn't it.

Okay, let's get away from the whole rape thing, because that's just a little bit unsettling. Here's a picture that brings wonder to my eye. In a good way.