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Go, go, into old Titus' sorrowful house,
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,
To be adjudg'd some direful slaughtering death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.
Lucius, all hail to Rome's gracious governor!
Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so,
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe:
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
For nature puts me to a heavy task!
Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near,
To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.
Oh, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips,
These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,
The last true duties of thy noble son.
MARC. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss,

Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.
Oh, were the sum of these that I should pay
Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them.
Luc. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn of us

To melt in showers.

Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;

Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,
Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
Many a matter hath he told to thee,

Meet and agreeing with thine infancy;

In that respect, then, like a loving child,

Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind nature doth require it so :
Friends should associate friends in grief and woe.
Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave,
Do him that kindness and take leave of him.
Boy. O, grandsire, grandsire, even with all my heart
Would I were dead, so you did live again!
O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
My tears will choke me if I ope my mouth.

Enter Attendants with AARON.

ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes!
Give sentence on this execrable wretch,
That hath been breeder of these dire events.
Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him:
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food:
If any one relieves or pities him,

For the offence he dies; this is our doom.

[To Attendants.

[Kisses TITUS.

by all the modern editors, against the authority of all the original copies. Marcus is the tribune

of the people, and speaks authoritatively what "the common voice" has required.

Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth.

AARON. Ah! why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

I should repent the evils I have done :
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will:
If one good deed in all my life I did,

I do repent it from my very soul.

Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor hence,
And give him burial in his father's grave.
My father and Lavinia shall forthwith

Be closed in our household's monument:

As for that heinous tiger, Tamora,

No fun'ral rite, nor man in mournful weeds,

No mournful bell shall ring her burial;

But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey:

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THE first edition of 'Pericles' appeared in 1609, under the following title:-The late and much admired play, called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. With the true relation of the whole historie, adventures, and fortunes of the said prince: As also the no lesse strange and worthy accidents, in the birth and life of his daughter Mariana. As it hath been divers and sundry times acted [by] his Maiesties Seruants at the Globe on the Bank-side. By William Shakespeare. Imprinted at London for Henry Gosson, and are to be sold at the sign of the Sunne in Paternoster-row, &c. 1609.' Other quarto editions appeared in 1611, in 1619, in 1630, and in 1635. The variations in these from the text of 1609 are very slight. In 1664 'Pericles' first appeared in the folio collection of Shakspere's works, being introduced into the third edition, whose title page states "Unto this impression is added seven plays never before printed in folio."

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We advocate the belief that Pyrocles,' or 'Pericles,' was a very early work of Shakspere, in some form, however different from that which we possess. That it was an early work we are constrained to believe; not from the evidence of particular passages, which may be deficient in power or devoid of refinement, but from the entire construction of the dramatic action. The play is essentially one of movement, which is a great requisite for dramatic success; but that movement is not held in subjection to an unity of idea. But with this essential disadvantage we can not doubt that, even with very imperfect dialogue, the action presented a succession of scenes of very absorbing interest. The introduction of Gower, however inartificial it may seem, was the result of very profound skill. The presence of Gower supplied the unity of idea which the desultory nature of the story wanted. Nevertheless, such a story we believe could not have been chosen by Shakspere in the seventeenth century,

when his art was fully developed in all its wondrous powers and combinations. With his perfect mastery of the faculty of representing, instead of recording, the treatment of a story which would have required perpetual explanation and connection would have been painful to him, if not impossible.

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Dr. Drake has bestowed very considerable attention upon the endeavour to prove that 'Pericles' ought to be received as the indisputable work of Shakspere. Yet his arguments, after all, amount only to the estab lishment of the following theory: "No play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand of Shakspere than 'Pericles,' and fortunately his share in its composition appears to have been very considerable; he may be distinctly, though not frequently, traced, in the first and second Acts; after which, feeling the in competency of his fellow-labourer, he seems to have assumed almost the entire management of the remainder, nearly the whole of the third, fourth, and fifth Acts bearing indisputable testimony to the genius and execution of the great master." We have no faith whatever in this very easy mode of disposing of the authorship of a doubtful play-of leaving entirely out of view the most important part of every drama, its action, its characterisation, looking at the whole merely as a collection of passages, of which the worst are to be assigned to some âme damnée, and the best triumphantly claimed for Shakspere. however, who judge of such matters upon broader principles. Mr. Hallam says, "Pericles' is generally reckoned to be in part, and only in part, the work of Shakspeare. From the poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of any effective or distinguishable character, for Marina is no more than the common form of female virtue, such as all the dramatists of that age could draw, and a general feebleness of the

There are some,

Shakspeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 268.

a

or third manner than of his first." But this belief is not inconsistent with the opinion that the original structure was Shakspere's. No other poet that existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century-perhaps no poet that came after that period, whether Massin

tragedy as a whole, I should not believe the structure to have been Shakspere's. But many passages are far more in his manner than in that of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted." Here "the poverty and bad management of the fable" -"the want of any effective or distinguish-ger, or Fletcher, or Webster-could have able character," are assigned for the belief that the structure could not have been Shakspere's. But let us accept Dryden's opinion that

"Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore," with reference to the original structure of the play, and the difficulty vanishes. It was impossible that the character of the early drama should not have been impressed upon Shakspere's earliest efforts. Do we therefore think that the drama, as it has come down to us, is presented in the form in which it was first written? By no means. We agree with Mr. Hallam, that in parts the language seems rather that of Shakspere's "second · History of Literature,' vol. iii. p. 569.

written the greater part of the fifth Act. Coarse as the comic scenes are, there are touches in them unlike any other writer but Shakspere. We are willing to believe that, even in the very height of his fame, Shakspere would have bestowed any amount of labour for the improvement of an early production of his own, if the taste of his audiences had from time to time demanded its continuance upon the stage. It is for this reason that we think that the 'Pericles' which appears to have been in some respects a new play at the beginning of the seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere some twenty years earlier.

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