Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale/Notes
NOTES
Dramatis Personæ. A list of characters was first given in Rowe's edition of 1709. The First Folio divides the play into acts, of which the first is headed Actus Primus. Scæna Prima. There is no further division into scenes.
I. i. S. d. aloft. The tribunes and senators enter on the gallery which was situated at the back of the Elizabethan stage, and served a variety of purposes. It was, e.g., the balcony from which Juliet speaks to Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, and in The Taming of the Shrew it served as the gallery from which Christopher Sly and his attendants watch the play performed on the lower stage. Cf. also below, I. i. 298 and V. ii. 8.
I. i. 9. Romans. 'As a matter of orthoepy, it is perhaps worthy of notice that throughout this play, and generally in English books printed before the middle of the seventeenth century, this word is spelled Romaines or Romanes. "Romaine" could hardly have been pronounced Roman.' (White.)
I. i. 35. In coffins from the field. After these words in the Quarto of 1594, there is a passage of three and a half lines which was omitted from the later texts. Lines 35–38 in the 1594 Quarto read as follows:
'In coffins from the field, and at this day
To the Monument of that Andronicy
Done sacrifice of expiation
And slaine the Noblest prisoner of the Gothes.'
I. i. 64. Because of the fact that there is a distinct break here between the action that has just finished and that now commencing, Pope, Capell, Malone, and other editors begin a new scene with line 64. There is no change of place, however, and later editors prefer to make no change in the scene.
I. i. 98. Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh. Human sacrifices to propitiate the shades of the dead were, of course, unknown in Rome, but neither the author nor his audience was scrupulous with respect to historical or geographical accuracy. Cf. note on I. i. 323.
I. i. 117–119. Wilt thou draw near . . . nobility's true badge. It is hardly necessary to mention the resemblance between this sentiment of Tamora's and that expressed by Portia, Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 184–202.
I. i. 131. Was ever Scythia half so barbarous?. Cf. King Lear, I. i. 118–120:
'The barbarous Scythian
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite.'
I. i. 138. the Thracian tyrant. Polymnestor, upon whom Hecuba, Queen of Troy, took vengeance for the death of her son, Polydorus. It was not in his tent, however, but in her own, to which she had induced Polymnestor to come, that she made the 'opportunity of sharp revenge.' The allusion is to the Hecuba of Euripides, which had not been translated into English in Shakespeare's time.
I. i. 154. grudges. The Quarto of 1600 has drugs, but the Quarto of 1611 and the First Folio have grudges, a word which seems to be more in keeping with the sense of the preceding line.
I. i. 168. fame's eternal date. Cf. Sonnets, 18. 4:
'And summer's lease hath all too short a date.'
Dr. Johnson remarks: 'To outlive an eternal date is, though not philosophical, yet poetical sense. He wishes that her life may be longer than his, and her praise longer than fame.'
I. i. 177. Solon's happiness. Alluding to the remarks of the philosopher Solon to Crœsus, king of Lydia, to the effect that true happiness is dependent on honor, and that no man can be finally adjudged happy until after his death. Cf. Herodotus, l. 32.
I. i. 217. people's tribunes. The First Folio has 'noble tribunes.' It may be that it was originally written 'people's,' and changed to 'noble' when the play was acted, as the latter word is somewhat more sonorous.
I. i. 312. bandy. A term from the game of tennis, meaning to strike the ball to and fro.
I. i. 323. priest and holy water. Such references to Christian ritual are, of course, anachronistic, but in the true Shakespearean manner. Cf. the 'popish tricks and ceremonies' of V. i. 76 below.
I. i. 379. Ajax. This seems to be an allusion to the Ajax of Sophocles, in which Ulysses pleads with Agamemnon for permission to bury the body of Ajax. So far as is known the Ajax had not been translated into English in Shakespeare's day.
I. i. 399. you have play'd your prize. Won what you were competing for. 'A metaphor borrowed from the fencing schools, prizes being played for certain degrees in the schools where the art of defence was taught—degrees of Master, Provost, and Scholar.' (Dyce's Glossary.)
I. i. 485. Stand up. These two words were regarded as stage directions by Pope and by several editors after him. In the quartos and folios, they form the first part of what in our text is line 486.
I. i. 491. love-day. A day appointed by the Church for the settlement of disputes amicably out of court, by an umpire. Cf. Gower, Confessio Amantis, I. 39.
'Hell is full of such discord
That there may be no loveday.'
I. i. 493. To hunt the panther. The same type of imagination which infested the Roman forest with panthers introduced the lioness to the forest of Arden, and brought the bear to the seacoast of Bohemia and to the woods of Crete.
II. i. 14. mount her pitch. Pitch = point. A technical expression in falconry denoting the height to which a falcon soars before attacking the prey. Cf. Romeo's remarks, Romeo and Juliet, I. iv. 19 ff.
'I am too sore enpierced with his shaft,
To soar with his light feathers; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.'
Aaron means that he will soar to whatever height Tamora attains.
II. i. 17. Prometheus tied to Caucasus. No other play of Shakespeare's is so full of allusions to classical mythology, or contains so many Latin expressions and Latinized forms as Titus Andronicus.
II. i. 22. Semiramis. This legendary queen of Assyria was famous alike for her cruelty and her voluptuousness.
II. i. 37. Clubs, clubs! A call for men armed with clubs to put down a disturbance. It was a familiar cry in the streets of Elizabethan London. Originally the rallying cry of the apprentices, it became later the regular call for the policemen.
II. i. 41. lath. The stage sword or dagger used by the Vice in the old moralities was made of a lath, and the latter term came quite naturally to be used for an ineffective weapon. Cf. Twelfth Night, IV. ii. 138 ff.
II. i. 53. Not I. Warburton suggested that this speech be given to Chiron, and the following to Demetrius, on the not very plausible ground that it is Chiron who has made the 'reproachful speeches.'
II. i. 70. This discord's ground. 'There is a play upon the musical sense of ground (="plain-song" or theme).' (Rolfe.)
II. i. 82. She is a woman, etc. A quasi-proverbial expression found in several plays of Shakespeare, as well as elsewhere. Cf. 1 Henry VI, V. iii. 78, 79:
'She's beautiful and therefore to be woo'd,
She is a woman, therefore to be won.'
II. i. 85. more water glideth by the mill, Than wots the miller of; and easy it is Of a cut loaf to steal a shive. Collier noted the fact that both of these proverbs occur within a page of each other in The Cobler of Canterburie, 1590: 'Much water runnes by the mill that the miller wots not on. . . . The Prior perceived that the scull had cut a shive on his loafe.' (Cf. Ouvry's reprint, London, 1862, pp. 12 ff.) Both The Cobler of Canterburie and Titus Andronicus have been attributed to Greene. Cf. Appendix C. Rolfe quotes the Scottish proverb, 'Mickle water goes by the miller when he sleeps.'
II. i. 89. Vulcan's badge. The cuckold's horns. The allusion is to the intrigue of Mars and Venus, the wife of Vulcan.
II. i. 108. Lucrece was not more chaste. The story of Tarquin's rape of Lucrece seems to have been much in the mind of the author at this time. Cf. below IV. i. 63, 89 ff. Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece was printed first in 1594, the date also of the first Quarto of Titus Andronicus. On the similarities between the two works, see Appendix C.
II. i. 120. sacred wit. Although sacred is usually taken here as a Latinism meaning accursed, there is, as has been noted in some quarters, an ironical sound about the word in this connection which accords well with Aaron's character.
II. i. 126. house of Fame. An obvious allusion to Chaucer's Hous of Fame, III. 291–300. A still earlier version, of course, is that of Vergil; cf. Æneid, IV. 183 ff.
II. i. 135. Per Styga, etc. The poet is apparently quoting from memory a line from Seneca, with whose tragedies he was undoubtedly familiar. In this connection, cf. Seneca's Hippolytus, 1180:
'Per Styga, per amnes igneos amens sequar,'
and Hercules Furens, 90, 91:
'Iam Styga et manes feros
Fugisse credis?'
II. ii. 1. the morn is bright and grey. Much pedantic discussion has taken place as to the precise meaning of the term grey, which Shakespeare uses constantly in describing the morning sky. But from the context here and elsewhere, there seems no reason for thinking that it means anything but bright, and that in the expression in our text, as in the other cases, it is not synonymous with the word bright. Cf. Much Ado About Nothing, V. iii. 25 ff.:
'the gentle day . . .
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.'
By the same token, the grey-ey'd morn of Romeo and Juliet, II. iii. 1, is the bright-eyed morn.
II. ii. 3. Uncouple here. Loose the hounds. This passage with its reference to hunting and the joy of being in the open is strikingly suggestive of the descriptions of the hunt in Venus and Adonis. The latter was printed in 1593, one year before the publication of Titus Andronicus, and a date not so far removed from Shakespeare's own hunting days in Warwickshire. Cf. below, II. iii. 17–19.
II. ii. 9. I have been troubled. There is nothing more suggestive of the Shakespearean authorship of the play than these presentiments of evil, of which the poet constantly makes use in all his tragedies. Cf. below, II. iii. 195 ff.
II. iii. 9. alms out of the empress' chest. Rather obscure, but apparently meaning, as Stoll suggests, that Aaron has taken the gold from Tamora's chest.
II. iii. 17–19. babbling echo mocks the hounds . . . a double hunt were heard at once. Cf. the strikingly similar lines in Venus and Adonis, 695, 696:
'Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.'
For other similarities between this play and Venus and Adonis, cf. Appendix C.
II. iii. 31. Saturn is dominator. According to the mediæval theory, persons born under the domination of the planet Saturn were of a morose, or saturnine, disposition. Collins quotes Greene, Planetomachia, 1585: 'The star of Saturn is especially cooling.' The planet Venus, which, according to Aaron, governs Tamora's disposition, has an entirely different influence.
II. iii. 43. Philomel. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, was ravished by Tereus, king of Thrace, who was the husband of her sister, Progne. Tereus then cut out her tongue to prevent her exposing him. That the story had made a deep impression on the poet's mind is witnessed by the frequent allusions to it in this play (cf. below, II. iv. 48, IV. i. 47 ff., and V. ii. 195). Cf. also in this connection the Rape of Lucrece, 1128–1134.
II. iii. 63. With horns, as was Actæon's. Actæon, a Theban prince, while hunting, accidentally saw Diana bathing, and was transformed by her into a stag, to be slain immediately by his dogs. The 'horns' which Tamora would fain see on Bassianus' temples are, of course, those of the cuckold.
II. iii. 72. swarth Cimmerian. Homer (cf. Odyssey, XI. 14) describes the Cimmerians as dwelling on the confines of the earth, 'shrouded in mist and darkness . . . and never does the shining sun look down on them.' Cf. Milton's 'dark Cimmerian desert' (L'Allegro, 10).
II. iii. 86. these slips have made him noted long. Dr. Johnson points out the fact that Tamora and Saturninus have presumably been married but one night.
II. iii. 93. barren detested vale. Tamora's description of this place here and in the lines immediately following is rather at variance with her description of it above (II. iii. 12–16). Or are we to assume that the scene has changed during the action?
II. iii. 110. Lascivious Goth. The Elizabethans pronounced Goth to sound like goat, and Shakespeare frequently quibbles on the word. Cf. As You Like It, III. iii. 7–9: 'I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.' (Capricious is from the Latin capra, goat.)
II. iii. 126. And with that painted hope braves your mightiness. The line stands thus in all the quartos and in the First Folio. The second, third, and fourth folios insert 'she' before 'braves.' It presents a crux as famous as any in Shakespeare. Various emendations have been suggested, and White suggests with reservations the reading, 'And with that faint hope braves, etc.' C. D. Stewart, in Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare, p. 156, offers the following interpretation: 'A painting occupies a position half way between the unsubstantial, uncertain, self-supported vision of a thing and the thing itself. Now when Lavinia gave him [Demetrius] such refusals his hope of success became more vivid. When she spoke of her chastity and gave excuses that were no real excuses to him, she only aggravated his passion and seemed to be artfully drawing him on; and only to refuse him. It was as if she had painted the picture of his success with her own hands, or in her own person, and held it up before him. She made herself a "painted hope." This is simply a hope whose pictures are more vivid, more real, than the uncertain visions of hope unassisted.'
II. iii. 151, 152. The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure To have his princely paws par'd all away. Probably an allusion to the story of Androclus and the lion.
II. iii. 153. Some say that ravens foster forlorn children. Doubtless a bit of folklore. Cf. The Winter's Tale, II. iii. 185, 186:
'Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses.'
The Biblical story of the feeding of Elijah by ravens may have given rise to it. Cf. 1 Kings 17. 3–6.
II. iii. 227. A precious ring, that lightens all the hole. Probably an allusion to the carbuncle, formerly believed to emit radiance of its own in the dark.
II. iii. 231. So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus. Cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, III. i. 50 ff.
II. iv. 5. See, how with signs and tokens she can scrowl. Ironically enough, Demetrius here suggests the very means by which Lavinia later exposes his crime, thus inciting her father to kill him. Cf. King Lear, III. vii. 56, 57, where Gloucester unwittingly pictures to Regan, in speaking of her treatment of Lear, the torture which Cornwall and she are to inflict upon him immediately afterward.
II. iv. 26. some Tereus hath deflower'd thee. Cf. note on II. iii. 43.
II. iv. 39. in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind. Philomela, after being ravished and mutilated by Tereus, made known her condition by working a sampler on which she told the story.
II. iv. 51. Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet. Orpheus, when he descended into Hades to seek his wife, Eurydice, was able by his music to charm Cerberus, the triple-headed watch-dog of the infernal regions.
III. i. 10. two-and-twenty sons. Is Titus here including among the two-and-twenty who died 'in honour's lofty bed' his son Mutius, whom he has slain (cf. I. i. 291) for what he considered a dishonorable deed? If not, he was the father of twenty-six sons instead of the five-and-twenty of I. i. 79. Baildon suggests (Arden Shakespeare) that 'Shakespeare had invented the Mutius episode and forgotten to alter the original number.'
III. i. 34–37. They would not mark me . . . tell my sorrows to the stones. This passage as it stands in the First Folio is manifestly corrupt, reading as follows:
'if they did heare
They would not marke me: oh if they did heare
They would not pitty me.
Therefore I tell my sorrowes bootles to the stones.'
The reading in our text is from the Quarto of 1600, and although perhaps slightly corrupt, seems the most nearly satisfactory of the various readings.
III. i. 150. limbo. Popularly used for hell, but, in the strict sense of the term, limbo is not hell or any place of punishment, but, according to mediæval theology, a region bordering hell, where dwelt the patriarchs, who died before the resurrection of Christ. They were believed to have been carried to heaven with our Lord at his ascension. The souls of unbaptized infants are, according to other theories, also assigned to limbo.
III. i. 170. Writing destruction on the enemy's castle. This line, as might be expected from the unusual expression, has caused much trouble to commentators. Nares explains the word castle as meaning a kind of helmet, quoting unconvincingly from Troilus and Cressida (V. ii. 184):
'Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.'
III. i. 244. some deal. Deal is from the O. E. Dæl, part. Cf. Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1182, 1183:
'Her suster Anne, as she that coude her good,
Seide as her thoughte, and somdel hit withstood.'
The word survives to-day in such expressions as a good deal, etc.
III. ii. This scene appears for the first time in the First Folio.
III. ii. 4. sorrow-wreathen knot. Marcus' arms, which are crossed on his breast in an attitude of profound grief. Cf. The Tempest, I. ii. 224, 'His arms in this sad knot.'
III. ii. 15. Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans. It was formerly thought that a heavy sigh draws a drop of blood from the heart. Cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 96, 97:
'All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear.'
III. ii. 38. Brew'd with her sorrow, mash'd upon her cheeks. A rather prosaic allusion to the mash-tub and the operations of the brewing-house.
IV. i. 20, 21. Hecuba of Troy Ran mad through sorrow. After avenging the death of her son, Polydorus, Hecuba, wife of Priam, ran mad. Cf. above, note on I. i. 138.
IV. i. 37. Immediately before this line in the Folio occur the words, 'What booke?' Most modern editors omit them from the text, concurring in Dyce's opinion that 'the transcriber had inadvertently passed on to the line, Lucius, what book, etc., and when he afterwards perceived his mistake, and drew his pen through the misplaced line, he may have left two words of it not fully blotted out.'
IV. i. 81, 82. Magni dominator poli, etc. Cf. Seneca's Hippolytus, 671, 672:
'Magne regnator deum,
Tam lentus audis scelera? Tam lentus vides?'
The poet is probably trying to quote from memory, and gets his terms confused. Seneca's tragedies abound in such similar epithets as regnator deum, dominator poli, gubernator poli, etc.
IV. i. 87–91. My lord, kneel down . . . Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape. Cf. the very similar lines in the Rape of Lucrece (1846–1848):
'Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;
And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,
He doth again repeat, and that they swore.'
IV. i. 105. Sibyl's leaves. The leaves of the prophetic books of the Cumæan Sibyl, a woman of oracular powers, who, in classical mythology, appeared before Tarquin the Proud, offering him her nine books for three hundred pieces of gold. He refused to buy them, whereupon she burned three of the books and then returned, offering the remaining six for the original price. Tarquin again refused. The Sibyl again burned three books, and returned with a final offer of the remaining three for the price of the original nine. Tarquin, advised by his augur, then paid the three hundred pieces of gold for the three books, and the Sibyl disappeared. In times of political trouble, the Romans used to consult the Sibylline books. Cf. Æneid, VI. 1–75.
IV. ii. 20, 21. Integer vitæ, etc. The beginning of the famous twenty-second ode of the first book of 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. The constellation Virgo (the Virgin) was supposed to represent Astræa after she had left the earth (cf. IV. iii. 4). Taurus (the Bull) and Aries (the Ram) are also zodiacal constellations.
IV. iv. 67. Coriolanus. This is the theme of Shakespeare's last tragedy, Coriolanus, which was written about 1608 or 1609.
IV. iv. 90. honey-stalks. According to Dr. Johnson, honey-stalks are sweet-clover flowers.
V. i. 42. the pearl that pleas'd your empress' eye. Alluding to an old proverb, which Shakespeare uses in Two Gentlemen of Verona (V. ii. 11, 12),
'the old saying is,
Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.'
V. i. 79. An idiot holds his bauble for a god. The bauble was the carved head with asses' ears that surmounted the baton which was carried by the court fool as a mock emblem of his office.
V. i. 122. like a black dog, as the saying is. 'To blush like a black dog' is one of the old proverbs in Ray's collection.
V. i. 124 ff. Aaron's circumstantial account of his misdeeds suggests at once the similar list of offences for which Barabas claims credit in Marlowe's Jew of Malta (II. iii. 177 ff.).
V. i. 145. Bring down the devil. Aaron's speech has evidently just been made from the top of the ladder on which he was to be hanged.
V. ii. 189. of the paste a coffin I will rear. In early English cookery books the crust of a pie was always known as the coffin. According to Selden (cf. Table-Talk, under Christmas), Christmas pies were baked originally in a long coffin-shaped crust, in imitation of the manger in which our Lord was laid at his birth.
V. ii. 196. worse than Progne I will be reveng'd. The author's absorbing interest in the story of the ravishment and mutilation of Philomela by Tereus has been mentioned (cf. note on II. iii. 43). After Tereus had cut out her tongue, Philomela embroidered the story of her wrongs on a sampler, which she sent to her sister, Progne, wife of Tereus. The two sisters then revenged themselves on the guilty husband by murdering his son, Itylus, and serving his body at a banquet to his father. As a result of the horrible affair, Philomela was changed into a nightingale, Progne into a swallow, and Tereus into a hawk.
V. ii. 204. the Centaurs' feast. A reference to the story in classical mythology (told by Ovid in the twelfth book of the Metamorphoses) of the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithæ, at the wedding-feast of Hippodamia and Pirithous. Cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, V. i. 44.
V. iii. 36–38. Was it well done of rash Virginius To slay his daughter . . . stain'd and deflower'd?. In 449 B.C., Virginius, a centurion, slew his daughter, Virginia, to save her from Appius Claudius, the decemvir, who had attempted to violate her. The story was a favorite with the Elizabethans, and a drama on the subject, The Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia, appeared about 1563. See Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, The story is incorrectly given in the text.
V. iii. 85. Sinon. The Greek who persuaded the Trojans to admit the wooden horse into Troy.
V. iii. 93–97. In the 1594 Quarto these lines read as follows:
'And force you to commiseration,
Here's Rome's young captain, let him tell the tale,
While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.
Lucius. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you,
That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius,' etc.
V. iii. 124. Damn'd as he is. The quartos and folios have And as he is, which Theobald emended to the reading given in the text. Cf. Brabantio's remark (Othello, I. ii. 63),
'Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her.'
V. iii. 149. give me aim awhile. Stand by and observe the result of my efforts. A figure from archery. The person who 'gave aim' stood near the target and reported the success of the shots. White suggests, 'Give me air awhile.' Schmidt, retaining the original reading, paraphrases, 'Give room and scope to my thoughts.'
V. iii. 165–169. These lines appear for the first time in the Quarto of 1600. In their place, the Quarto of 1594 has the following five lines:
'And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind,
And talk of them when he was dead and gone.
Mar. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,
When they were living, warmed themselves on thine!
O now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss;' etc.
V. iii. 200. In the Quarto of 1594 this line reads,
'And being dead let birds on her take pity.'