May earth be to you but one wilderness!
May you hate yourself,—
For death pray hourly, yet be in tortures,
Millions of years expiring!"
He shrieked this fearful curse upon the shrinking criminal with a frenzied energy which so amazed and stirred the audience that sometimes they gave vent to their excitement in a simultaneous shout of applause, sometimes by looking at one another in silence or whispering, "Wonderful!"
Lucretia, unwilling to survive the purity of her name, has stabbed herself. Collatinus rushes wildly in with the bloody steel in his hand, and tells the tale of horror:
"She's dead! Lucretia's dead! This is her blood!
Howl, howl, ye men of Rome.
Ye mighty gods, where are your thunders now?"