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Lucretia

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Lucretia

Domenico Beccafumi

Lucretia, wife to the Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus and daughter of Roman prefect Spurius Lucretius, killed herself in 507 AD in public after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the last king of Rome. She was said to have asked for witness before announcing what had occurred and plunging a concealed dagger into her heart. Beccafumi depicts Lucretia acting in a martyr's fashion, taking her own life in the wake of a crime she not only did not commit, but was the victim of. She is portrayed here, with half-closed eyes and parted lips, as stoic and resigned, peaceful in carrying out an act that would not only end her own life, but serve as the catalyst for the downfall of the Roman monarchy. It was Lucretia's suffering at the end of Sextus Tarquinius and her consequential self-sacrifice that solidified the Roman view of an unchecked libido as a form of tyranny. 

In order to view Lucretia by Domenico Beccafumi through a literary lens, it is best to narrow our perspective to that of Venus in Furs. Within the novel, the character Severin inflicts pain on himself through another perhaps because he feels some sort of religious guilt for his sexual nature. The character Wanda says, "Our unnaturalness must create such diseases. If you were less virtuous, you'd be completely sensible." (von Sacher-Masoch, 2000, p. 44). Similarly, Lucretia's suicide and infliction of pain is a result of her virtue; because she was raped by Sextus Tarquinius and was the wife of the nobleman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, she felt she had to stab herself to compensate for the rape. Here virtue plays a role in the pain she inflicts on herself, not because she feels desire like Severin does, but because she was desired in a way that disgraced her virtue. 

Based on Lucretia's lack of visible reaction to the pain, which one shoulder should logically display when being pierced through the chest by a sword, it is possible that she was suffering from a biological condition referred to as episodic analgesia. It is believed that pain and touch sensors on the skin are wired to a pain center in the brain. Pain receptors, which are bare sensory nerve endings that network throughout all organs and tissues of the body, carry painful sensations directly to the brain. When an injury occurs, bradykinin (a potent pain-producing chemical/enzyme) is released from the damaged cells. The bradykinin attaches to the pain receptors, causing them to transmit the pain impulses to the brain. Episodic analgesia can occur under special circumstances, such as in the excitement of sport or war, i.e., a soldier on the battlefield may feel no pain for many hours from a traumatic amputation or other severe injuries.