MAR. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,5 That blab'd them with fuch pleafing eloquence, Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage; Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it fung Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear! Luc. O, fay thou for her, who hath done this deed? MAR. O, thus I found her, ftraying in the park, Seeking to hide herfelf; as doth the deer, That hath receiv'd fome 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 ftand as one upon a rock, Environ'd with a wilderness of fea; Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, It would have madded me; What fhall I do Thou haft no hands, to wipe away thy tears; O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,] This piece furnishes scarce any refemblances to Shakspeare's works; this one expreffion, however, is found in his Venus and Adonis : "Once more the engine of her thoughts began." MALONE. 6 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, MAR. Perchance, fhe weeps because they kill'd her husband: Perchance, because she knows them innocent. TIT. If they did kill thy husband, then be joy ful, Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.- Or make fome fign how I may do thee ease: What shall we do? let us, that have our tongues, To make us wonder'd at in time to come. Luc. Sweet father, ceafe your tears; for, at your grief, 7-like meadows,] Old copies-in meadows. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. See, how my wretched fifter fobs 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, haft drown'd it with thine own. Luc. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks. TIT. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her figns: 8 Had the a tongue to speak, now would the fay Enter AARON. AAR. Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor Sends thee this word,-That, if thou love thy fons, 8 with his true tears-] Edition 1600 reads with her true tears. TODD. 9 — as limbo is from blifs.] The Limbus patrum, as it was called, is a place that the fchoolmen fuppofed to be in the neighbourhood of hell, where the fouls of the patriarchs were detained, and thofe good men who died before our Saviour's refurrection. Milton gives the name of Limbo to his Paradise of Fools. REED. That gives sweet tidings of the funs uprife? Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off? Luc. Stay, father; for that noble hand of thine, That hath thrown down fo many enemies, Shall not be fent: my hand will ferve the turn: My youth can better spare my blood than you; And therefore mine fhall fave my brothers' lives. MAR. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome, And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe, Writing deftruction on the enemy's castle?1 I Writing deftruction on the enemy's caftle?] Thus all the editions. But Mr. Theobald, after ridiculing the fagaeity of the former editors at the expence of a great deal of aukward mirth, corrects it to cafque; and this, he fays, he'll ftand by: And the Oxford editor taking his fecurity, will ftand by it too. But what a flippery ground is critical confidence! Nothing could bid fairer for a right conjecture; yet 'tis all imaginary. A clofe helmet, which covered the whole head, was called a caftle, and, I fuppofe, for that very reafon. Don Quixote's barber, at least as good a critick as these editors, fays (in Shelton's tranflation 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 fomething of the fame fignification. Shakspeare ufes the word again in Troilus and Creffida: and, Diomede, "Stand faft, and wear a castle on thy head." In WARBURTON. "Dr. Warburton's proof (fays Mr. Heath,) refts wholly on two miftakes, one of a printer, the other of his own. Shelton's Don Quixote the word clofe caftle is an error of the prefs for a clofe cafque, which is the exact interpretation of the Spanish original, celada de encare; this Dr. Warburton must have feen, if he had understood Spanish as well as he pretends to do. For the primitive caxa, from whence the word encare, is derived, fignifies a box, or coffer; but never a castle. His other proof is taken from this paffage in Troilus and Creffida: O, none of both but are of high defert : AAR. Nay, come agree, whofe hand fhall go along, For fear they die before their pardon come. MAR. My hand shall Luc. go. By heaven, it shall not go. TIT. Sirs, ftrive no more; fuch wither'd herbs as thefe Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine. "Stand fast, and wear a cafile on thy head." Wherein Troilus doth not advise Diomede to wear a helmet on his head, for that would be poor indeed, as he always wore one in battle; but to guard his head with the most impenetrable armour, to fhut it up even in a castle, if it were poffible, or else his fword fhould reach it." After all this reasoning, however, it appears, that a caftle did actually fignify a clefe helmet. See Grofe's Treatife of Ancient Armour, p. 12, from whence it appears that castle may only be a corruption of the old French word-cafquetel. Thus alfo, in Holinfhed, Vol. II. p. 815: "Then fuddenlie with great noise of trumpets entered fir Thomas Knevet in a caftell of cole blacke, and over the caftell was written, The dolorous caftell; and fo he and the earle of Essex, &c. ran their courses with the kyng," &c. A remark, however, of my late friend Mr. Tyrwhitt, has taught me to suspect the validity of my quotation from Holinfhed; for one of the knights in the tournament defcribed, made his entry in a fountain, and another in a horfe-litter. Sir Thomas Knevet therefore might have appeared in a building formed in imitation of a cafile. STEEVENS. The inftance quoted does not appear to me to prove what it was adduced for; wooden caftles having been fometimes introduced in ancient tournaments. The paffage in the text is itself much more decifive. MALONE. |