Summary

Tarquin flees, leaving Lucrece behind. Full of shame, Lucrece laments what has been done to her. She worries about the damage done to her husband's honor now that she is no longer chaste. Lucrece then describes and criticizes a range of personified ideas: Opportunity, Time, Night, and Day, for contributing to her shame. She then hopes that Tarquin will be tormented by guilt over what he has done to her and will be condemned by everyone around him.

After Lucrece's long lament, she determines that her life is no longer worth living. She fought against Tarquin to survive, but that was when she was still a "loyal wife" (1048). Now that she "cannot be" that anymore, her life is no longer worth living (1049). She plans to kill herself so that Collatine will never have to know that his honor was violated by his wife's rape...