Lo, as the bark, that hath discharg'd her fraught,3 Here Goths have given me leave to fheath my fword. Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own, [The Tomb is opened. Or that they were in mourning for their emperor who was just dead. STEEVENS. 3 her fraught,] Old copies-his fraught. Corrected in the fourth folio. MALONE. his fraught,] As in the other old copies noted by Mr. Malone. It will be proper here to obferve, that the edition of 1600 is not paged. TODD. 4 Thou great defender of this Capitol,] Jupiter, to whom the Capitol was facred. JOHNSON. 5 To hover on the dreadful Shore of Styx ?] Here we have one of the numerous claffical notions that are scattered with a pedantick profufion through this piece. MALONE. Sweet cell of virtue and nobility, How many fons of mine haft thou in ftore, That thou wilt never render to me more? Luc. Give us the proudeft prifoner of the Goths, That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile, Ad manes fratrum facrifice his flesh, 6 Before this earthly prison of their bones; TIT. I give him you; the nobleft that survives, The eldest fon of this diftreffed queen. TAM. Stay, Roman brethren ;-Gracious con- Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed, Andronicus, ftain not thy tomb with blood: 6 earthly prifon] Edit. 1600:-" earthy prifon." TODD. 7 Nor we difturb'd with prodigies on earth.] It was fuppofed by the ancients, that the ghofts of unburied people appeared to their friends and relations, to folicit the rites of funeral. 8 Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? STEEVENS. Draw near them then in being merciful:] "Homines enim Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge;. TIT. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld Alive, and dead; and for their brethren flain, Religiously they ask a facrifice : To this your fon is mark'd; and die he muft, TAM. O cruel, irreligious piety! CHI. Was ever Scythia half fo barbarous ? DEM. Oppofe not Scythia to ambitious Rome. Alarbus goes to reft; and we furvive To tremble under Titus' threatening look. ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam falutem hominibus dando." Cicero pro Ligario. Mr. Whalley infers the learning of Shakspeare from this pasfage: but our prefent author, whoever he was, might have found a tranflation of it in feveral places, provided he was not acquainted with the original. STEEVENS. The fame fentiment is in Edward III. 1596: "kings approach the neareft unto God, Reed. 9 Patient yourself, &c.] This verb is used by other dramatick writers. So, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592: "Patient yourself, we cannot help it now." Again, in King Edward I. 1599: "Patient your highness, 'tis but mother's love." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. XII. ch. lxxv: "Her, weeping ripe, he laughing, bids to patient her awhile." STEEvens. With opportunity of fharp revenge Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MyTIUS, with their Swords bloody. Luc. See, lord and father, how we have per- Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd, Whofe finoke, like incenfe, doth perfume the sky. The felf-fame gods, that arm'd the queen of Troy With opportunity of Sharp revenge Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent, &c.] I read, against the authority of all the copies : in her tent, i. e. in the tent where the and the other Trojan captive women were kept for thither Hecuba by a wile had decoyed Polymneftor, in order to perpetrate her revenge. This we may learn from Euripides's Hecuba; the only author, that I can at prefent remember, from whom our writer muft have gleaned this circumftance. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald fhould firft have proved to us that our author understood Greek, or else that this play of Euripides had been tranflated. In the mean time, because neither of these particulars are verified, we may as well fuppofe he took it from the oldftory-book of the Trojan War, or the old translation of Ovid. See Metam. XIII. The writer of the play, whoever he was, might have been misled by the paffage in Ovid: "vadit ad artificem," and therefore took it for granted that fhe found him in his tent. STEEVENS. I have no doubt that the writer of this play had read Euripides in the original: Mr. Steevens juftly obferves in a fubfequent note near the end of this fcene, that there is " a plain allufion to the Ajax of Sophocles, of which no tranflation was extant in the time of Shakspeare." MALONE. Remaineth nought, but to inter our brethren, [Trumpets founded, and the Coffins laid in the In peace and honour reft you here, my fons; Enter LAVINIA. In peace and honour reft you here, my fons! LAV. In peace and honour live lord Titus long; noble lord and father, live in fame! My I render, for my brethren's obfequies; 10 TIT. Kind Rome, that haft thus lovingly re- The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!- ·repose you here,] Old copies, redundantly in respect both to fenfe and metre: repofe you here in reft. STEEVENS. The fame redundancy in the edition 1600, as noted in other copies by Mr. Steevens. TODD. |