SCENE II. Rome. Before Titus's House. En-Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes. ter TAMORA, CHIRON, aud DEMETRIUS, dis- Tam. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment, [They knock. Tit. Who doth molest my contemplation? You are deceiv'd: for what I mean to do, Tam. Titus, I am come to talk with thee. O, sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee: Tam. This closing with him fits his lunacy: Tit. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee: Tit. I am not mad; I know thee well enough: Witness this wretched stump, witness these crim-But welcome, as you are. What shall we do? son lines; Witness these trenches, made by grief and care; Tam. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora ; I am Revenge; sent from the infernal kingdom, To be a torment to mine enemies? Tam. I am; therefore come down and welcome me. Tit. Do me some service, ere I come to thee. call'd? Tam. What would'st thou have us do, Androni cus ? Dem. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him. Chi. Show me a villain, that hath done a rape, And I am sent to be reveng'd on him. Tam. Show me a thousand, that hath done thee wrong, And I will be revenged on them all. Tit. Look round" about the wicked streets of Rome; Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.- Tam. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do. Tit. Marcus, my brother!-'tis sad Titus calls. Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius; Mar. This will I do, and soon return again. [Exil Tam. Now will I hence about thy business, 2 Similar violations of syntax, according to modern notions, are not unfrequent in our elder writers. Thus Hobbes, in his History of the Civil Wars:-'If the king give us leave, you or I may as lawfully preach as them that do." Or else I'll call my brother back again, And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam, Tam. What say you, boys? will you abide with This is the feast that I have bid her to, him, Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor, And tarry with him, till I come again. [Aside. Tit. I know them all, though they suppose me And will o'er-reach them in their own devices, [Aside. Chi. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd? Pub. What's your will? Tit. Pub. Know you these two? I take them, Chiron and Demetrius. The one is Murder, Rape is the other's name: [Exit TITUS. PUBLIUS, &c. lay hold on Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word: Tit. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me; Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with This goodly summer with your winter mix'd. Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that, more Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity, 1 A coffin is the term for the crust of a raised pie. Earth's increase and foison plenty.' 3 And our content runs parallel with thine, be the consequence of our coming to Rome what it may.' 4 i. e. begin the parley. We yet say, he breaks his mind. And this the banquet she shall surfeit on; Luc. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind, 1 Goth. And ours, with thine,' befall what fortune Luc. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor, Aar. Some devil whisper curses in mine ear, Luc. Away, inhuman dog! unhallow'd slave!— [Exeunt Goths, with AARON. Flourish. Sat. What, hath the firmament more suns than queen; Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius; Sat. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus? 5 Rowe may have availed himself of this passage in The Fair Penitent, where Sciolto asks Calista : "Hast thou not heard what brave Virginius did? With his own hand he slew his only daughter,' &c. Titus Andronicus (as Steevens observes) is incorrect in his statement of this occurrence, for Virginia died unviolated. Mr. Boswell seems to think this is qualified by his saying that he had more cause to lay his daughter than Virginius. Sat. It was, Andronicus. Tit. Your reason, mighty lord! Of that true hand, that fought Rome's quarrel out, Sat. Because the girl should not survive her Lastly, myself unkindly banished, shame, And by her presence still renew his sorrows. [He kills LAVINIA. blind. I am as woful as Virginius was: And have a thousand times more cause than he Sat. What, was she ravish'd? tell, who did the deed. Tit. Will't please you eat? will't please your highness feed? Tam. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus? Tit. Not I; 'twas Chiron, and Demetrius: They ravish'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 pie; Whereof their mother daintily hath fed, Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.' 'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point. Killing TAMORA. Sat. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed. [Killing TITUS. Luc. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed? There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed. [Kills SATURNINUS. A great tumult. The People in confusion disperse. MARCUS, LUCIUS, and their Partisans ascend the Steps before TITUS's House. Mar. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons Rome, By uproar sever'd, like a flight of fowl Sen. Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself And she, whom mighty kingdoms court'sy to, Like a forlorn and desperate castaway, age, of Do shameful execution on herself. our ancestor, When with his solemn tongue he did discourse But floods of tears will drown my oratory, 1 The additions made by Ravenscroft to this scene are much of a piece with it : Thus cramm'd, thou'rt bravely fatten'd up for hell, And thus to Pluto I do serve thee up.' [Stubs the Empress. The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out, Of this was Tamora delivered; Have we done aught amiss? Show us wherein, Emil. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome, Rom. [Several speak.] Lucius, all hail; Rome's royal emperor! LUCIUS, &c. descend. Mar. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house; [To an Attendant. And hither hale that misbelieving Moor, To be adjudg'd some direful slaughtering death, As punishment for his most wicked life. Rom. [Several speak.] Lucius, all hail; Rome's gracious governor! Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans; May I govern so, Mar. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss, Luc. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn of us To melt in showers: Thy grandsire lov'd thee well: 3 i. e. we the poor remainder, &c. will cast us down I Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave; Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor heart Enter Attendants, with AARON. 1 Rom. You sad Andronici, have done with woes; Give sentence on this execrable wretch, That hath been breeder of these dire events. Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him; There let him stand, and rave and cry for food: If any one relieves or pities him, For the offence he dies. This is our doom: Some stay, to see him fasten'd in the earth.' My father, and Lavinia, shall forthwith No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weeds, [Exeunt. ALL the editors and critics agree in supposing this play Aar. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for dumb? I am no baby, I, that with base prayers, I should repent the evil I have done; Ten thousand, worse than ever yet I did, 1 That justice and cookery may go hand in hand to the conclusion of the play, in Ravenscroft's alteration of it, Aaron is at once racked and roasted on the stage. the colour of the style is wholly different from that of the other plays, and there is an attempt at regular ver sification, and artificial closes, not always inelegant, yet seldom pleasing. The barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience, yet we are told by Jonson that they were not only borne bet praised. That Shakspeare wrote any part, though Theobald declares it incontestable, I see no reason for believing. JOHNSON PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. MR. DOUCE observes that the very great popularity of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated from the interest which the story must have excited. To trace the fable beyond the period in which the favourite romance of Apollonius Tyrius was com posed, would be a vain attempt: that was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has been discovered. Some have maintained that it was originally written in Greek, and translated into Latin by a Christian about the time of the decline of the Roman empire; others have given it to Symposius, a writer whom they place in the eighth century, because the riddles which occur in the story are to be found in a work entitled Symposii Ænigmata. It occurs in that storehouse of popular fiction the Gesta Romanorum, and its antiquity is sufficiently evinced by the existence of an Anglo Saxon version, mentioned in Wanley's list, and now in Bene't College, Cambridge. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse, about the year 1500, (this is probably the MS. mentioned by Dufresne in the index of authors appended to his Greek Glossary,) and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. It had been printed in Latin prose at Augsburg in 1471, which is probably as early as the first dateless impression of the Gesta Romanorum.* A very curious fragment of an old metrical romance on the subject was in the collection of the late Dr. Farmer, and is now in my possession. This we have the authority of Mr. Tyrwhitt for placing at an earlier period than the time of Gower. The fragment consists of two leaves of parchment, which had been converted into the cover of a book, for which purpose its edges were cut off, some words entirely lost, and the whole has suffered so much by time as to be scarcely legible. Yet I have considered it so curious a relic of our early poetry and language, that I have bestowed some pains in deciphering what remains, and have given a speci men or two in the notes toward the close of the play.I will here exhibit a further portion, comprising the Towards the latter end of the twelfth century, Matreque defuncta pater arsit in ejus amore The rest is in the same metre, with one pentameter only to two hexameters.'-Tyrwhitt He lyvede after this do was, the kyndom of Antioche He wrot twey bokys of hys lyf, — at byddynge of hys wyf, Anategora he made king of Tire, best sone of that empire He made king of Aitnage that he louede dure, Of Cirenen thr was Whan that he hadde al thys y dyght Cam deth and axede hys fee, hys soule to God al myght So wol God the hit bee, And sende ech housbonde grace For to lovye so hys wyf That cherysed hem wit oute trespace As scho dyde him al here lyf, me on alle lyues space Heer to amende our mysdede, In blisse of heuene to have a place; Amen ye singe here y rede. In trouth thys was translatyd Almost at Engelondes ende, to the makers stat mynde, Tak sich a have ytake hys bedys on hond And sayde hys patr nostr & crede, Thomas vicary y understond At Wymborne mynstre in that stede, y thoughte you have wryte Hit is nought worth to be knowe, Go thlder and men wol the schewe, In to the blysse of heuene to dwelle, Explicit Appoloni Tyrus Rex nobilis & vrtuosus, &c. This story is also related by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii. p. 175-185, edit. 1554. Most of the incidents of the play are found in his narration, and a few of his expressions are occasionally borrowed.-Gower, by his own acknowledgment, took his story from the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo; and the author of Pericles professes to have followed Gower. Chaucer also refers to the story in The Man of Lawe's Prologue : 'Or elles of Tyrius Appolonius, How that the cursed king Antiochus, Beraft his doughter of hire maidenhede; That is so horrible a tale for to rede,' &c. A French translation from the Latin prose, evidently of the fifteenth century, is among the Royal MSS. in the British Museum, 20, c. ii. There are several more recent French translations of the story: one under the title of La Chronique d'Appolin Roi de Thyr,' 4to. Geneva, blk. 1. no date. Another by Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1530, Svo. It is also printed in the seventh vol. of the Histoires Tragiques de Belleforest, 12mo. 1604; and modernised by M. Le Brun, was printed at Amsterdam in 1710, and Paris in 1711. 120. There is an abstract of the story in the Melanges tirees d'une grande Bibliotheque, vol. Ixiv. p. 265. 'But Shakspeare, the plebeian driller, was Founder'd in his Pericles, and must not pass.' qualified, and made at no distant period from the death To these testimonies in 1646 and 1652, full and unof the bard to whom they relate, we have to add the still more forcible and striking declaration of Dryden, who tells us in 1677, and in words as strong and decisive as he could select, that 'Shakspeare's own muse, his Pericles first bore,' The only drawback on this accumulation of external evidence is the omission of Pericles in the first edition of our author's works: a negative fact which can have little weight, when we recollect that both the memory and judgment of Heminge and Condell, the poet's editors, were so defective, that they had forgotien Troilus and Cressida, until the entire folio, and the Andronicus and the Historical Play of King Henry table of contents, had been printed; and admitted Titus the Sixth, probably for no other reasons than that the former had been, from its unmerited popularity, brought forward by Shakspeare on his own theatre, though there is sufficient internal evidence to prove, without the addition of a single line; and because the latter, with a similar predilection of the lower. orders in its favour, had obtained a similar, though not a more laboured attention from our poet, and was therefore deemed by his editors, though very unnecessarily, a requisite introduction to the two plays on the reign of that monarch, which Shakspeare had really new forgotten Troilus and Cressida until the folio had been It cannot consequently be surprising, as they had printed, they should have forgotten Pericles until the same folio had been in circulation, and when it was too late to correct the omission; an error which the second folio has, without doubt or examination, blindly copied. The first English prose version of the story, trans-modelled.' lated by Robert Copland, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510. It was again translated by T. Twine, and originally published by W. Howe, 1576. Of this there was a second impression in 1607, under the title of The Patterne of painful Adventures, containing the most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Accidents that befel unto Prince Appolonius, If the external evidence in support of Shakspeare the Lady Lucina his Wife, and Tharsia his Daughter, being the author of the greater part of this play be &c. translated into English by T. Twine, Gent. poet seems to have made use of this prose narration as and, indeed, absolutely decisive of the question; for, The striking, the internal must be pronounced still more so, well as of Gower. whether we consider the style and phrascology, or the imagery, sentiment, and humour, the approximation to our author's uncontested dramas appears so close, frequent, and peculiar, as to stamp irresistible conviction on the mind. That the greater part, if not the whole, of this drama, was the composition of Shakspeare, and that it is to be considered as his earliest dramatic effort, are positions, of which the first has been rendered highly probable by the elaborate disquisitions of Messrs. Steevens and Malone, and may possibly be placed in a clearer point of view by a more condensed and lucid arrangement of the testimony already produced, and by a further discussion of the merits and peculiarities of the play itself, while the second will, we trust, receive additional support by inferences legitimately deduced from a comprehensive survey of scattered and hitherto insulated premises.' been predicted, under the assumption of the play being The result has accordingly been such as might have genuine; for the more it has been examined the more clearly has Shakspeare's large property in it been established. It is curious, indeed, to note the increased tone of confidence which each successive commentator has assumed, in proportion as he has weighed the testimony arising from the piece itself. Rowe, in his Pericles certainly was written by him, particularly the first edition, says, "it is owned that some part of last act:" Dr. Farmer observes that the hand of Shakspeare may be seen in the latter part of the play: Dr. Percy remarks that "more of the phraseology used in the genuine dramas of Shakspeare prevails in Pericles than in any of the other six doubted plays." Steevens says, "I admit without reserve that Shakspeare whose hopeful colours The evidence required for the establishment of a high degree of probability under the first of these positions, necessarily divides itself into two parts; the external and the internal evidence. The former commences with the original edition of Pericles, which was entered on the Stationers' books by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's plays, on the 20th of May, 1608, but did not pass the press until the subsequent year, when it was published, not, as might have been expected, by Blount, but by one Henry Gosson, who placed Shakspeare's name at Advance a half fac'd sun, striving to shine,' full length in the title page, It is worthy of remark, is visible in many scenes throughout the play ;-the also, that this edition was entered at Stationers' hall, together with Antony and Cleopatra, and that it (and purpurei panni are Shakspeare's, and the rest the the three following editions, which were also in quarto) production of some inglorious and forgotten playwas styled in the title page the much admired play of Pericles is valuable, "as the engravings of Mark wright;"--adding, in a subsequent paragraph, that Pericles. As the entry, however, was by Blount, and Antonio are valuable not only on account of their the edition by Gosson, it is probable that the former had beauty, but because they are suppposed to have been been anticipated by the latter, through the procurance executed under the eye of Raffaelle" Malone gives it of a play house copy. It may also be added, that as his corrected opinion, that "the congenial senPericles was performed at Shakspeare's own theatre, The Globe. The next ascription of this play to our timents, the numerous expressions bearing a striking author is in a poem entitled The Times Displayed, in similitude to passages in Shakspeare's undisputed Sir Sestyads, by S. Sheppard, 4to. 1646, dedicated to plays, some of the incidents, the situation of many of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and containing in the persons, and in various places the colour of the the ninth stanza of the sixth Sestiad a positive assertion style, all these combine to set his seal on the play of Shakspeare's property in this drama :-before us, and furnish us with internal and irresistible proofs, that a considerable portion of this piece, as it now appears, was written by him." On this ground he thinks the greater part of the three last acts may be safely ascribed to him; and that his hand may bo traced occasionally in the other two. "Many will be of opinion (says Mr. Douce) that it contains more that See him whose tragic sceans Euripides Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may Compare great Shakspear; Aristophanes Never like him his fancy could display, Witness the Prince of Tyre his Pericles.' |