See, how my wretched sister sobs and weeps. MAR. Patience, dear niece :-good Titus, dry thine eyes.

TIT. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! brother, well I wot, Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,

For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own. Luc, Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks. TIT. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her

signs:

8

Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
That to her brother which I said to thee;
His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,
Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
O, what a sympathy of woe is this?
As far from help as limbo is from bliss!9

Enter AARON.

AAR. Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor Sends thee this word,-That, if thou love thy sons, Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself old Titus,

Or

any one of you, chop off your hand,
And send it to the king: he for the same,
Will send thee hither both thy sons alive;
And that shall be the ransome for their fault,

TIT. O, gracious emperor! O, gentle Aaron! Did ever raven sing so like a lark,

8

- with his true tears-] Edition 1600 reads with her true tears. Todd.

9

as limbo is from bliss.] The Limbus patrum, as it was called, is a place that the schoolmen supposed to be in the neighbourhood of hell, where the souls of the patriarchs were detained, and those good men who died before our Saviour's resurrection. Milton gives the name of Limbo to his Paradise of Fools. REED.

That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
With all my heart, I'll send the emperor
My hand;

Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?

Luc. Stay, father; for that noble hand of thine,
That hath thrown down so many enemies,
Shall not be sent: my hand will serve the turn:
My youth can better spare my blood than
you;
And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.
MAR. Which of your hands hath not defended
Rome,

And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,
Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?1

'Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?] Thus all the editions. But Mr. Theobald, after ridiculing the sagacity of the former editors at the expence of a great deal of aukward mirth, corrects it to casque; and this, he says, he'll stand by: And the Oxford editor, taking his security, will stand by it too. But what a slippery ground is critical confidence! Nothing could bid fairer for a right conjecture; yet 'tis all imaginary. A close helmet, which covered the whole head, was called a castle, and, suppose, for that very reason. Don Quixote's barber, at least as good a critick as these editors, says (in Shelton's translation 1612): "I know what is a helmet, and what a morrion, and what a close castle, and other things touching warfare." Lib. IV. cap. xviii. And the original, celada de encaxe, has something of the same signification. Shakspeare uses the word again in Troilus and Cressida:

I

"Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head."

WARBURTON.

"Dr. Warburton's proof (says Mr. Heath,) rests wholly on two mistakes, one of a printer, the other of his own. In Shelton's Don Quixote the word close castle is an error of the press for a close casque, which is the exact interpretation of the Spanish original, celada de encare; this Dr. Warburton must have seen, if he had understood Spanish as well as he pretends to do. For the primitive caxa, from whence the word encase, is derived, signifies a box or coffer; but never a castle. His other proof is taken from this passage in Troilus and Cressida :

1

O, none of both but are of high desert:
My hand hath been but idle; let it serve
To ransome my two nephews from their death
Then have I kept it to a worthy end.

;

AAR. Nay, come agree, whose hand shall go

along,

For fear they die before their pardon come.

MAR. My hand shall go.

Luc.

By heaven, it shall not go.

TIT. Sirs, strive no more; such wither'd herbs

as these.

Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine. Luc. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,

"Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head."

Wherein Troilus doth not advise Diomede to wear a helmet on his head, for that would be poor indeed, as he always wore one in battle; but to guard his head with the most impenetrable armour, to shut it up even in a castle, if it were possible, or else his sword should reach it."

After all this reasoning, however, it appears, that a castle did actually signify a close helmet. See Grose's Treatise of Ancient Armour, p. 12, from whence it appears that castle may only be a corruption of the old French word-casquetel. Thus also, in Holinshed, Vol. II. p. 815: "—Then suddenlie with great noise of trumpets entered sir Thomas Knevet in a castell of cole blacke, and over the castell was written, The dolorous castell and so he and the earle of Essex, &c. ran their courses with the kyng," &c.

A remark, however, of my late friend Mr. Tyrwhitt, has taught me to suspect the validity of my quotation from Holinshed: for one of the knights in the tournament described, made his entry in a fountain, and another in a horse-litter. Sir Thomas Knevet therefore might have appeared in a building formed in imitation of a castle. STEEVENS.

The instance quoted does not appear to me to prove what it was adduced for; wooden castles having been sometimes introduced in ancient tournaments. The passage in the text is itself much more decisive. MALONE.

Let me redeem my brothers both from death.

MAR. And for our father's sake, and mother's

care,

Now let me show a brother's love to thee.

TIT. Agree between you; I will
Luc. Then I'll go fetch an axe.

MAR.

spare my hand.

But I will use the axe.2 [Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS.

TIT. Come hither, Aaron; I'll deceive them

both;

Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.
AAR. If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,
And never, whilst I live, deceive men so:-
But I'll deceive you in another sort,

And that you'll say, ere half an hour can pass. [Aside. [He cuts off TITUS's Hand.

Enter LUCIUS and MARCUS.

TIT. Now, stay your strife; what shall be, is despatch'd.

Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand:
Tell him, it was a hand that warded him
From thousand dangers; bid him bury it;
More hath it merited, that let it have.
As for my sons, say, I account of them
As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;
And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.
AAR. I go, Andronicus: and for thy hand,
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee:-
Their heads, I mean.-O, how this villainy [Aside.

But I will use the axe.] Metre requires us to read:
But I will use it. STEEVENS.

Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace,
Aaron will have his soul black like his face. [Exit.

TIT. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
And bow this feeble ruin to the earth:
If any power pities wretched tears,

To that I call:-What, wilt thou kneel with me? [TO LAVINIA. Do then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our

prayers;

Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim, And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds, When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

MAR. O! brother, speak with possibilities,3 And do not break into these deep extremes.

TIT. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom? Then be my passions bottomless with them.

MAR. But yet let reason govern thy lament. TIT. If there were reason for these miseries, Then into limits could I bind my woes:

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?

If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swoln face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea; hark, how her sighs do blow !
She is the weeping welkin, I the earth:
Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;
Then must my earth with her continual tears

3

with possibilities,] Edition 1600 reads with possibilitie. TODD.

4

do blow!] Old copies-do Aow. Corrected in the second folio. MALONE.