As I am confident and kind to thee.

Open the gates, and let me in.

Bas. Tribunes! and me, a poor competitor.

[SAT. and BAs. go into the Capitol, and exeunt with Senators, MAR. &c.

SCENE II.

The same.

Enter a Captain, and Others.

Cap. Romans, make way; The good Andronicus,
Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,
Successful in the battles that he fights,

With honour and with fortune is return'd,
From where he circumscribed 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 set down the Coffin, and TITUS speaks.

Tit. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds !2 Lo, as the bark, that hath discharg'd her fraught,3 Returns with precious lading to the bay,

From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,

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

in my mourning weeds!

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

Thy is as well as my. We may suppose the Romans in a grateful ceremony, meeting the dead sons of Andronicus with mournful habits. Johnson.

Or that they were in mourning for their emperor who was just 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.

Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To re-salute 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 sons,
Half of the number that king Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive, and dead!
These, that survive, 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 sheathe my sword.
Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,
Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?5.
Make way to lay them by their brethren.

[The Tomb is opened

There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars!
O sacred receptacle of my joys,

Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,

How many sons of mine hast thou in store,
That thou wilt never render to me more?

Luc. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile,
Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,
Before this earthly prison of their bones;
That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth."

Tit. I give him you; the noblest that survives,
The eldest son of this distressed queen.

• Thou great defender of this Capitol,] Jupiter, to whom the Capitol was sacred. Johnson.

5 To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx ?] Here we have one of the numerous classical notions that are scattered with a pedantick profusion through this piece. Malone.

6 earthly prison] Edit. 1600:-"earthy prison."

Todd.

7 Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.] It was supposed by the ancients, that the ghosts of unburied people appeared to their friends and relations, to solicit the rites of funeral.

Steevens.

Tam. Stay, Roman brethren;-Gracious conqueror, Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,

A mother's tears in passion for her son:
And, if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son 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 must my sons be slaughter'd in the streets,
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, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:8
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge;
Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

Tit. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld
Alive, and dead; and for their brethren slain,
Religiously they ask a sacrifice:

To this your son is mark'd; and die he must,

"

To appease their groaning shadows that are" gone. dust 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 consum'd.

[Exeunt Luc. QUIN. MAR. and MUT. with ALAR.

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?

Draw near them then in being merciful:] "Homines enim ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando." Cicero pro Ligario.

Mr. Whalley infers the learning of Shakspeare from this pas sage: but our present author, whoever he was, might have found a translation of it in several places, provided he was not acquainted with the original. Steevens.

The same sentiment is in Edward III, 1596:

66.

kings approach the nearest unto God, By giving life and safety unto men." Reed.

?Patient yourself, &c.] This verb is used by other dramatick writers. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"Patient yourself, we cannot help it now."

Again, in King Edward I, 1599:

"Patient your highness, 'tis but mother's love." Steevens.

Tam. O cruel, irreligious piety!

Chi. Was ever Scythia half so barbarous?
Dem. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
Alarbus goes to rest; and we survive

To tremble under Titus' threatening look.
Then, madam, stand resolv'd; but hope withal,
The self-same gods, that arm'd the queen of Troy
With opportunity of sharp revenge

Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent,1
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 perform'd
Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,
And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,

Whose smoke, like incense, doth perfume the sky.
Remaineth nought, but to inter our brethren,
And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.

1 The self-same 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 she and the other Trojan captive women were kept for thither Hecuba by a wile had decoyed Polymnestor, 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 circumstance. Theobald.

Mr. Theobald should first have proved to us that our author understood Greek, or else that this play of Euripides had been translated. In the mean time, because neither of these particulars are verified, we may as well suppose he took it from the old story-book of the Trojan War, or the old translation of Ovid. See Metam. XIII. The writer of the play, whoever he was, might have been misled by the passage in Ovid: "vadit ad artificem," and therefore took it for granted that she found him in his tent. Steevens.

I have no doubt that the writer of this play had read Euripides in the original. Mr. Steevens justly observes in a subsequent note near the end of this scene, that there is "a plain allusion to the Ajax of Sophocles, of which no translation was extant in the time of Shakspeare." Malone.

Tit. Let it be so, and let Andronicus Make this his latest farewel to their souls.

[Trumpets sounded, and the Coffins laid in the Tomb. In peace and honour rest you here, my sons; Rome's readiest champions, repose you here,2 Secure from worldly chances and mishaps! Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned grudges; here, are no storms, No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:

Enter LAVINIA.

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!
Lav. In peace and honour live ford Titus long;
My noble lord and father, live in fame!

Lo! at this tomb my tributary tears

I render, for my brethren's obsequies;
And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy
Shed on the earth, for thy return to Rome:
O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,
Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud.
Tit. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd
The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!-
Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,
And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise !3

Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS, SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and others.

Mar. Long live lord Titus, my beloved brother, Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!

Tit. Thanks, gentle tribune, noble brother Marcus. Mar. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars, You that survive, and you that sleep in fame.

Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all,

2

repose you here,] Old copies, redundantly in respect both to sense and metre:

repose you here in rest.

Steevens.

The same redundancy in the edition 1600, as noted in other copies by Mr. Steevens. Todd.

3 And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!] This absurd wish is made sense of, by changing and into in. Warburton. To live in fame's date is, if an allowable, yet a harsh expres

sion.

To outlive an eternal date, is, though not philosophical, yet poetical sense. He wishes that her life may be longer than his, and her praise longer than fame. Johnson.

VOL. XVII.

C