Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale/Appendix E
APPENDIX E
The First Illustration to 'Shakespeare'
The drawing and script reproduced at the head of this edition of Titus Andronicus is of special interest as the first known illustration to any play of the Shakespearean canon. It is from the pen of Henry Peacham, artist, schoolmaster, epigrammatist, and pamphleteer, and was discovered by Sir E. K. Chambers in Volume I of the Harley Papers at Longleat.
The document, dating from 1595, is important as indicating that the Elizabethans regarded Moors as coal-black, not tawny. In the drawing, Tamora is represented kneeling before Titus, pleading for the life of her sons. Two bound figures, presumably her sons, kneel behind her, and Aaron the Moor stands beside them. The figures behind Titus are supposedly the executioners. The only known text to which Peacham could have had access is the First Quarto of 1594. The text of the MS. is an arrangement of lines from the speeches of Tamora and Titus (I. i. 104–121) and of Aaron (V. i. 125–144), with an interpolation of two lines and a half for Titus which are not found in any of the printed texts. Peacham has supplied his own stage directions. Certain minor variations between the lines of the MS. and those of the printed texts are noticeable, and the possibility of an earlier version of the play might thence be inferred. There seems to be some confusion as to whether the death of only one son (Alarbus) or of more than one is contemplated. Titus's lines, as well as Tamora's last line, seem to indicate that only one is to be put to death, and this circumstance agrees substantially with the texts of the versions which we have. Chambers thinks that the drawing clearly indicates that both sons are to be put to death, but this does not seem necessarily to be the purport of the illustration.
The text of the dialogue accompanying the drawing reads as follows:
Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution
Tam: Stay Romane bretheren gratious Conquerors
Victorious Titus rue the teares I shed
A mothers teares in passion of her sonnes
And if thy sonnes were ever deare to thee
Oh thinke my sonnes to bee as deare to mee
Suffizeth not that wee are brought to Roome
To beautify thy triumphes and returne
Captiue to thee and to thy Romane yoake
But must my sonnes be slaughtered in the streetes
for valiant doinges in there Cuntryes cause
Oh if to fight for kinge and Common weale
Were piety in thine it is in these
Andronicus staine not thy tombe with blood
Wilt thou drawe neere the nature of the Godes
Drawe neere them then in being mercifull
Sweete mercy is nobilityes true badge
Thrice noble Titus spare my first borne sonne
Titus: Patient your self madame for dy hee must
Aaron do you likewise prepare your selfe
And now at last repent your wicked life
Aron: Ah now I curse the day and yet I thinke
few comes within the compasse of my curse
Wherein I did not some notorious ill
As kill a man or els devise his death
Ravish a mayd or plott the way to do it
Acuse some innocent and forsweare my selfe
Set deadly enmity betweene too freendes
Make poore mens cattell breake theire neckes
Set fire on barnes and haystackes in the night
And bid the owners quench them with their teares
Oft have I digd vp dead men from their graves
And set them vpright at their deere frendes dore
Even almost when theire sorrowes was forgott
And on their brestes as on the barke of trees
Have with my knife carvd in Romane letters
Lett not your sorrowe dy though I am dead
Tut I have done a thousand dreadfull thinges
As willingly as one would kill a fly
And nothing greives mee hartily indeede
for that I cannot doo ten thousand more & cetera
Alarbus[1]
- ↑ The manuscript breaks off here. It was apparently the intention of Peacham to give a speaking part to Alarbus, who is without a speech in the extant editions of Titus.