e metre, too, is changed; seven-line stanzas
(Chaucer's rhyme royal, _a b a b b c c_) take the place of six-line
stanzas. The second poem was entered in the 'Stationers' Registers' on
May 9, 1594, under the title of 'A Booke intitled the Ravyshement of
Lucrece,' and was published in the same year under the title 'Lucrece.'
Richard Field printed it, and John Harrison published and sold it at the
sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard. The classical
story of Lucretia's ravishment and suicide is briefly recorded in Ovid's
'Fasti,' but Chaucer had retold it in his 'Legend of Good Women,' and
Shakespeare must have read it there. Again, in topic and metre, the poem
reflected a contemporary poet's work. Samuel Daniel's 'Complaint of
Rosamond,' with its seven-line stanza (1592), stood to 'Lucrece' in even
closer relation than Lodge's 'Scilla,' with its six-line stanza, to
'Venus and Adonis.' The pathetic accents of Shakespeare's heroine are
those of Daniel's heroine purified and glorified. {77a} The passage on
Time is elaborated from one in Watson's 'Passionate Centurie of Love'
(No. lxxvii.) {77b} Shakespeare dedicated his second volume of poetry to
the Earl of Southampton, the patron of his first. He addressed him in
terms of devoted friendship, which were not uncommon at the time in
communications between patrons and poets, but suggest that Shakespeare's
relations with the brilliant young nobleman had grown closer since he
dedicated 'Venus and Adonis' to him in colder language a year before.
'The love I dedicate to your lordship,' Shakespeare wrote in the opening
pages of 'Lucrece,' 'is without end, whereof this pamphlet without
beginning is but a superfluous moiety. . . What I have done is yours;
what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.'

Enthusiastic reception of the poems.

In these poems Shakespeare made his earliest appeal to the world of
readers, and the reading public welcomed his addresses with unqualified
enthusiasm. The London playgoer already knew Shakespeare's name as that
of a promising actor and playwright, but his dramatic efforts had
hitherto been consigned in manuscript, as soon as the theatrical
representation ceased, to the coffers of their owner, the playhouse
manager. His early plays brought him at the outset little reputation as
a man of letters. It was not as the myriad-minded dramatist, but in the
restricted role of adapter for English reader