SCENE III. The fame: A Pavilion, with Tables, &c. Enter Lucius, MARCUS, and Goths, with AARON, Prifoner. Luc. Uncle Marcus, fince 'tis my father's mind, That I repair to Rome, I am content. 1 GoTH. And ours, with thine, befall what fortune will. Luc. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous This ravenous tiger, this accurfed devil; AAR. Some devil whisper curfes in mine ear, And prompt me, that my tongue may utter forth The venomous malice of my fwelling heart! 8 And ours with thine,] And our content runs parallel with thine, be the confequence of our coming to Rome what it may. MALONE. 9 the emprefs' face,] The quarto has-emperours; the folio emperous. For the emendation I am answerable. MALONE. Mr. Malone fays, the quarto of 1611 has-emperours; and that he is answerable for the emendation-emprefs. The quarto of 1600 reads exactly thus: Te [i]ll he be brought unto the Empreffe face. TODD. Luc. Away, inhuman dog! unhallow'd flave! Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.— [Exeunt Goths, with AARON. Flourish. The trumpets fhow, the emperor is at hand. Enter SATURNINUS and TAMORA, with Tribunes, Senators, and Others. SAT. What, hath the firmament more funs than one ? Luc. What boots it thee, to call thyfelf a fun ? These quarrels must be quietly debated. For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome: Please you, therefore, draw nigh, and take your places. SAT. Marcus, we will. [Hautboys found. The Company fit down at Table. Enter Tirus, dreffed like a Cook, LAVINIA, veiled, young LUCIUS, and Others. TITUS places the Difhes on the Table. TIT. Welcome, my gracious lord; welcome, dread queen; Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius; And welcome, all: although the cheer be poor, 'Twill fill your ftomachs; please you eat of it. 1 break the parle ;] That is, begin the parley. We yet fay, he breaks his mind. JOHNSON. SAT. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus? TIT. Because I would be fure to have all well, To entertain your highnefs, and your emprefs. TAM. We are beholden to you, good Androni cus. TIT. An if your highness knew my heart, you were. My lord the emperor, refolve me this; 2 To flay his daughter with his own right hand, TIT. Your reafon, mighty lord! SAT. Because the girl fhould not furvive her shame, And by her prefence ftill renew his forrows. TIT. A reafon mighty, ftrong, and effectual; [He kills LAVINIA. And, with thy fhame, thy father's forrow die! SAT. What haft thou done, unnatural, and unkind? TIT. Kill'd her, for whom my tears have made me blind. Was it well done of rafh Virginius, So flay his daughter with his own right hand, &c.] Mr. Rowe might have availed himself of this paffage in The Fair Penitent, where Sciolto asks Calista: "Haft thou not heard what brave Virginius did? "With his own hand he flew his only daughter" &c. Titus Andronicus, however, is incorrect in his ftatement of this occurrence, for Virginia died unviolated. STEEVENS. 'I am as woful as Virginius was: And have a thousand times more caufe than he SAT. What, was the ravish'd? tell, who did the deed. TIT. Will't please you eat? will't please your highness feed? TAM. Why haft thou flain thine only daughter thus ? TIT. Not I; 'twas Chiron, and Demetrius: They ravifh'd her, and cut away her tongue, And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong. SAT. Go, fetch them hither to us presently. TIT. Why, there they are both, baked in that pye; Whereof their mother daintily hath fed, Eating the flesh that the herself hath bred.3 'Tis true, 'tis true; witnefs my knife's fharp point. [Killing TAMORa. SAT. Die, frantick wretch, for this accurfed deed. [Killing TITUS. Luc. Can the fon's eye behold his father bleed ? There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed. [Kills SATURNINUS. A great Tumult. The People in confufion difperfe. MARCUS, LUCIUS, and their Partifans afcend the Steps before TITUS's Houfe. 3 Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.] The additions made by Ravenfcroft to this scene, are fo much of a piece with it, that I cannot refift the temptation of showing the reader how he continues the fpeech before us : "Thus cramm'd, thou'rt bravely fatten'd up for hell, "And thus to Pluto I do ferve thee up. [Stabs the emperefs." And then-" A curtain drawn discovers the heads and hands of MAR. You fad-fac'd men, people and fons of By uproar fever'd, like a flight of fowl SEN. Left Rome herself be bane unto herself ;4 And she, whom mighty kingdoms court'fy to, Like a forlorn and defperate caft-away, Do fhameful execution on herself. But if my frofty figns and chaps of age, Demetrius and Chiron hanging up against the wall; their bodies in chairs in bloody linen." STEEVENS. 4 Sen. Left Rome &c.] This fpeech and the next, in the quarto 1611, are given to a Roman lord. In the folio they both belong to the Goth. I know not why they are feparated. I believe the whole belongs to Marcus; who, when Lucius has gone through fuch à part of the narrative as concerns his own exile, claims his turn to speak again, and recommend Lucius to the empire. STEEVENS. I have followed the quarto, where the words Roman lord, [i. e. Senator,] are prefixed to this fpeech. The copy, however, reads-Let Rome &c, which I have no doubt was an error of the prefs for Left. The editor of the folio finding the fentiment as exhibited in the quarto, in confequence of this error, not proper in the mouth of a Roman, for Roman lord fubftituted Goth. In correcting the errors of the quartos, the editor of the folio appears often to have only looked on the furface, and to have confequently made feveral injudicious emendations befide the prefent. Mr. Capell, I find, has made the fame emendation. The error here corrected has likewife happened in the quarto copies of Hamlet, A&t I. fc. ii: "let my extent to the players fhould more appear like entertainment than yours:" -instead of" Left my extent," &e. As this speech proceeds in an uniform tenor with the foregoing, the whole (as Mr. Steevens has obferved,) probably belongs to Marcus MALONE. |