SCENE II.3 A Forest near Rome. A Lodge seen at a distance. Horns, and cry of Hounds heard. Enter TITUS ANDRONICUS, with Hunters, &c. MARCUS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS. TIT. The hunt is up, the morn 4 is bright and grey, 5 The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green : 3 Scene II.] The division of this play into Acts, which was first made by the editors in 1623, is improper. There is here an interval of action, and here the second Act ought to have begun. JOHNSON. 4 - the morn-] Edit. 1600, erroneoufly reads-the moon. TODD. - the morn is bright and grey,] i. e. bright and yet not red, which was a sign of storms and rain, but gray, which foretold fair weather. Yet the Oxford editor alters gray to gay. WARBURTON. Surely the Oxford editor is in the right; unless we reason like the Witches in Macbeth, and say : "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." STEEVENS. The old copy is, I think, right; nor did grey anciently denote any thing of an uncheerful hue. It fignified blue, "of heaven's own tinct." So, in Shakspeare's 132d Sonnet: " And truly not the morning fun of heaven "Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,-." Again, in King Henry VI. Part II: "it stuck upon him as the fun " In the grey vault of heaven." Again, in Romeo and Juliet : "The grey-ey'd morn Smiles on the frowning night-." Again, ibidem: "I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye." Uncouple here, and let us make a bay, Horns wind a Peal. Enter SATURNINUS, TAMO- TIT. Many good morrows to your majesty ;- SAT. And you have rung it lustily, my lords, LAV. I fay, no; I have been broad awake two hours and more. SAT. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have, And to our sport :- Madam, now shall ye fee MAR. [TO TAMORA. I have dogs, my lord, Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase, And climb the highest promontory top. Again, more appositely, in Venus and Adonis, which decisively supports the reading of the old copy: Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning." A lady's eye of any colour may be bright; but ftill grey cannot mean aerial blue, nor a grey morning a bright one. Mr. Malone says grey is blue. Is a grey coat then a blue one? STEEVENS. TIT. And I have horse will follow where the game Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain. DEM. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound, But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground. [Exeunt. SCENE III. A defert Part of the Forest. Enter AARON, with a Bag of Gold. AAR. He, that had wit, would think that I had none, To bury so much gold under a tree, Let him, that thinks of me so abjectly, And fo repose, sweet gold, for their unrest," 6 [Hides the Gold. - to inherit it.] To inherit formerly fignified to possess. See Vol. IV. p. 136, n. 7; and Vol. X. p. 194, n. 5. MALONE. - for their unrest,] Unrest, for disquiet, is a word frequently used by the old writers. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1603: 7 : "Thus therefore will I rest me in unrest." Again, in Eliosto Libidinoso, an ancient novel, by John Hinde, 1606 : : "For the ease of whose unreft, "Thus his furie was exprest." Again, in Chapman's tranflation of the ninth Iliad : That have their alms out of the empress' chest. Enter TAMORA. 8 TAM. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'ft thou fad, 9 "Both goddesses let fall their chins upon their ivorie breafts, "Sat next to Jove, contriving ftill afflicted Troy's unrefts." Again, in An excellent pastorall Dittie, by Shep. Tonie; published in England's Helicon, 1600: "With lute in hand did paint out her unrest." STEEVENS. * That have their alms &c.] This is obfcure. It seems to mean only, that they who are to come at this gold of the empress are to fuffer by it, JOHNSON. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou fad,] In the course of the following notes several examples of the favage genius of Ravenscroft, who altered this play in the reign of King James II. are fet down for the entertainment of the reader. The following is a fpecimen of his descriptive talents. Instead of this line with which this speech of Tamora begins, she is made to say : "The emperor, with wine and luxury o'ercome, An emperor who has had too large a dose of love and wine, and in consequence of fatiety in both, falls afleep on a bed which partakes of the nature of a failor's hammock, and a child's cradle, is a curiofity which only Ravenscroft could have ventured to defcribe on the stage. I hope I may be excused for transplanting a few of his flowers into the barren defart of our comments on this tragedy. STEEVENS. My lovely Aaron, &c.] There is much poetical beauty in this 1 When every thing doth make a gleeful boast? birds, Be unto us, as is a nurse's fong Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.3 speech of Tamora. It appears to me to be the only one in the play that is in the style of Shakspeare. M. MASON. I preffion: a checquer'd shadow - Milton has the same ex " many a maid Dancing in the checquer'd shade." The same epithet occurs again in Locrine. STEEVENS. As if a double hunt were heard at once,] Hence, perhaps, a line in a well known fong by Dryden : 3 "And echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry." - as is a nurse's fong STEEVENS. Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.] Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, says, "it is observable that the nurses call fleep by, by; lullaby is therefore lull to sleep." But to lull originally fignified to fleep. To compose to sleep by a pleasing found is a fecondary sense retained after its primitive import became obsolete. The verbs to loll and lollop evidently spring from the same root, |