The Suicide of Lucretia. Lucas Cranach the Elder (via
Réunion des musées nationaux)
Lucretia is a legendary figure in the history of the Roman Republic... her rape by the king's son and consequent suicide were the immediate cause of the revolution that overthrew the monarchy and established the Roman Republic. The incident kindled the flames of dissatisfaction over the tyrannical methods of the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. As a result, the prominent families instituted a republic, drove the extensive Tarquin family from Rome, and successfully defended the republic against attempted Etruscan and Latin intervention...
The next day Lucretia dressed in black, went to her father's house in Rome and cast herself down in the suppliant's position (embracing the knees), weeping. Asked to explain herself she insisted on first summoning witnesses and after disclosing the rape called on him and them for vengeance, a plea that could not be ignored, as she was speaking to the chief magistrate of Rome. While they were debating she drew a concealed dagger and stabbed herself in the heart. She died in her father's arms, with the women present keening and lamenting. "This dreadful scene struck the Romans who were present with so much horror and compassion that they all cried out with one voice that they would rather die a thousand deaths in defence of their liberty than suffer such outrages to be committed by the tyrants."
The story of Lucretia was a popular moral tale in the later Middle Ages. The story has been recounted in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women, John Gower's Confessio Amantis (Book VII), and John Lydgate's Fall of Princes. Lucrece is also featured in William Shakespeare's 1594 long poem The Rape of Lucrece; he also mentioned her in Titus Andronicus, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night...
Image via A London Salmagundi.
I wonder why so many Renaissance-era artists apparently had no idea what boobs look like...
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I wonder why so many Renaissance-era artists felt that they had to paint semi-naked women?
ReplyDeleteYeah...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just noticed, but her arms are like 5 feet long...
MaraK - I had the same thought. I didn't know they did implants in the 16th C. She should have gone a size bigger, though. (Maybe she's trying to fix that in the painting?)
ReplyDeleteI should really be saying something intelligent about a lovely work of art and a story behind it that has endured time and culture, but nope, all I've got are boobie jokes.
You forgot to mention the absolutely superb poem Ovid wrote about her in The Festivals. Absolutely thrilling.
ReplyDeleteIn my school years, I repeatedly heard the meme that the best form of government is a benevolent monarchy. Obviously the Romans of her time would not have agreed, as have people in many centuries before and since.
ReplyDeleteDue to Machiavellian agendas amd distortions of the truth, we now are heading backward toward monarchies, under the pseudonym of oligarchies. If we get there, the way they have been acting so far (see the TYKIWDBI article above on "Gloom and Doom in the U.S. Economy"), we are heading backward toward rule by an elite. It seems the übers don't like republics, after all. And we don't get much of a say in it, since we won't take to the streets. One thing America could learn from other democracies is activism in democracy. Instead, we pat ourselves on the back over what our ancestors did 300+ years ago, while all they built goes down the toilet.