This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;
Let him receive no sustenance, fetter him,
Till he be brought unto the empress' face,
For testimony of her foul proceedings:
And see the ambush of our friends be strong;
I fear the emperor means no good to us.

AARON. Some devil whisper curses in mine ear, And prompt me, that my tongue may utter forth The venomous malice of my swelling heart!

Luc. Away, inhuman dog! unhallow'd slave!— Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in. [Exeunt Goths, with AARON. without.

Flourish

Enter TITUS, dressed like a cook, LAVINIA, with a veil over her face, YOUNG Lrcius, and others. TITUS places the dishes 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, 'T will fill your stomachs, please you eat of it.

SAT. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus? TIT. Because I would be sure to have all well, To entertain your highness and your empress.

SAT. We are beholden to you, good Andronicus. TIT. An if your highness knew my heart, you

SAT. It was, Andronicus.

TIT. Your reason, mighty lord?

SAT. Because the girl should not survive her shame,

And by her presence still renew his sorrows.

TIT. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual; A pattern-precedent, and lively warrant, For me, most wretched, to perform the like:— Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee; [He kills LAVINIA. And, with thy shame, thy father's sorrow die! SAT. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?

TIT. Kill'd her, for whom my tears have made me blind.

I am as woeful as Virginius was,

And have a thousand times more cause than he
To do this outrage ;-and it is now done."
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; 't was Chiron and Demetrius : They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue; And they, 't was they, that did her all this wrong. SAT. Go fetch them hither to us presently. Trг. 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! [Kills TAMORA. SAT. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed! [Kills Tirus.

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 disperse in terror. LUCIUS,

MARCUS, and their Partisans ascend the steps of Titus's House.

MARC. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of
Rome,

By uproars sever'd, like a flight of fowl
Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts,
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scatter'd corn into one mutual sheaf,
These broken limbs again into one body;
Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself;
And she whom mighty kingdoms court'sy to,
Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
Do shameful execution on herself.
But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,

the old copies, has the prefix, "Roman Lord," in the quartos, and in the folio, "Goth." Steevens observes that, as the speech proceeds in a uniform tenor, the whole probably belongs to Marcus, and to him in its entirety we assign it.

Grave witnesses of true experience,
Cannot induce you to attend my words,-
Speak, Rome's dear friend, [To LUCIUS.] as erst

our ancestor,

When with his solemn tongue he did discourse
To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear
The story of that baleful-burning night,
When subtle Greeks surpris'd king Priam's Troy,-
Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,
Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.-
My heart is not compact of flint nor steel,
Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,

But floods of tears will drown my oratory,
And break my very utterance, even in the time
When it should move you to attend me most.
Lending your kind* commiseration,
Here is a captain, let him tell the tale,
Your hearts will throb and weep to hear him speak.
Luc. Then, noble auditory, be it known to you,
That cursed Chiron and Demetrius
Were they that murdered our emperor's brother;
And they it was that ravished our sister:

For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded;
Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd
Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out,
And sent her enemies unto the grave.
Lastly, myself, unkindly banished,

The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,
To beg relief among Rome's enemies;
Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,
And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend:
And I am the turn'd-forth, be it known to you,
That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood,
And from her bosom took the enemy's point,
Sheathing the steel in my adventurous body.
Alas, you know I am no vaunter, I!

My scars can witness, dumb although they are,
That my report is just and full of truth.
But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,
Citing my worthless praise: O, pardon me,
For, when no friends are by, men praise themselves.
MARC. Now is my turn to speak: behold this
child,-

[Pointing to the Child in the arms of an
Attendant.

Of this was Tamora delivered;
The issue of an irreligious Moor,
Chief architect and plotter of these woes.
The villain is alive in Titus' house,
Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.
Now judge what cause‡ had Titus to revenge

(*) First folio inserts, hand. (+) First folio, This.
(1) Old text, course.

a And I am the turn'd-forth, &c.] So the quartos; the folio has,"And I am turned forth," &c.

b Damn'd as he is, &c.] Theobald's emendation; the old text having, "And as he is."

These wrongs, unspeakable, past patience,
Or more than any living man could bear.
Now you have heard the truth, what say you,
Romans?

Have we done aught amiss,-show us wherein,
And, from the place where you behold us now,
The poor remainder of Andronici

Will, hand in hand, all headlong cast us down,
And on the ragged stones beat forth our brains,
And make a mutual closure of our house.
Speak, Romans, speak! and if you say we shall,
Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall!

ÆMIL. Come, come, thou reverend man of
Rome,

And bring our emperor gently in thy hand,
Lucius our emperor; for well I know
The common voice do cry, It shall be so !
ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor!"
MARC. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,
To be adjudg'd some direful-slaughtering death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.

[To Attendants, who go into the house. ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!

Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans: may I govern so, To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe! But, gentle people, give me aim awhile, For nature puts me to a heavy task; Stand all aloof;—but, uncle, draw you near, To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.O, take this warm kiss on thy pale-cold lips, [Kisses TITUS. These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd* face, The last true duties of thy noble son!

MARC. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss, Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips : O, were the sum of these that I should pay, Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them! Luc. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn

of us

To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well :
Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,
Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
Many a matter hath he told to thee,
Meet and agreeing with thine infancy;
In that respect, then, like a loving child,
Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind nature doth require it so:
Friends should associate friends in grief and woe:
Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
Do him that kindness, and take leave of him.

(*) Old text, bloud-slaine.

e ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor!] This and the subsequent line,

"Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!"

are in the old copies ascribed to Marcus; but surely in error.

(1) SCENE III.

Be unto us as is a nurse's song

Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.] Douce, in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," has an interesting note on the burden lullaby.

"It would be a hopeless task to trace the origin of the northern verb to lull, which means to sing gently; but it is evidently connected with the Greek λaλéw, loquor, or Aάλλn, the sound made by the beach at sea. Thus much

is certain, that the Roman nurses used the word lalla to quiet their children, and that they feigned a deity called Lallus, whom they invoked on that occasion; the lullaby or tune itself was called by the same name. As lallare meant to sing lalla, to lull might in like manner denote the singing of the nurse's lullaby to induce the child to sleep. Thus in an ancient carol composed in the fifteenth century, and preserved among the Sloane MSS. No. 2593:

"che song a slepe wt her lullynge
here dere sone our savyoure.'

"In another old ballad, printed by Mr. Ritson in his Ancient Songs, p. 198, the burden is lully, lully, lullaby, lully by, sweete baby,' &c.; from which it seems probable that lullaby is only a comparatively modern contraction of Tully baby, the first word being the legitimate offspring of the Roman lalla. In another of these pieces, still more ancient, and printed in the same collection, we have 'lullay, lullow, lully, bewy, lulla baw baw.'

"The Welsh appear to have been famous for their lullaby songs. Jones, in his Arte and science of preserving bodie and soule, 1579, 4to., says: The best nurses, but especially the trim and skilfull Welch women, doe use to sing some preaty sonets, wherwith their copious tong is plentifully stoared of divers pretie tunes and pleasaunt ditties, that the children disquieted might be brought to reste: but translated never so well, they want their grace in Englishe, for lacke of proper words: so that I will omit them, as I wishe they would theyr lascivious Dymes, wanton Lullies, and amorous Englins.'

"Mr. White, in reviewing his opinion of the etymology of good-by, will perhaps incline to think it a contraction, when properly written good bye, of God be with you, and not may your house prosper!"

To add to the stock of our old lullaby songs, two are here subjoined. The first is from a pageant of The slaughter of the innocents, acted at Coventry in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the taylors and shearers of that city, and most obligingly communicated by Mr. Sharpe. The other is from the curious volume of songs mentioned before in p. 262. Both exhibit the simplicity of ancient manners:

"Lully, lulla, thou littell tine childe,

By by lully lullay,

Lully lullay thou littell tyne child,

By by lully lullay.

"O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This pore yongling, for whom we do singe
By by lully lullay.

"Herod the king, in his raging,

Chargid he hath this day;

His men of might, in his owne sight,
All yonge children to slay,

"That wo is me, pore child for thee, And ever morne and say;

For thi parting, nether say nor sing,
By by lully lullay.'

By by lullaby
Rockyd I my chyld
In a dre late as 1 lay

Me thought I hard a maydyn say
And spak thes wordys mylde,
My lytil sone with the I play
And ever she song by lullay
Thus rockyd she hyr chyld
By by lullabi,

Rockid I my child by by.

Then merveld I ryght sore of thys
A mayde to have a chyld I wys,
By by lullay.

Thus rockyd she her chyld

By by lullaby, rockyd I my chyld.'"

(2) SCENE IV.--A precious ring, that lightens all the hole.] The gem supposed to possess a property of emitting native light was called a carbuncle, and is frequently mentioned in early books; thus, in "The Gesta Romanorum," b. vi. :-"He further beheld and saw a carbuncle in the hall that lighted all the house." So also in Lydgate's "Description of King Priam's Palace," L. II. :—

"And for most chefe all derkeness to confound,
A carbuncle was set as kyng of stones all,
To recomforte and gladden all the hall.
And to enlumine in the blacke night
With the freshnes of his ruddy light."
And so Drayton, in "The Muses' Elysium:
"Is that admirèd mighty stone,
The carbuncle that's named;
Which from it such a flaming light
And radiancy ejecteth,

That in the very darkest night
The eye to it directeth."

But the best illustration of the passage we have met with occurs in a letter from Boyle, containing "Observations on

a Diamond that shines in the dark: "-"Though Vortomannus was not an eye-witness of what he relates, that the King of Pegu had a true Carbuncle of that bigness and splendour, that it shined very gloriously in the dark; and though Garcias ab Horto, the Indian Vice-Roy's physician, speaks of another carbuncle only on the report of one that he discoursed with; yet as we are not sure that these men that gave themselves out to be eye-witnesses, speak true, yet they may have done so for aught we know to the contrary. I must not omit that some virtuosi questioning me the other day at Whitehall, and meeting amongst them an ingenious Dutch gentleman whose father was long embassador for the Netherlands in England, I learned of him that he is acquainted with a person who was admiral of the Dutch in the East Indies, and who assured this gentleman Monsieur Boreel, that at his return from thence, he brought back with him into Holland a stone which though it looked but like a pale dull diamond, yet it was a real carbuncle; and did without rubbing shine so much, that when the admiral had occasion to open a chest which he kept under deck in a dark place where it was forbidden to bring candles for fear of mischances, as soon as he opened the trunk, the stone would by its native light shine so as to illustrate a great part of it."-Boyle's Works, Vol. II. p. 82.

ACT V.

(1) SCENE III.

Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.]

The following is the ballad registered by Danton when he entered the " Historye of Tytus Andronicus" on the Stationers' Rolls. It is extracted from Percy's "Reliques of Antient Poetry," Vol. I. :

TITUS ANDRONICUS'S COMPLAINT.

"You noble minds and famous martiall wights,
That in defence of native country fights,
Give ear to me, that ten yeers fought for Rome,
Yet reapt disgrace at my returning home.
"In Rome I lived in fame fulle threescore yeeres,
My name beloved was of all my peeres;
Full five and twenty valiant sonnes 1 had,
Whose forwarde vertues made their father glad.

"For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent,
Against them stille my sonnes and I were sent;
Against the Goths full ten yeeres weary warre
We spent, receiving many a bloudy scarre.
"Just two and twenty of my sonnes were slaine
Before we did returne to Rome againe :

of five and twenty sonnes, I brought but three
Alive the stately towers of Rome to see.

"When wars were done I conquest home did bring,
And did prescut my prisoners to the King.

The Queene of Goths, her sons, and eke a Moore,
Which did such murders, like was nere before.

"The emperour did make this queene his wife,
Which bred in Rome debate and deadlie strife;
The Moore, with her two sonnes did growe soe proud,
That none like them in Rome might be allowd.
"The Moore soe pleased this new-made empress' eie,
That she consented to him secretlye
For to abuse her husbands marriage bed,
And soe in time a blackamore she bred.

"Then she, whose thoughts to murder were inclined,
Consented with the Moore of bloody minde
Against myself, my kin, and all my friendes,
In cruell sort to bring them to their endes.

"Soe when in age I thought to live in peace,
Both care and griefe began then to increase:
Amongst my sonnes I had one daughter bright,
Which joy'd, and pleased best my aged sight:

"My deare Lavinia was betrothed than

To Cæsars sonne, a young and noble man: Who in a hunting by the emperours wife And her two sonnes, bereaved was of life. "He being slaine was cast in cruel wise Into a darksome den from light of skies: The cruell Moore did come that way as then With my three sonnes, who fell into the den. "The Moore then fetcht the emperour with speed, For to accuse them of that murderous deed; And when my sonnes within the den were found, In wrongfull prison they were cast and bound. "But nowe, behold! what wounded most my mind, The empresses two sonnes of savage kind My daughter ravished without remorse, And took away her honour, quite perforce. "When they had tasted of soe sweete a flowre, Fearing this sweete should shortly turne to soure, They cutt her tongue, whereby she could not tell How that dishonoure unto her befell.

"Then both her hands they basely cutt off quite.
Whereby their wickednesse she could not write;
Nor with her needle on her sampler sowe
The bloudye workers of her direfull woe.

"My brother Marcus found her in the wood,
Staining the grassie ground with purple bloud,
That trickled from her stumpes, and bloudlesse armes;
Noe tongue at all she had to tell her harmes.

"But when I sawe her in that woefull case,
With teares of bloud I wet mine aged face;
For my Lavinia 1 lamented more,

Than for my two and twenty sonnes before.
"When as I sawe she could not write nor speake,
With griefe mine aged heart began to breake;
We spred an heape of sand upon the ground,
Whereby those bloudy tyrants out we found.
"For with a staffe without the help of hand
She writt these wordes upon the plat of sand:
The lustfull sonnes of the proud emperèsse
Are doers of this hateful wickednèsse.'

"I tore the milk-white hairs from off mine head,
I curst the houre, wherein I first was bred,

I wisht this hand, that fought for countrie's fame,
In cradle rockt, had first been stroken lame.

"The Moore delighting still in villainy,

Did say, to sett my sonnes from prison free
I should unto the king my right hand give,
And then my three imprisoned sonnes should live.
"The Moore I caused to strike it off with speede,
Whereat I grieved not to see it bleed,

But for my sonnes would willingly impart,
And for their ransome send my bleeding heart.

"But as my life did linger thus in paine,
They sent to me my bootlesse hand againe,
And therewithal the heades of my three sonnes,
Which filld my dying heart with fresher moanes.

"Then past reliefe I upp and downe did goe,
And with my teares writ in the dust my woe:
I shot my arrowes towards heaven hie,
And for revenge to hell did often crie.

"The empresse then, thinking that I was mad,
Like furies she and both her sonnes were clad,
(She nam'd Revenge, and Rape and Murder they)
To undermine and heare what I would say.

"I fed their foolish veines a certaine space,
Untill my friendes did find a secret place,
Where both her sonnes unto a post were bound,
And just revenge in cruell sort was found.
"I cut their throates, my daughter held the pan
Betwixt her stumpes, wherein the bloud it ran:
And then I ground their bones to powder small,
And made a paste for pyes streight therewithall.
"Then with their fleshe I made two mighty pyes,
And at a banquet servde in stately wise:
Before the empresse set this loathsome meat;
So of her sonnes own flesh she well did eat.

"Myself bereav'd my daughter then of life,
The empresse then I slewe with bloudy knife,
And stabb'd the emperour immediatelie
And then myself: even soe did Titus die.

"Then this revenge against the Moor was found,
Alive they sett him halfe into the ground,
Whereas he stood untill such time he starv'd,
And soe God send all murderers may be served."