422
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. NOV. 30, 1912.
(6 2) ' Tit. And.,' I. i. 117-8 :
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the Gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful :
Cf. ' Merch. Ven.,' IV. i. 196 :
And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons Justice.
(c) ' Tit. And.,' IV. ii. 122 : He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
Of that self blood that first gave life to you, And from that womb, where you imprison'd
were He is enfranchised and come to light :
Cf. ' Rich. II..' I. ii. 22 :
Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine ! that bed, that
womb,
That metal, that self-mould that fashion'd thee, Made him a man ;
(d) ' Tit. And.,' V. iii. 73 sq. : Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself, And she whom mighty kingdoms court'sy to Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
Do shameful execution on herself.
Cf. ' Rich. II.,' II. i. 65,
That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself,
and the whole of the preceding panegyric.
(e) The following, minute as it is, will, I am certain, appeal to scholars.
' Tit. And.,' V. iii. 155 : Tear for tear, and loving kiss'for kiss,
Note the place of the epithet, and cf. ' Rich.
II.,' I. i. 18 :
. . . .face to face, And frowning brow to brow,
Also ' K. John,' II. i. 390 :
Turn face to face and bloody point to point ; ' 1 Henry IV.,' IV. i. 121 :
Harry to Harry shall, not horse to horse,
Meet'i &c. ' Henry V.,' V. ii. 30 :
That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted,
Hence the Folios are right when in ' Mac- beth,' I. ii. 56, they give
Point against point, rebellious arm 'gainst arm, with the comma after " point " ; and Theo- bald, though followed, I believe, by all or most editors, is wrong in punctuating after " rebellious/'
It is very noteworthy that the whole of sc. ii. in Act III. appears for the first time in the First Folio (1623). To it belongs the quotation which I have given under (6) supra ; the Cambridge editors conjecture that this scene comes from a MS. in the possession of the players. The First Folio edition is generally printed from Quarto 2
(1611), in their judgment, and they further say that it agrees too closely in style with
the main portion of the play to allow of the
supposition that it is due to a different author.
I content myself with the view that we have
here in part, if not wholly, Shakespeare's
hand.
All this is conjecture, but, on the hypo- thesis which I am inclined to make that we have already some evidence that this scene is either wholly or in part Shakespeare's, I dwell further on some resemblances therein,, which otherwise I might not insist upon.
(g) ' Tit. And.,' III. ii. 4 : Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot : 'Taming of the Shrew,' V. ii. 136 (con- jectural date 1597, Dowden) :
Fie, fie ! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
(h) ' Tit. And.,' III. ii. ad fin. :
Come, boy, and go with me : thy sight is young, And thou shalt read when mine begins to dazzle.
Cf. ' 3 Henry VI.,' II. i. 25 :
Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns ? and ' Venus and Adonis,' Quarto 159$ (dedicated by Shakespeare to the Earl of Southampton) :
Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly, That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three ;
Also ' Love's Labour Lost ' (I. i. 80-82), a quarto of 1598 bearing Shakespeare's name, and speaking of the play as acted before Queen Elizabeth, Christmas, 1597 :
Study me how to please the eye indeed
By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
This passive or intransitive use of " dazzle " belongs to an early stage of Shakespeare's diction; two of the instances quo ted are from work unquestionably Shakespeare's. I am making a comparison between the earliest Quartos of the first part of ' The Contention ' and ' The True Tragedy,' on the one hand,, and ' 3 Henry VI.' on the other, and I have found enough to justify me in thinking that the comparison may be fruitful in evidence of Shakespeare's work in these plays. A similar comparison between the Quarto 1594 of ' Titus Andronicus ' and those of 1600. and 1611, might prove no less significant, especially in hands more competent than mine.
But I must add another instance, beyond the limits of the scene just discussed, of a single word, the use of which is note- worthy, i.e. " timeless " in the sense of " untimely,"
- Tit. And.,' II. iii. 265 :
The complot of this timeless 'tragedy;
