TIT. Will it consume me? let me see it then. MAR. This was thy daughter. TIT. Why, Marcus, so she is. Luc. Ah me! this object kills me! TIT. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her: Speak, my Lavinia,2 what accursed hand Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy? Speak, my Lavinia,] My, which is wanting in the first folio, was supplied by the second. STEEVENS. 3 — in thy father's sight?] We should read-spight? I'll chop off my hands too;] or chop off &c. WARBURTON. Perhaps we should read: It is not easy to discover how Titus, when he had chopped off one of his hands, would have been able to have chopped off the other. STEevens. I have no doubt but the text is as the author wrote it. Let him answer for the blunder. In a subsequent line Titus supposes himself his own executioner: "Now all the service I require of them" &c. MALONE. MAR. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,5 That blab'd them with such pleasing eloquence, Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage; Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear! Luc. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed? MAR. O, thus I found her, straying in the park, Seeking to hide herself; as doth the deer, That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound. TIT. It was my deer; and he that wounded her, Hath hurt me more, than had he kill'd me dead: Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, This way to death my wretched sons are gone; Here stands my other son, a banish'd man; And here my brother, weeping at my woes; But that, which gives my soul the greatest spurn, Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.Had I but seen thy picture in this plight, It would have madded me; What shall I do Now I behold thy lively body so? Thou hast no hands, to wipe away thy tears; Nor tongue, to tell me who hath martyr'd thee: O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,] This piece furnishes scarce any resemblances to Shakspeare's works; this one expression, however, is found in his Venus and Adonis: "Once more the engine of her thoughts began." MALONE. 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, she weeps because they kill'd her husband: Perchance, because she knows them innocent. TIT. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful, Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.- Or make some sign 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. 7 Luc. Sweet father, cease your tears; for, at your grief, like meadows,] Old copies-in meadows. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. See, how my wretched sister sobs 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, hast drown'd it with thine own. Luc. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks. TIT. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs: Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say That to her brother which I said to thee; 8 His napkin, with his true tears all bewet, Enter AARON. AAR. Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor Sends thee this word,-That, if thou love thy sons, Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself old Titus, Or any one of you, chop off your hand, And send it to the king: he for the same, Will send thee hither both thy sons alive; And that shall be the ransome for their fault. TIT. O, gracious emperor! O, gentle Aaron! Did ever raven sing so like a lark, with his true tears-] Edition 1600 reads with her true tears. TODD. 9 as limbo is from bliss.] The Limbus patrum, as it was called, is a place that the schoolmen supposed to be in the neighbourhood of hell, where the souls of the patriarchs were detained, and those good men who died before our Saviour's resurrection. Milton gives the name of Limbo to his Paradise of Fools. REEd. That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise? Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off? Luc. Stay, father; for that noble hand of thine, And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe, 'Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?] Thus all the editions. But Mr. Theobald, after ridiculing the sagacity of the former editors at the expence of a great deal of aukward mirth, corrects it to casque; and this, he says, he'll stand by: And the Oxford editor, taking his security, will stand by it too. But what a slippery ground is critical confidence! Nothing could bid fairer for a right conjecture; yet 'tis all imaginary. A close helmet, which covered the whole head, was called a castle, and, suppose, for that very reason. Don Quixote's barber, at least as good a critick as these editors, says (in Shelton's translation 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 something of the same signification. Shakspeare uses the word again in Troilus and Cressida : I "Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head." WARBURTON. "Dr. Warburton's proof (says Mr. Heath,) rests wholly on two mistakes, one of a printer, the other of his own. In Shelton's Don Quixote the word close castle is an error of the press for a close casque, which is the exact interpretation of the Spanish original, celada de encaxe; this Dr. Warburton must have seen, if he had understood Spanish as well as he pretends to do. For the primitive caxa, from whence the word encaxe, is derived, signifies a box or coffer; but never a castle. His other proof is taken from this passage in Troilus and Cressida : |