TIT. Will it consume me? let me see it then. MAR. This was thy daughter.

TIT. Why, Marcus, so she is.

Luc. Ah me! this object kills me!

TIT. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her:

Speak, my Lavinia,2 what accursed hand
Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?3
What fool hath added water to the sea?

Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?
My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,
And now, like Nilus, it disdaineth bounds.-
Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too:
For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain ;
And they have nurs'd this woe, in feeding life;
In bootless prayer have they been held up,
And they have serv'd me to effectless use:
Now, all the service I require of them
Is, that the one will help to cut the other.—
'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;
For hands, to do Rome service, are but vain.
Luc. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd
thee?

Speak, my Lavinia,] My, which is wanting in the first folio, was supplied by the second. STEEVENS.

3

— in thy father's sight?] We should read-spight?

I'll chop off my hands too;]

or chop off &c.

WARBURTON.

Perhaps we should read:

It is not easy to discover how Titus, when he had chopped off one of his hands, would have been able to have chopped off the other. STEevens.

I have no doubt but the text is as the author wrote it. Let him answer for the blunder. In a subsequent line Titus supposes himself his own executioner:

"Now all the service I require of them" &c. MALONE.

MAR. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,5 That blab'd them with such pleasing eloquence, Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage; Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!

Luc. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?

MAR. O, thus I found her, straying in the park, Seeking to hide herself; as doth the deer, That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.

TIT. It was my deer; and he that wounded her,

Hath hurt me more, than had he kill'd me dead:
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of sea;

Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.

This way

to death my wretched sons are gone; Here stands my other son, a banish'd man; And here my brother, weeping at my woes; But that, which gives my soul the greatest spurn, Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.Had I but seen thy picture in this plight, It would have madded me; What shall I do Now I behold thy lively body so?

Thou hast no hands, to wipe away thy tears; Nor tongue, to tell me who hath martyr'd thee:

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,] This piece furnishes scarce any resemblances to Shakspeare's works; this one expression, however, is found in his Venus and Adonis:

"Once more the engine of her thoughts began."

MALONE.

It was my deer;] The play upon deer and dear has been

used by Waller, who calls a lady's girdle

"The pale that held my lovely deer." JOHNSON.

Thy husband he is dead; and, for his death,
Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this:-
Look, Marcus! ah, son Lucius, look on her!
When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey dew
Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.

MAR. Perchance, she weeps because they kill'd her husband:

Perchance, because she knows them innocent.

TIT. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,

Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.-
No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;
Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.-
Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips;

Or make some sign how I may do thee ease;
Shall thy good uncle, and thy brother Lucius,
And thou, and I, sit round about some fountain;
Looking all downwards, to behold our cheeks
How they are stain'd; like meadows, yet not dry
With miry slime left on them by a flood?
And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,
Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,
And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?
Or shall we cut away our hands, like thine?
Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows
Pass the remainder of our hateful days?

What shall we do? let us, that have our tongues,
Plot some device of further misery,

To make us wonder'd at in time to come.

7

Luc. Sweet father, cease your tears; for, at your grief,

like meadows,] Old copies-in meadows. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

See, how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.

MAR. Patience, dear niece :-good Titus, dry thine eyes.

TIT. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! brother, well I wot, Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,

For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own. Luc. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks. TIT. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her

signs:

Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say That to her brother which I said to thee;

8

His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,
Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
O, what a sympathy of woe is this?
As far from help as limbo is from bliss!"

Enter AARON.

AAR. Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor Sends thee this word,-That, if thou love thy sons, Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself old Titus, Or any one of you, chop off your hand, And send it to the king: he for the same, Will send thee hither both thy sons alive; And that shall be the ransome for their fault. TIT. O, gracious emperor! O, gentle Aaron! Did ever raven sing so like a lark,

with his true tears-] Edition 1600 reads with her true tears. TODD.

9

as limbo is from bliss.] The Limbus patrum, as it was called, is a place that the schoolmen supposed to be in the neighbourhood of hell, where the souls of the patriarchs were detained, and those good men who died before our Saviour's resurrection. Milton gives the name of Limbo to his Paradise of Fools. REEd.

That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
With all my heart, I'll send the emperor
My hand;

Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?

Luc. Stay, father; for that noble hand of thine,
That hath thrown down so many enemies,
Shall not be sent: my hand will serve the turn:
My youth can better spare my blood than you;
And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.
MAR. Which of your hands hath not defended
Rome,

And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,
Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?1

'Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?] Thus all the editions. But Mr. Theobald, after ridiculing the sagacity of the former editors at the expence of a great deal of aukward mirth, corrects it to casque; and this, he says, he'll stand by: And the Oxford editor, taking his security, will stand by it too. But what a slippery ground is critical confidence! Nothing could bid fairer for a right conjecture; yet 'tis all imaginary. A close helmet, which covered the whole head, was called a castle, and, suppose, for that very reason. Don Quixote's barber, at least as good a critick as these editors, says (in Shelton's translation 1612): "I know what is a helmet, and what a morrion, and what a close castle, and other things touching warfare." Lib. IV. cap. xviii. And the original, celada de encaxe, has something of the same signification. Shakspeare uses the word again in Troilus and Cressida :

I

"Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head."

WARBURTON.

"Dr. Warburton's proof (says Mr. Heath,) rests wholly on two mistakes, one of a printer, the other of his own. In Shelton's Don Quixote the word close castle is an error of the press for a close casque, which is the exact interpretation of the Spanish original, celada de encaxe; this Dr. Warburton must have seen, if he had understood Spanish as well as he pretends to do. For the primitive caxa, from whence the word encaxe, is derived, signifies a box or coffer; but never a castle. His other proof is taken from this passage in Troilus and Cressida :