XIII. TITUS ANDRONICUS'S COMPLAINT The reader has here an ancient ballad on the same subject as the play of "Titus Andronicus," and it is probable that the one was borrowed from the other: but which of them was the original, it is not easy to decide. And yet, if the argument offered above in the preface to No. 11, Series I. Book ii. for the priority of the ballad of the "Jew of Venice" may be admitted, somewhat of the same kind may be urged here; for this ballad differs from the play in several particulars, which a simple ballad-writer would be less likely to alter than an inventive tragedian. Thus in the ballad is no mention of the contest for the empire between the two brothers, the composing of which makes the ungrateful treatment of Titus afterwards the more flagrant: neither is there any notice taken of his sacrificing one of Tamora's sons, which the tragic poet has assigned as the original cause of all her cruelties. In the play Titus loses twenty-one of his sons in war, and kills another for assisting Bassianus to carry off Lavinia: the reader will find it different in the ballad. In the latter she is betrothed to the emperor's son: in the play to his brother. In the tragedy only two of his sons fall into the pit, and the third being banished returns to Rome with a victorious army, to avenge the wrongs of his house in the ballad all three are entrapped and suffer death. In the scene the emperor kills Titus, and is in return stabbed by Titus's surviving son. Here Titus kills the emperor, and afterwards himself. Let the reader weigh these circumstances and some others wherein he will find them unlike, and then pronounce for himself. After all, there is reason to conclude that this play was rather improved by Shakspeare with a few fine touches of his pen, than originally written by him; for, not to mention that the style is less figurative than his others generally are, this tragedy is mentioned with discredit in the induction to Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," in 1614, as one that had then been exhibited "five-and-twenty or thirty years: which, if we take the lowest number, throws it back to the year 1589, at which time Shakspeare was but 25: an earlier date than can be found for any other of his pieces:1 and if it does not clear him entirely of it, shows at least it was a first attempt.2 The following is given from a copy in "The Golden Garland" intitled as above; compared with three others, two of them in black-letter in the Pepys Collection, intitled, "The Lamentable and Tragical History of Titus Andronicus, &c. To the tune of Fortune." Printed for E. Wright. Unluckily none of these have any dates. You noble minds, and famous martiall wights, Give eare to me, that ten yeeres fought for Rome, 1 Mr. Malone thinks 1591 to be the æra when our author commenced a writer for the stage. See in his Shaksp. the ingenious "Attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were written." 2 Since the above was written, Shakspeare's memory has been fully vindicated from the charge of writing the above play by the best critics. See what has been urged by Steevens and Malone in their excellent editions of Shakspeare, &c. In Rome I lived in fame fulle threescore yeeres, For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent, Just two and twenty of my sonnes were slaine When wars were done, I conquest home did bring, The emperour did make this queen his wife, The moore soe pleas'd this new-made empress' eie, For to abuse her husbands marriage bed, Then she, whose thoughts to murder were inclinde, Soe when in age I thought to live in peace, My deare Lavinia was betrothed than He being slaine, was cast in cruel wise, The cruell moore did come that way as then The moore then fetcht the emperour with speed, But nowe, behold! what wounded most my mind, When they had tasted of soe sweete a flowre, Then both her hands they basely cutt off quite, My brother Marcus found her in the wood, But when I sawe her in that woefull case, When as I sawe she could not write nor speake, For with a staffe, without the helpe of hand, I tore the milk-white hairs from off mine head, The moore delighting still in villainy Did say, to sett my sonnes from prison free But as my life did linger thus in paine, The empresse then, thinking that I was mad, I fed their foolish veines 2 a certaine space, I cut their throates, my daughter held the pan Myselfe bereav'd my daughter then of life, 1 If the ballad was written before the play, I should suppose this to be only a metaphorical expression, taken from that in the Psalms, "They shoot out their arrows, even bitter words.' Ps. lxiv. 3. 2 i . encouraged them in their foolish humours or fancies. Then this revenge against the moore was found, XIV. TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY The first stanza of this little sonnet, which an eminent critic1 justly admires for its extreme sweetness, is found in Shakspeare's "Measure for Measure," act iv. sc. I. Both the stanzas are preserved in Beaum. and Fletcher's "Bloody Brother," act v. sc. 2. Sewel and Gildon have printed it among Shakspeare's smaller poems; but they have done the same by twenty other pieces that were never writ by him, their book being a wretched heap of inaccuracies and mistakes. It is not found in Jaggard's old edition of Shakspeare's "Passionate Pilgrim," " &c. TAKE, oh take those lips away, That so sweetlye were forsworne ; Hide, oh hide those hills of snowe, XV. KING LEIR AND HIS THREE DAUGHTERS The reader has here an ancient ballad on the subject of "King Lear," which, as a sensible female critic has well observed, bears so exact an analogy to the argument of Shakspeare's play, that his having copied it could not be doubted, if it were certain that it was written before the tragedy. Here is found the hint of Lear's madness, which the old chronicles do not mention, as also the extravagant cruelty exercised on him by his daughters. In the death of Lear they likewise very exactly 1 Dr. Warburton in his Shaksp. 2 Mr. Malone, in his improved edition of Shakspeare's Sonnets, &c. hath substituted this instead of Marlow's Madrigal, printed above; for which he hath assigned reasons, which the reader may see in his vol. x. p. 340. 3 Mrs. Lennox. Shakspeare illustrated, vol. iii. p. 302. 4 See Jeffery of Monmouth, Holingshed, &c. who relate Leir's History in many respects the same as the ballad. |