Keep then this passage to the Capitol; Know, that the people of Rome, for whom we stand For many good and great deserts to Rome; Lives not this day within the city walls: From weary wars against the barbarous Goths; And now at last, laden with honour's spoils, Let us entreat, -By honour of his name, Whom you pretend to honour and adore, That you withdraw you, and abate your, strength; 3 Summoned. Bas. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy And so I love and honour thee and thine, And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all, [Exeunt the Followers of BASSIANUS. Sat. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right, I thank you all, and here dismiss you all; [Exeunt the Followers of SATURNINUS. Bas. Tribunes! and me, a poor competitor. [SAT. and BAs. go into the Capitol, and exeunt with Senators, MARCUS, &c. SCENE II. The same. Enter a Captain, and Others. Cap. Romans, make way; The good Andronicus, Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, Flourish of Trumpets, &c. Enter MUTIUS and MARTIUS; after them Two Men bearing a Coffin covered with black; then QUINTUS and LUCIUS. After them, TITUS ANDRONICUS; and then TAMORA, with ALARBUS, CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, AARON, and other Goths, prisoners; Soldiers and People following. The Bearers set down the Coffin, and Trrus speaks. Tit. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds! Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught, Returns with precious lading to the bay, From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage, Stand gracious to the rights that we intend!- Here Goths have given me leave to sheath my sword. [The Tomb is opened. Sweet cell of virtue and nobility, How many sons of mine hast thou in store, Luc. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, Tit. I give him you; the noblest that survives, The eldest son of this distressed queen. Jupiter, to whom the Capitol was sacred. 2 Earthy Ed. 1600. 3 It was supposed that the ghosts of unburied people appeared to solicit the rites of funeral. Tam. Stay, Roman brethren;-Gracious conqueror, Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood: Tit. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld Alive, and dead; and for their brethren slain, Religiously they ask a sacrifice: To this your son is mark'd; and die he must, To appease their groaning shadows that are gone. Luc. Away with him! and make a fire straight; And with our swords, upon a pile of wood, Let's hew his limbs, till they be clean consum'd. [Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MUTIUS, with ALARBUS. Tam. O cruel, irreligious piety! Chi. Was ever Scythia half so barbarous? To tremble under Titus' threatening look. 4 i. e. in grief. 5 This verb is used by other old dramatic writers. Thus in Arden of Feversham, 1592: 'Patient yourself, we cannot help it now." With opportunity of sharp revenge (When Goths were Goths, and Tamora was queen), To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes. Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MUTIUS, with their swords bloody. Luc. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd Whose smoke, like incense, doth perfume the sky. [Trumpets sounded, and the Coffins laid in In peace and honour rest you here, my sons! Enter LAVINIA. In peace and honour rest you here, my sons! 6 Theobald says that we should read, in her tent; i. e. in the tent where she and the other Trojan women were kept; for thither Hecuba by a wile had decoyed Polymnestor, in order to perpetrate her revenge. Steevens objects to Theobald's conclusion, that the writer gleaned this circumstance from the Hecuba of Euripides, and says, he may have been misled by the passage in Ovid"vadit ad artificem;" and therefore took it for granted she found him in his tent. Yet on another occasion he observes, that the writer has a plain allusion to the Ajax of Sophocles, of which no translation was extant in the time of Shakspeare. |