Stanza 253 - Explanation

Original Stanza

“O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,
If they surcease to be that should survive!
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the falt’ring feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive.
Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see
Thy father die, and not thy father thee!”

🔍 Line-by-Line Analysis

Let's break down this powerful stanza from Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece.

Line-by-Line Analysis:

• "O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,"

  • "O time,": Direct address; the speaker is speaking to time itself, personifying it.
  • "cease thou thy course and last no longer,": A command, an imperative statement, imploring time to stop its relentless forward movement.
  • Literary Device: Personification (giving human qualities to time).

• "If they surcease to be that should survive!"

  • "If": Conditional clause, setting up a hypothetical situation.
  • "they": Refers to the virtuous, the strong, the innocent – Lucrece and, by implication, others like her.
  • "surcease to be": Stop existing, die.
  • "that should survive": Those who deserve to live, implying an injustice in their death.
  • Literary Device: Antithesis (contrast between who dies and who should live).

• "Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,"

  • "Shall": Rhetorical question.
  • "rotten death": Death is personified, described as "rotten" – decaying and vile, an adjective highlighting death's unpleasantness.
  • "make conquest of the stronger": Conquer, defeat, overcome those who are powerful and worthy.
  • Literary Device: Personification, alliteration (repetition of "c" sound).

• "And leave the falt'ring feeble souls alive?"

  • "And": Continues the rhetorical questioning started in the previous line.
  • "the falt'ring feeble souls": Those who are weak, morally and physically, and struggling.
  • "alive": Surviving, continuing to exist.
  • Literary Device: Antithesis (contrast between strong and weak).

• "The old bees die, the young possess their hive."

  • "The old bees die": A reference to the natural order; old bees are replaced.
  • "the young possess their hive": The younger generation takes over. This sentence implies that a change in the natural order is abnormal.
  • Literary Device: Metaphor (comparing the situation to bees, a natural example.)

• "Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see"

  • "Then": A consequence of the previous lines, hoping for a different reality.
  • "live, sweet Lucrece, live again": A direct plea to Lucrece to recover.
  • Literary Device: Direct Address (Lucrece is spoken to directly).

• "Thy father die, and not thy father thee!"

  • "Thy father die": An expression of the correct order of events: the father should precede the daughter in death.
  • "and not thy father thee!": A wish that the current order, where Lucrece might die before her father, be reversed.
  • Literary Device: Antithesis (contrast between dying).

Overall Meaning:

The stanza is a cry of outrage and despair in the face of injustice. The speaker (presumably the person narrating, and therefore reflecting on Lucrece's state), is grappling with the seeming randomness and unfairness of death. They are horrified that the strong (Lucrece) might be defeated by "rotten death," while the weak (implied, those who are perhaps responsible for the act of Lucrece's rape) might continue to live.

The speaker calls for time to stop its relentless march, recognizing that the natural order is perverted if those who deserve to live are taken before those who do not. The bee analogy underlines the point that death usually occurs in the elderly and that the young replace them, but here, a different order is present: the death of the innocent before the guilty.

The final lines express a desperate hope for Lucrece's survival. The speaker longs for a restoration of the natural order where a father outlives his child, rather than the other way around, which feels unnatural and tragic to the speaker. The speaker is imploring for a change and a reversal of the current terrible state. It's a powerful expression of grief, outrage, and a longing for justice and a return to what "should" be.