SCENE II.

The fame.

Enter à Captain, and Others.

CAP. Romans, make way; The good Androni

cus,

Patron of virtue, Rome's beft champion,
Successful in the battles that he fights,
With honour and with fortune is return'd,
From where he circumfcribed with his sword,
And brought to yoke, the enemies of Rome.

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 fet down the Coffin, and TITUS Speaks.

TIT. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds !2

* Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds !] Í suspect that the poet wrote:

→in my mourning weeds!

i. e. Titus would fay: Thou, Rome, art victorious, though I am a mourner for those sons which I have loft in obtaining that victory. WARBURTON.

Thy is as well as my. We may fuppofe the Romans in a grateful ceremony, meeting the dead fons of Andronicus with mournful habits. JOHNSON.

Lo, as the bark, that hath discharg'd her fraught,3
Returns with precious lading to the bay,
From whence at firft the weigh'd her anchorage,
Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To re-falute his country with his tears;
Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.—
Thou great defender of this Capitol,4
Stand gracious to the rights that we intend !-
Romans, of five and twenty valiant fons,
Half of the number that king Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive, and dead!
Thefe, that furvive, let Rome reward with love;
These, that I bring unto their latest home,
With burial amongst their ancestors:

Here Goths have given me leave to fheath my fword.

Titus, unkind, and carelefs of thine own,
Why fuffer'ft thou thy fons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful fhore of Styx ?5-
Make way to lay them by their brethren.

[The Tomb is opened.
There greet in filence, as the dead are wont,
And fleep in peace, flain in your country's wars!
O facred receptacle of my joys,

Or that they were in mourning for their emperor who was juft 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 observe, 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 prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile,
Ad manes fratrum facrifice his flesh,
Before this earthly prison of their bones;
That fo the fhadows be not unappeas'd,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth."
TIT. I give him you; the nobleft that furvives,
The eldest fon of this diftreffed queen.

TAM. Stay, Roman brethren ;-Gracious con-
queror,

Victorious Titus, rue the tears I fhed,
A mother's tears in paffion for her fon:
And, if thy fons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my fon to be as dear to me.
Sufficeth not, that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs, and return,
Captive to thee, and to thy Roman yoke;
But muft my fons be flaughter'd in the fireets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O! if to fight for king and common weal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.

Andronicus, ftain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:

-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,

STEEVENS.

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:] "Homines enim

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge;
Thrice-noble Titus, fpare my first-born fon.

TIT. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld Alive, and dead; and for their brethren flain, Religioufly they afk a facrifice:

To this your fon is mark'd; and die he muft,
To appease their groaning fhadows 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 confum'd.
[Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and
MUTIUS, with ALARBUS.

TAM. O cruel, irreligious piety!

CHI. Was ever Scythia half fo barbarous ? DEM. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome. Alarbus goes to reft; and we furvive

To tremble under Titus' threatening look.
Then, madam, stand resolv'd; but hope withal,
The felf-fame gods, that arm'd the queen of Troy

ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam falutem hominibus dando." Cicero pro Ligario.

Mr. Whalley infers the learning of Shakspeare from this paffage: but our present 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 nearest unto God,

"By giving life and safety unto men." 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

With opportunity of sharp revenge

Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent,'
May favour Tamora, the queen of Goths,
(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 per-
form'd

Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,
And entrails feed the facrificing fire,

Whose smoke, 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 present remember, from whom our writer must 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 suppose he took it from the oldftory-book of the Trojan War, or the old tranflation 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 the 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 observes in a subsequent note near the end of this scene, that there is" a plain allufion to the Ajax of Sophocles, of which no tranflation was extant in the time of Shakspeare." MALONE.