Scene III.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

1 Goth. And our's, with thine, befall what
fortune will.

Luc. Good uncle take you in this barbarous
Moor,

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.

Aar, 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. Flourish. The trumpets show, the emperor is at hand. Enter SATURNINUS and TAMORA, with Tribunes, Senators, and others.

Sat. What, hath the firmament more suns

than one?

Luc. What boots it thee, to call thyself a

sun?

Mar. Rome's emperor, and nephew, break +
the parle;

These quarrels must be quietly debated.
The feast is ready which the careful Titus
Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,

For peace, for love, for league, and good to
Rome :

Please you, therefore, draw nigh, and take your
places.

99

Sat. Go, fetch them bither to us presently.
Tit. Why, there they are both baked in that
pye,

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
[Killing TITUS
deed.
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' house.

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

By uproar 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.

Sen. Lest Rome herself be bane unto her-
self:

And she, whom mighty kingdoms curt'sy to,
Like a forlorn and desperate cast-away,
Do shameful execution on herself.
But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,
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

Sat. Marcus, we will.
[Hautboys sound. The Company sit down To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear,

at table,

Enter TITUS, dressed like a cook, LAVINIA, veiled, young LUCIUS, 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, 'Twill 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. Tam. We are beholden to you, good Andronicus.

Tit. An if your highness knew my heart,
you were.

My lord the emperor, resolve me this;
Was it well done of rash Virginius,

To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and de-
flower'd?

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 woful 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, 'twas Chiron and Demetrius :
They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue,
And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.

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 i'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 were 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 advent'rous 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.
Put, soft: methinks I do digress too much,
Citing my worthless praise: O pardon me ;
selves.
For when no friends are by, men praise them-

Mar. 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 aud plotter of these woes;

• Read he.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE.

THIS tragedy was written about the year 1602, and Shakspeare is supposed to have taken the greatest part of its materials from the Troye Boke of Lydgate, an author who derived many of his particulars from a History of Troy, in Latin, by Guido of Columpna. Chaucer had previously celebrated the loves of Troilus and Cressida, in a translation from a Latin poem of one Lollius, an old Lombard author. The characters in this play (which was not originally divided into acts) are strikingly assimilated to the portraits which history has preserved of them---the aged loquacity of Nestor---the insinuating eloquence of Ulysses---the boasting confidence of Ajax---the sullen self-importance of Achilles---the conscious dignity of Agamemnon, and the sneaking insignificance of the cuckold Menelaus, are excellently displayed in the development of the piece; whilst the scurrile malignity of Thersites most humorously and ingeniously advances its interest throughout. The mode of Hector's death is, however, at variance with historieal record, and was probably accompanied with such baseness on the part of Achilles, to perfect the amiable attributes in which the poet chose to invest the character of his Trojan opponent. Troilus, the hero of the play, has little to recommend him beyond personal intrepidity, and the sincerity of a youthful attachment---some authors rank him among the elder of Priam's sons: others (and among them Virgil, who describes in the 1st book of the Eneid, line 474, the manner of his death by the hand of Achilles) call him the youngest. Anachronisms are of frequent occurrence in this play; such as Hector's citing Aristotle, and Ulysses alluding to the "bull-bearing Milo," who did not live till many years after the Trojan war. It must, nevertheless, be remembered, that the greater part of Shakspeare's library consisted of ancient romances; and nothing could be less correct than their computation of datos. The language of the piece is greatly tinctured with the peculiarities of the age in which he lived ; and although Dr. Johnson considers it more correctly written than many of its companions, he exempts it from any extent of view or elevation of fancy. "The vicious characters (says that discriminating critic) sometimes disgust, but cannot corrupt; for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and condemned. The comic characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer: they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled, and powerfully impressed."

From isles of | Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with massy staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.

The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia: and their vow is
made,

To ransack Troy; within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
And that's the
With wanton Paris sleeps:

quarrel.

To Tenedos they come;
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage;+ Now on Dardan
plains

The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard :-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,-but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those
broils,

'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.