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 Book ii. no. 11, 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'sBartholomew 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 inThe Golden Garlandintitled 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 martial wights,
That in defence of native country fights,
Give eare to me, that ten yeeres fought for Rome,
Yet reaps disgrace at my returning home.
In Rome I lived in fame fulle threescore yeeres,
My name beloved was of all my peeres
Full five and twenty valiant sonnes I had,
Whose forwarde vertues made their father glad.
For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent,
Against them stille my sonnes and I were sent;
Against the Goths full ten yeeres weary warre
We spent, receiving many a bloudy scarre.