WEBVTT - Lucretia as a Symbol 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.360 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.880 One brief content note before I begin, I talk about 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.639 sexual violence and suicide in this episode, so if those 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.480 themes are something that you are particularly sensitive to, this 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:29.760 might be an episode to skip. The story of Medusa, 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:35.200 like many ancient legends, plays out differently depending on which 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.680 version you're reading. It was Avid, in his Greek mythology 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:44.680 fan fiction Metamorphoses, who introduced the version of Medusa's story 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:49.360 that most listeners are probably familiar with today. In that version, 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.720 Medusa was the daughter of a sea god who grew 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.480 up to be a beautiful young priestess of Athena or Minerva, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:00:59.840 as the goddess would have been known to Avid and 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:06.440 the Romans. Medusa tragically caught the attention of Poseidon or Neptune, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:12.080 who proceeded to rape her in Minerva's temple. Avid uses 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:18.720 the brutal word vitiace injure, defile, or damage to describe 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.160 the act. You might know what happens next in the story. 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:28.400 It's not Neptune who's punished, but Medusa herself. Her hair 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:33.840 is transformed into snakes by her own goddess. There is 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.440 a feminist reading of that outcome, in which some see 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:44.520 Minerva giving Medusa a means to protect herself against future assault. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:50.320 That's a generous reading, as classic scholar Natalie Haynes reminds 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.639 us Minerva wasn't exactly a girl's girl, but it's also 0:01:54.800 --> 0:02:00.200 a fairly depressing reading. In my view. Protected may be, 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.440 but Medusa's fate is also sealed. She will be a 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.760 monster to be hunted, and her severed head will later 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:14.680 be turned into a weapon for another's use. Avid's Metamorphosies 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.800 is far from a light read, both in terms of 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:23.480 its length and content. Sexual violence is pervasive throughout many 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:29.040 of its stories. Jokingly calling Metamorphoses Greek mythology fan fiction 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.079 is not really inaccurate, but it's also not fully painting 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.160 the whole picture. The text was meant to serve as 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.440 a history of the world from creation to the death 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.360 of Caesar. Just as it's pervasive in the pages of 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:51.480 the text, sexual violence is also pervasive in the history 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:57.360 of the world. Avid followed Metamorphosies with Fasti, which, instead 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.440 of focusing on Greek legends, finished wishes what the last 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:08.399 three books of Metamorphoses began turning the lens to Roman history, religion, culture, 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:13.240 and figures. Because both books blend genre, and because of 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.520 the time they were written, much of the content in 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:22.720 both Metamorphoses and Fosti fall somewhere in between myth and history. 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.120 The noble woman Lucretia and the famous story of the 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.720 rape she suffered at the hands of Sextus Tarquinius, who 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:38.400 is also known as Tarquin, is one such mythohistory found 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.440 in the pages of Avid's Fasti. Some historians take an 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:48.240 extreme view on Lucretia's story, claiming that it was a 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:53.920 complete fabrication, but the more widely accepted understanding is that 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.880 the legend probably grew out of real events, but that 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:03.520 it was later shaped or metamorphosed over time to create 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:10.360 a poignant, symbolic narrative. Though Medusa and Lucretia hail from 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:16.280 different cultures and different Ovid poems, their stories say a 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.919 lot in conversation with one another. They were both daughters 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.560 of powerful fathers, both hailed for their beauty and purity, 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.240 both were raped by men with more power than they had, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.640 and in death they both became weapons to be yielded 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:40.440 by yet more powerful men. But where Medusa's head was 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:45.080 quite literally wielded by Perseus, who used it to turn 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.560 his own enemies to stone, Lucretia's body became more of 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:55.920 a symbolic weapon. After her rape and subsequent suicide, her 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:01.520 body was displayed on the streets by revolutionaries to incite rebellion. 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.320 Lucretia's suicide after her assault is known as the catalyst 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.320 that led to the fall of the Roman monarchy, the 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:16.320 reason that the Roman Empire no longer had kings. The 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.440 story of the ideal Roman woman driven to take her 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.080 own life because of the actions of a man drunk 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:28.080 on his own power became itself a powerful enough narrative 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.200 to be, as the French philosopher Pierre Bale put it, quote, 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.760 one of the hinges on which the history of the 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:42.480 Romans turns. Perhaps more critically, we can look at Lucretia 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.039 through the words of Simone de Beauvois, who wrote that 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:51.120 it is through women that quote certain historical events have 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.719 been set off, but the women have been pretexts rather 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.880 than agents. The suicide of Lucretia has had value only 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:06.080 as symbol. But where did the story and the symbol 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.240 come from? What role has it played in different moments 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:15.039 and history? And is it possible to know who Lucretia 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.480 was really or will she always be in the hands 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:24.880 of men using her for their ends. I'm Dana Schwartz, 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:33.600 and this is noble blood. Just as with the myth 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.760 of Medusa, the story of Lucretia will differ from historian 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:43.520 to historian, storyteller to storyteller. The first recorded account of 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:48.440 Lucretia's story comes from the Roman historian Livy in his 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.640 History of Rome, written nearly five hundred years after the 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:57.880 event described. Before Livy, the story existed in oral tradition, 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.640 and after him it would continue on in the hands 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:07.520 of other writers and historians like Dionysus of Halikarnassis, Dio, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:14.040 Cassius Avid, and eventually Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Rousseau, each with 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:20.600 their own interpretation and agenda in their tellings. The scholar 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.520 ian Donaldson, in his book Rapes of Lucretia, A Myth 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:30.160 and Its Transformations, reconstructs the earliest versions of the story 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.280 to give a composite picture of what might have been 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:38.160 the quote historic event. It goes like this. In five 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:44.200 hundred and nine BC, the Roman King Tarquinis Superbus was 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.040 attempting a siege of the town of Ardea. One night 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.480 during the siege, a group of noblemen, the king's son 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:56.360 among them, were having a wife off, boasting about whose 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:01.440 wife was the most virtuous, the most beautiful, the most exemplary. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:07.880 One nobleman, Calatinus, insisted that his wife, Lucretia, daughter of 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.720 the magistrate Lucretius, was second to none, her virtue the 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:17.960 most virtuous, her beauty the most beauteous. When the boasting 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.880 turned competitive, it was suggested that the group would make 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.120 the twenty somethingter mile trip back to Rome to assess 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.840 each wife themselves. Most of the wives were found together 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:37.000 chatting and engaging in idle pastimes, but Lucretia hashtag not 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:41.840 like other girls, was found at home alone spinning wool 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.600 homemaking while her husband was away on the front lines. 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:51.360 Lucretia won the contest of best and most wife. Though 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.640 the story begins light and even a little bit silly 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.160 to our modern ears, the story takes a dark turn. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.480 In Livy's words in translation, the king's son quote Sextus 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.600 Tarquinius was seized with a wicked desire to debauch Lucretia 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.520 by force. Not only her beauty, but her proved chastity 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:20.000 as well provoked him. The men returned to Ardia, but 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:26.160 Tarquin later returned alone. Lucretia courteously received the king's son 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.880 as anyone would be expected to, giving him food and 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.920 a room to stay in for the night, but when 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.400 the household was asleep, he entered her bedroom in the 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.560 middle of the night with a sword on his person. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:45.320 Tarquin first attempted to seduce Lucretia with promises to marry 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.400 her and make her queen, but when that didn't work, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.040 he turned to threats. If he couldn't have her, he 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.600 would kill her. She continued to deny him, and so 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.320 he came up with another plan. He threatened to kill 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.120 not only her but also one of his slaves, and 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.720 to place their naked bodies in her bed together and 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.840 then claim he found them together and killed them in outrage. 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.400 The posthumous shame of that final threat was too much 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:22.280 for Lucretia. She stopped resisting, and Tarquin proceeded to rape her. 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:28.040 The following morning, Lucretia summoned her father, Lucretius and her 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.000 husband Calatinus, to their home, and she asked each of 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:38.680 them to bring a trusted friend. Calatinus brought Lucius Junius Brutus, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.200 not the A two guy, to be very clear, but 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:47.160 a nephew of King Superbus, a nephew and not a fan. 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.800 Brutus was generally thought of as an idiot, but he 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.679 was in reality putting on an act of ignorance, waiting 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.840 for his moment to get revenge on the king who 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:03.480 murdered his father and brother. And so with those four 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.439 men gathered, Lucretia told the story of what happened the 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.320 night before, and when she was done telling the story, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.800 she revealed a knife beneath her garments, which she used 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:21.560 to stab herself and die. Brudus removed the knife from 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.280 her body and swore an oath by the blood of 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.920 Lucretia none more chaste. Tell a tyrant wronged her that 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.080 he would drive the Tarquins from Rome. With that, a 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:38.080 revolution began to form. Lucretia's body was displayed at the 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.360 Forum in Rome, where Brudus rallied the Romans by showing 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.880 them the tyranny of the Tarquins and its consequences. It 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:51.760 was a successful publicity campaign and the people drove the 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:56.679 royal family out of Rome, vowing to have no more kings. 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.880 Brudus and Lucretia's husband Calatinus were installed as the first 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:07.280 consuls of the Roman Republic. The end or is it? 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.360 That is the SparkNotes version of events, but technically yeah. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.360 The last mention of Lucretia in her story is that 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.720 of her body on display while she was alive. However, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:26.600 she does get a bit more characterization in other versions 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:36.760 of her story. In Livy's telling, Lucretia has a poignant 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.559 rallying speech before she takes her life, quote, my body 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.120 alone has been violated. My heart is guiltless, as death 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.640 shall be my witness. But pledge your right hands and 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.240 your words that the adulterer shall not go unpunished. Her 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:59.040 death is than heroic, even masculine in a sense, as 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.120 death by night was not traditionally associated with women at 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:08.520 the time, It's portrayed as a morally virtuous death. Lucretia 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:13.240 is killing herself, she explains, so that promiscuous women cannot 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.240 use her as an example to justify their own actions. Avid, 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.240 for his part, gives Lucretia more dialogue in the story's 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:26.240 beginning when she laments the danger her husband may be 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.960 in on the front lines, and when she joyously throws 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.959 herself into his arms upon his return, even in front 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:38.160 of all of his comrades. Lucretia is portrayed as devoted 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:43.600 and tender, while also sheltered and a little naive. Avid 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.280 also gives us a physical description for the first time. 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:52.800 Her complexion is snowy, she uses no cosmetics, her hair 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:58.319 is golden and flowing freely. It's this physical Lucretia that 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.040 we will most often see in artistic depictions to come. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:07.280 Her appearance was a feminine ideal. By Avid's time, most 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.640 Roman women had dark hair and an olive complexion to 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.960 imitate the desirable German beauty standard. Sex workers were actually 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.160 known to wear blonde wigs, while women across classes wore 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:26.680 chalk on their faces to appear paler. Lucretia's characterization through 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.960 her words, actions, and appearance, then all serves to portray 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:37.240 her as an ideal in every sense. But what happens 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:42.240 when you kill an ideal? Avid's telling takes an arguably 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:47.480 more human approach when compared to Livy. His Lucretia does 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:53.360 not die grandly, calling for revenge. Instead, the morning after 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:58.400 the horrific event, she's visibly disheveled and wearing a morning gown. 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:03.400 She's distraught and finds herself having trouble telling her father 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:08.200 and husband what has happened. This Lucretia is overcome by 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.160 grief and cannot find her heart guiltless. Instead, her last 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.880 words are quote, though you forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.000 Only through death does Lucretia believe that she can preserve 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:27.120 her virtues. But her death becomes far bigger than that. 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.720 In the end, she doesn't just die for what she 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.720 saw as her sins, she also dies for the birth 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.840 of the republic. As the ideal woman of the Roman Republic, 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:46.800 Lucretia's death both literally and metaphorically expunged the tyrant and 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.000 his lineage from Rome, literally because she might have been 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.480 pregnant with the son of the son of the king. 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:59.760 Lucretia's role in Roman history is not completely dissimilar from 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.120 that of an earlier woman in Roman mythology, one of 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.840 the famed Vestal virgins, Raya Silvia, who according to legend, 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:13.280 was raped by Mars and gave birth to Ramus and Romulus. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.000 The wolf raised twins, whose battle for divine favor is 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:23.800 remembered as the traditional founding story of Rome. Both stories 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.920 were that of a chaste woman. One would bring about 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.960 the Kingdom of Rome and the other the Roman Republic. 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.040 If we remember Simon de Beauvoir's words here quote, women 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:42.840 have been pretexts rather than agents. Livy states in his 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.080 history that his writing is not just intended to be 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:51.400 a history lesson, but also moral instruction, hoping Roman readers 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.280 of the day could learn from Romans of the past, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:17:01.240 which probably explains Lucretia's inspirational speech. Ofvid was less concerned 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.439 with the morality of the average Roman. His Lucretius story 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.639 was actually written during his exile from Rome by the 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:14.040 Emperor Augustus. The reasons for this exile were never actually documented, 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.680 but do not worry, the city of Rome did revoke 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:22.000 his exile in twenty seventeen, only two thousand years later. 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.520 Both Avid and Livy had a vested interest in portraying 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:32.240 the corruption of power, emphasizing in their stories the inherent 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:37.800 wickedness and immorality of the son of the king, Sextus Tarquinius. 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.159 This is how the story would be understood for many years, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.919 with Tarquin as a monster and Lucretia as both a 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:58.360 victim and a martyr. It wasn't until Augustine, the bishop 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.960 and theologian, who wrote on the City of God against 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.480 the Pagans, that Lucretia's role would be altered in the 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:12.119 public consciousness. Regarded today as a cornerstone of Western thought. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.679 Augustine's work was written between four hundred and thirteen and 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.639 four hundred and twenty six a d. In the context 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:26.080 of the ongoing conflict between Christians and Pagans. After the 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.680 sack of Rome by the Goths in four hundred and ten, 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:35.200 Pagans were beginning to fear that Christianity and the abandonment 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.600 of Roman gods was the cause of their suffering, and 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:44.080 with City of God, Augustine, from the Roman province in 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:49.080 North Africa, was seeking to counter those arguments and bolster 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.959 the faith of Christians. The title comes from the idea 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.520 that even if earthly empires fall, the City of God 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:04.400 will ultimately prevail. When it comes to Augustine's writing on Lucretia, 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.080 he begins quote they, as in Pagans, will certainly bring 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:14.040 out Lucretia with great praises for her chastity. If that 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.440 feels a little mocking, it's because it was. Augustine goes 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.560 on to question why Lucretia killed herself if she was 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:28.680 truly guilty of nothing. He argues that she actually killed 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:33.919 herself because even though she was attacked, she eventually consented, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.359 and her consent, rather than being out of fear of 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:43.160 the consequences as in the original tellings, was in Augustine's 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:49.679 mind because she secretly desired Tarquin Eleanor Glendinning writes in 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.080 her analysis that quote, a person committed to the Christian 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.359 faith could suffer any bodily suffering and emerge with an 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.040 even stronger mind and conviction in the existence of God. 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.960 By doing so, Augustine's City of God also laid the 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:11.920 foundations for early Christian beliefs surrounding suicide. In general. Augustine 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.840 believed that thou shalt not kill also referred to oneself. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:23.720 Augustine is disparaging a pagan hero using a Christian narrative, 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.280 and the Western world will of course only continue to 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:32.919 move further from paganism and towards Christianity as time marches. On. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:38.200 The other change, Augustine makes here is distancing Lucretia from 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.000 the revolutionary narrative. Augustine does not care about the Tarquins 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.320 or Brutus. He has just focused on Lucretia as an 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:53.919 unworthy pagan martyr figure. It's important to discuss Augustine because 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.679 his words will have permeated the culture of every writer 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.080 that tells the story of Lucretia going far forward, whether 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.480 they agreed with him or not. Disconnecting her from politics 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.760 also gave way to new narratives want about chastity, lust, 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:16.480 and temptation. There are many Renaissance paintings of Lucretia, but 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:21.760 most are domestic, not political scenes, domestic scenes with her 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:26.120 in various states of undress, either fending off her attacker 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.080 or pointing the knife at her own chest. There's also 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.680 an eroticism to these paintings that can arguably be traced 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:43.879 back to Augustine. All of this brings me to Shakespeare. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.480 Shakespeare's main source for his narrative poem The Rape of 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:54.560 Lucrece wasn't Augustine, but actually the originals Avid and Livy. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.800 There are, though, a number of ways in which Shakespeare's 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:03.280 poem depart arts from its source material. But one in 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:10.240 particular is shockingly different. Lucretia's suicide in Shakespeare's poem does 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.719 not lead to a revolution. In fact, there is no 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.240 mention of the Roman Republic at all. Late in the poem, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:24.520 Lucretia has a lengthy speech reflecting back on her rapist's crime. Quote, 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.760 thou seemest not what thou art a god? A king? 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:34.560 For kings, like gods, should govern everything. How wilt thy 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.920 shame be seated in thine age? When thus thy vices 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.800 bud before thy spring? If in thy hope thou darst 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:48.800 do such outrage? What darst thou not? When once thou 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.600 art a king? Right off the bat? We are in 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:57.000 a very different political atmosphere than the world of Livy 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.600 and Avid. Maybe it's obvious Shakespeare lived in England under 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:06.600 a monarchy. His Lucretia is comparing kings and gods in 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:10.080 a positive way, going so far as to say that 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:14.920 they should govern everything. The message is not that absolute 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:20.920 power corrupts absolutely. It's that Tarquin is corrupted absolutely. One 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:27.600 bad apple. Shakespeare's Lucretia continues, quote, this deed will make 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.840 thee only loved for fear. But happy monarchs are still 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.720 feared for love with foul offenders, Thou perforce must bear 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:41.639 when they in thee the like offenses prove, if but 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:46.560 for fear of this, thy will remove. For princes are 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:51.320 the glass, the school, the book where subjects, eyes do learn, 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:56.720 do read, do look. Lucretia is speaking with more political 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.880 language than she has in any other version of her story, 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:03.440 but it is a far cry from what the original 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:08.240 political purpose of her story was. Shakespeare is instead working 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:13.520 within the genre of mirrors for Princes, a literary genre 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:17.200 that was popular throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:22.399 which sought to, as the title implies, provide advice and 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.720 examples for rulers to give advice on how to be 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:31.760 a good prince. Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece ends with 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:36.399 Brutus declaring to avenge her death, but this is done 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:41.919 by banishing Tarquin from Rome, not starting the republic. The 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:46.240 poem ends quote, when they had sworn to this advised doom, 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:50.760 they did conclude to bear dead Lucrece, thence to show 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:55.320 her bleeding body through Rome, and so to publish Tarquin's 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.960 foul offense, which being done with speedy diligence, The Roman 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:07.600 plausibly did give consent to Tarquin's everlasting banishment. Lucretia's body 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.719 is still a political weapon, but as a symbol she 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:16.200 carries much less weight when Tarquin is simply banished, as 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:19.840 opposed to he and his family being forever removed from 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:24.440 power and the entire system of government of Rome changing forever. 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:31.720 Shakespeare is much more focused on the actions of the individual, 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:36.600 and make no mistake, he thinks Tarquinius is corrupt. Though 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:40.000 he is writing in a post Augustine world. It is 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:44.560 clear that what Lucretia feels towards her attacker in Shakespeare's 0:25:44.600 --> 0:25:50.040 poem is fear she is not consenting. Shakespeare uses a 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:54.800 metaphor of Tarquin as a predator, the wolf hath seized 0:25:54.840 --> 0:26:01.000 his prey, the poor lamb cries. Compared to Augustine, Shakespeare 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:04.919 also displays a far greater understanding of the reality of 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:11.280 the physiological repercussions of rape. While Lucretia's family believes quote 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:16.239 her bodies stain, her mind untainted clears, he writes that 0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:21.320 quote with a joyless smile. She turns away the face 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:27.119 that map, which deep impression bears of hard misfortune carved 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:31.959 in it with tears. Her suicide is not the result 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:36.479 of her secretly being unchased. In Shakespeare's version, it is, 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:40.800 as it was in the beginning, a preservation of her chastity. 0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:45.760 We know this because Shakespeare has her tell us quote 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:49.280 for me, I am the mistress of my fate, she 0:26:49.440 --> 0:26:53.120 states as she contemplates what to do in the aftermath 0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:56.600 of her assault. She's given more dialogue, more of an 0:26:56.640 --> 0:27:00.000 inner life here than in any other telling, aligning her 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:06.240 more with Shakespeare's other tragic heroines. Shakespeare's telling of Lucretia 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:09.640 may appear to be removed from key points of its 0:27:09.680 --> 0:27:15.840 original context, but again, it fits quite nicely in Elizabethan England. 0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:19.880 It's not a stretch to draw parallels between the virgin 0:27:20.040 --> 0:27:25.320 queen who proudly sacrificed marriage for her country, and Lucretia, 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:29.600 who was so chaste that she died for hers. The 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:33.520 poem was written around the same time Shakespeare would make 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:38.240 another reference to the virgin Queen in A Midsummer Night's Dream, 0:27:38.640 --> 0:27:43.680 when Oberon speaks of quote a fair vestal throned by 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:49.480 the west. Shakespeare's flattery also appears in Richard the Third, 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:55.040 in which the mad villainous hunchbacked king is overthrown not 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:59.120 by a revolution but by combat with the next king, 0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:08.520 who have to be Elizabeth's great grandfather. But for a 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:14.719 prospective on Lucretia's story that returns to the original revolutionary sentiments, 0:28:15.320 --> 0:28:20.840 let's go where else to France or more specifically, Geneva. 0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:26.200 As Jean Jacques Rousseau bounced between European countries throughout his life, 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:31.560 His unfinished tragic play LaMonte de Lucrece was composed around 0:28:31.760 --> 0:28:36.560 seventeen fifty four seventeen fifty six, still early years in 0:28:36.640 --> 0:28:40.680 Rousseau's career. Seventeen fifty four was the same year he 0:28:40.760 --> 0:28:45.480 wrote his foundational Discourse on the Origin and Basis of 0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:50.240 Inequality among Men, in which he argued that moral inequality 0:28:50.440 --> 0:28:55.280 is not innate to humans, rather a product of quote, wealth, 0:28:55.440 --> 0:29:01.880 nobility or rank, power, and personal merit. Given Russeau's lofty 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:07.000 Enlightenment ideals, his play does, as you might imagine, return 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:11.480 Lucretia's story to its Republican roots, the roots that we're 0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:16.479 lacking in Shakespeare's telling. But like in Shakespeare's a number 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:22.000 of details have been changed for storytelling purposes. Lucretia begins 0:29:22.200 --> 0:29:27.479 Russeau's story engaged to sexist Tarquinius, but her father breaks 0:29:27.520 --> 0:29:30.960 it off despite the wishes of the king, and Lucretia 0:29:31.000 --> 0:29:35.960 instead marries the less powerful Calatin for different political reasons. 0:29:36.560 --> 0:29:39.680 There may have once been something between the two, but 0:29:39.840 --> 0:29:44.360 Lucretia tells her handmaiden that she prefers quote the constant 0:29:44.440 --> 0:29:48.800 and peaceful love of Coltan to the fiery passions of Sextus. 0:29:49.160 --> 0:29:54.240 Referring to Tarquin still, she prays, quote, O God who 0:29:54.240 --> 0:29:59.160 sees my heart, clarify my judgment. Guarantee I do not 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:02.840 cease to be virtuous. You know that although I want 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:06.080 to be, I will always be if you want it 0:30:06.080 --> 0:30:10.240 as well. So in this version there is a temptation 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:16.280 to return to Tarquin, but Lucretia fights against it. Because 0:30:16.320 --> 0:30:19.880 this is theater, we're given a story that's a more 0:30:19.960 --> 0:30:24.520 dramatic and be an introduction to a number of additional 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:28.680 moving parts that weren't present in any other version. In 0:30:28.800 --> 0:30:32.640 Rousseau's version, Tarquin has promised that he'll arrange a marriage 0:30:32.640 --> 0:30:37.200 between two lovers, his servant and Lucretia's handmaiden, if the 0:30:37.240 --> 0:30:40.200 two of them can arrange a secret meeting between him 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:45.880 and his ex fiancee, Lucretia. Lucretia's maid is wary, believing 0:30:45.960 --> 0:30:49.560 her lady is quote not capable of feeling anything but 0:30:49.600 --> 0:30:54.200 for her spouse and her duty. But Tarquin's servant argues 0:30:54.240 --> 0:30:58.600 that Lucretia only puts up appearances of virtue, and no 0:30:58.680 --> 0:31:03.920 one would ultimately but virtue above personal passions. While all 0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:07.360 of that is going on, Brutus is already plotting his 0:31:07.480 --> 0:31:12.360 revolution to overthrow the Tarquins. He tries to persuade Colton 0:31:12.480 --> 0:31:15.640 to join his cause by telling him about how Tarquin 0:31:15.800 --> 0:31:19.080 is in love with his wife, but Coltan simply tells 0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:23.520 him quote, I know the virtues of Lucretia's heart. On 0:31:23.600 --> 0:31:29.200 top of that, Colton fears war and the possibility of anarchy, slavery, 0:31:29.320 --> 0:31:34.240 and civil strife after the monarchs are driven out. Lucretius, 0:31:34.360 --> 0:31:38.760 his father in law, accuses him of being childish, taking 0:31:38.800 --> 0:31:42.040 the easy way out by continuing to live in comfort 0:31:42.560 --> 0:31:46.239 under tyrants rather than fighting for the greater good of 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:51.280 liberty and equality. The rest of Rousseau's play is only 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:56.640 available to us in fragments. Tarquin laments that Lucretia's quote 0:31:56.960 --> 0:32:00.960 virtue deserving of adoration by the gods has been soiled 0:32:01.000 --> 0:32:05.600 by him quote the violist of mortals, before in a twist, 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:11.000 he kills himself. It's unclear in this version whether rape 0:32:11.200 --> 0:32:19.160