Horace. 'He who is pure in life and unstained from sin, needs not the darts of the Moor, nor the bow.' Shakespeare is much more likely than Chiron to have 'read it in the grammar long ago.'
IV. ii. 26. no sound jest. 'No joking matter.' The quartos have found, which Theobald considered a misprint for fond.
IV. ii. 72. 'Zounds. The oath, 'Zounds ('God's wounds'), which is found in all the quartos, is replaced in the First Folio by the expression 'Out!' because of the statute of 1606 forbidding swearing, blasphemy, etc., on the stage.
IV. ii. 73. blowse. 'If "blowsy" mean ruddy and fat-faced, which it seems to do, the substantive would seem not correctly applied to a new-born black-a-moor child. Perhaps it had passed into a familiar term of jocose endearment for a child.' (White.)
IV. ii. 95. Typhon's brood. Typhon, or Typheus, one of the Titans, who, with his brood, dwelt in the infernal regions and waged war against Zeus and the other Olympian gods.
IV. ii. 154. Not far, one Muli lives. Steevens was the first to correct the reading of the old editions, 'Not far, one Muliteus.'
IV. iii. 4. Terras Astræa reliquit. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, I. 150. Astræa, the goddess of justice, was the last of all the gods to forsake mankind.
IV. iii. 43, 44. I'll dive into the burning lake below, And pull her out of Acheron by the heels. Acheron, the river of woe in Hades, is here referred to as a burning lake, doubtless by confusion with the Christian lake of fire and brimstone. Titus' rant reminds the reader at once of Hotspur's intention (1 Henry IV, I. iii. 203 ff.) to
'dive into the bottom of the deep, . . .
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks.'
IV. iii. 64–70. Virgo . . . Taurus . . . Aries.
