Thereupon he flew upon her, and threatened her with his sword, but it
was not that he　meant to wound her with. He grasped her by the ivory
throat, and shook her as a mastiff　would shake a young bear, swearing
and staring he would tear out her weasand if she　refused. Not content
with that savage constraint, he slipped his sacrilegious hand from　her lily
lawn-skinned neck, and enscarfed it in her long silver locks, which with
struggling were unrolled. Backward he dragged her, even as a man
backward would　pluck a tree down by the twigs, and then, like a traitor
that is drawn to execution on a　hurdle, he traileth her up and down the
chamber by those tender untwisted braids, and　setting his barbarous foot
on her bare snowy breast, bade her yield or have her wind　stamped out.
She cried, Stamp, stifle me in my hair, hang me up by it on a beam, and so
let me die, rather than I should go to heaven with a beam in my eye. No,
quoth he, nor　stamped nor stifled, nor hanged, nor to heaven shalt thou
go till I have had my will of　thee; thy busy arms in these silken fetters I’ll
enfold. Dismissing her hair from his　fingers, and pinioning her elbows
therewithal, she struggled, she wrested, but all was in　vain. So struggling
and so resisting, her jewels did sweat, signifying there was poison　coming
towards her. On the hard boards he threw her, and used his knee as an iron
ram　to beat open the two-leaved gate of her chastity. Her husband’s dead
body he made a　pillow to his abomination. Conjecture the rest; my words stick
fast in the mire, and are　clean tired; would I had never undertook this tragical
tale. Whatsoever is born, is born to　have an end. Thus ends my tale; his
whorish lust was glutted, his beastly desire satisfied;