This one hand yet is left to cut your throats, [He cuts their throats. SCENE III.—Gardens of Titus's House. A Pavilion, with tables, dc. Enter LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the Goths, with AARON, prisoner. Luc. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind That I repair to Rome, I am content. 1 Goth. And ours with thine, befall what for tune will. Luc. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor, (*) The first folio omits, own. a - a coffin- ] The crust of a raised pie was of old called the coffin. b - officious-) Serviceable, obliging. This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil; Sat. It was, Andronicus. Let him receive no sustenance, fetter him, Tır. Your reason, mighty lord ? Till he be brought unto the empress' face, Sat. Because the girl should not survive her For testimony of her foul proceedings: shame, And see the ambush of our friends be strong ; And by her presence still renew his sorrows. I fear the emperor means no good to us. Tit. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual; AARON. Some devil whisper curses in mine car, A pattern-precedent, and lively warrant, And prompt me, that my tongue may utter forth For me, most wretched, to perform the like: The venomous malice of my swelling heart ! Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee; Luc. Away, inhuman dog ! unhallow'd slave ! [He kills LAVINIA, Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in. And, with thy shame, thy father's sorrow die ! [Exeunt Goths, with AARON. Flourish Sat. What hast thou done, unnatural and unwithout. kind ? The trumpets show the emperor is at hand. Tit. Kill’d her, for whom my tears have made me blind. I am as woeful as Virginius was, deed? highness feed ? thus ? Sat. Go fetch them hither to us presently. pie, [Kills TAMORA. Sat. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed ! [Kills TITUS. Luc. Can the son's eye behold liis father bleed ? There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed ! [Kills SATURNINUS. A great tumult. The People disperse in terror. LUCIUS, steps of Titus's House. Rome, Enter Titus, dressed like a cook, LAVINIA, with a veil over her face, Young Lucius, and others. Titus places the dishes on the table. a Tit. Welcome, my gracious lord; welcome, dread queen; Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius ; And welcome, all ! Although the cheer be poor, ’T will fill your stomachs, please you eat of it. Sat. Why art thou thus attir’d, Andronicus ? Tit. Because I would be sure to have all well, Sat. We are beholden to you, good Andronicus. were,— a -- and it is now done.) A line not found in the folio. b - thine only daughter thus?] The reading of the 4to. 1600; later editions omitting," thus." c Lest Rome, &c.] This line, beginning, “Let Rome," &c. in the old copies, has the prefix, "Roman Lord," in the quartos, and in tbe folio, " Goth." Steevens observes that, as the speech pro ceeds in a uniform tenor, the whole probably belongs to Marcus, and to him in its entirety we assign it. Grave witnesses of true experience, These wrongs, unspeakable, past patience, Cannot induce you to attend my words, Or more than any living man could bear. Speak, Rome's dear friend, [To Lucius.] as erst Now you have heard the truth, what say you, our ancestor, Romans ? When with his solemn tongue he did discourse Have we done aught amiss,--show us wherein, To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear And, from the place where you behold us now, The story of that baleful-burning night, The remainder of Andronici And make a mutual closure of our house. That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.- Speak, Romans, speak! and if you say we shall, My heart is not compact of flint nor steel, Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.! Nor can I utter all our bitter grief, ÆMIL. Come, come, thou reverend man of But floods of tears will drown my oratory, Rome, The common voice do cry, It shall be so ! Romans. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor! Your hearts will throb and weep to hear him speak. Marc. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house, Luc. Then,t noble auditory, be it known to you, And hither hale that misbelieving Moor, That cursed Chiron and Demetrius To be adjudg'd some direful-slaughtering death, Were they that murdered our emperor's brother ; As punishment for his most wicked life. And they it was that ravished our sister : [To Attendants, who go into the house. For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded ; ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious Our father's tears despis’d, and basely cozen'd governor! Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out, Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans: may I govern so, And sent her enemies unto the grave. To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe! Lastly, myself, unkindly banished, But, gentle people, give me aim awhile, Stand all aloof;—but, uncle, draw you near, Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears, To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend : O, take this warm kiss on thy pale-cold lips, And I am the turn’d-forth, be it known to you, [Kisses Titus. That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood, These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain’d* face, And from her bosom took the enemy's point, The last true duties of thy noble son! Sheathing the steel in my adventurous body. MARC. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss, Alas, you know I am no vaunter, I! Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips : My scars can witness, dumb although they are, O, were the sum of these that I should pay, That my report is just and full of truth. Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them ! But, soft ! methinks I do digress too much, Luc. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn Citing my worthless praise : 0, pardon me, For, when no friends are by, men praise themselves. To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov’d thee well : Marc. Now is my turn to speak : behold this Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee, child, Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow; [Pointing to the Child in the arms of an Many a matter hath he told to thee, Attendant. Meet and agreeing with thine infancy; Of this was Tamora delivered ; In that respect, then, like a loving child, The issue of an irreligious Moor, Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring, Chief architect and plotter of these woes. Because kind nature doth require it so: The villain is alive in Titus' house, Friends should associate friends in grief and woe : Damn'das he is, to witness this is true. Bid him farewell ; commit him to the grave; Now judge what cause I had Titus to revenge Do him that kindness, and take leave of him. of us (*) First folio inserts, hand. (+) First folio, This. (1) Old text, course. a And I am the turn'd-forth, &c.) So the quartos; the folio has, “And I am turned forth," &c. b Damn'd as he is, &c.) Theobald's emendation; the old text having, “ And as he is.” (*) Old text, bloud-slaine. c ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor!] This and the subsequ line, “ Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!" are in the old copies ascribed to Marcus; but surely in error. woes : Boy. O, grandsire, grandsire ! even with all my I am no baby, I, that with base prayers I should repent the evils I have done : I do repent it from my very soul. Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor hence, 1 Roman. You sad Andronici, have done with And give him burial in his father's grave. My father and Lavinia shall forthwith Give sentence on this execrable wretch, Be closed in our household's monument : That hath been breeder of these dire events. As for that heinous tiger, Tamora, Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weeds, him ; No mournfula bell shall ring her burial ; There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food : But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey : If any one relieves or pities him, Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity, For the offence he dies. This is our doom. And, being so, shall have like want of pity. Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth. See justice done on Aaron, that damn’d Moor, AARON. O, why should wrath be mute, and By whom our heavy haps had their beginning: fury dumb ? Then, afterwards, to order well the state, a No mournful bell-) Query, No solemn bell," &c. ? That like events may ne'er it ruinate. (1) (Exeunt. 60 ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENTS. ACT II. a (1) SCENE III. Be unto us as is a nurse's song Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.] Douce, in his “Illustrations of Shakspeare," has an interesting note on the burden lullaby. "It would be a hopeless task to trace the origin of the northern verb to lull, which means to sing gently; but it is evidently connected with the Greek naléw, loquor, or dáxin, the sound made by the beach at sea. Thus much is certain, that the Roman nurses used the word lalla to quiet their children, and that they feigned a deity called Lallus, whom they invoked on that occasion ; the lullaby or tune itself was called by the same name. As lallare meant to sing lalla, to lull might in like manner denote the singing of the nurse's lullaby to induce the child to sleer Thus in an ancient carol compos in the fifteenth century, and preserved among the Sloane MSS. No. 2593 : "che song a slepe wt her lullynge here dere sone our savyoure.' “In another old ballad, printed by Mr. Ritson in his Ancient Songs, p. 198, the burden is lully, lully, lullaby, Jullyby, sweete baby,' &c.; from which it seems probable that lullaby is only a comparatively modern contraction of lully baby, the first word being the legitimate offspring of the Roman lalla. In another of these pieces, still more ancient, and printed in the same collection, we bave lullay, lullow, lully, bewy, lulla baw baw.' “The Welsh appear to have been famous for their lullaby songs. Jones, in his Arte and science of preserving bodie and soule, 1579, 4to., says :- The best nurses, but especially the trim and skilfull Welch women, doe use to sing some preaty sonets, wherwith their copious tong is plentifully stoared of divers pretie tunes and pleasaunt ditties, that the children disquieted might be brought to reste : but translated never so well, they want their grace in Englisho, for lacke of proper words : so that I will omit them, as I wishe they would theyr lascivious Dymes, wanton Lullies, and amorous Englins.' “Mr. White, in reviewing his opinion of the etymology of good-by, will perhaps incline to think it a contraction, when properly written good b'ye, of God be with you, and not 'may your house prosper !' “To add to the stock of our old lullaby songs, two are here subjoined. The first is from a pageant of The slaughter of the innocents, acted at Coventry in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the taylors and shearers of that city, and most obligingly communicated by Mr. Sharpe. The other is from the curious volume of songs mentioned before in p. 262. Both exhibit the simplicity of ancient manners : "Lully, lulla, thou littell tine childe, By by lully lullay, By by lully lullay. For to preserve this day By by lully lullay. Chargid he hath this day; All yonge children to slay. " "That wo is me, pore child for thee, And ever morne and say ; By by lully lullay.' Rockyd I my chyld By by lullaby, rockyd I my chyld.'” (2) SCENE IV.--A precious ring, that lightens all the hole.] The gem supposed to possess a property of emitting native light was called a carbuncle, and is frequently mentioned in early books ; tbus, in “ The Gesta Romanorum," b. vi. :-“He further beheld and saw a carbuncle in the hall that lighted all the house." So also in Lydgate's “Description of King Priam's Palace,” L. II. : " And for most chefe all derkeness to confound, A carbuncle was set as kyng of stones all, With the freshnes of his ruddy light." “Is that admirèd mighty stone, The carbuncle that's named ; The eye to it directeth." But the best illustration of the passage we have met with occurs in a letter from Boyle, containing “Observations on a Diamond that shines in the dark :"- -“ Though Vortomannus was not an eye-witness of what he relates, that the King of Pegu had a true Carbuncle of that bigness and splendour, that it shined very gloriously in the dark; and though Garcias ab Horto, the Indian Vice-Roy's physician, speaks of another carbuncle only on the report of one that he discoursed with; yet as we are not sure that these men that gave themselves out to be eye-witnesses, speak true, yet they may have done so for aught we know to the contrary: I must not omit that some virtuosi questioning me the other day at Whitehall, and meeting amongst them an ingenious Dutch gentleman whose father was long embassador for the Netherlands in England, I learned of him that he is acquainted with a person who was admiral of the Dutch in the East Indies, and who assured this gentleman Monsieur Boreel, that at his return from thence, he brought back with him into Holland a stone which though it looked but like a pale dull diamond, yet it was a real carbuncle ; and did without rubbing shine so much, that when the admiral had occasion to open a chest which he kept under deck in a dark place where it was forbidden to bring candles for fear of mischances, as soon as he opened the trunk, the stone would by its native light shine so as to illustrte a great part of it.”—Boyle's Works, Vol. II. p. 82. |
