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,

165

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.

Re-enter Attendants, with Aaron.

First Rom. 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:
Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth.
Aar. O! why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?

162. Many a time, etc.] This touching speech is thoroughly Shakespearian to my thinking. "Meet"="things

meet.

168. Because kind nature] See Romeo, IV. v. 82, 83.

169. associate] join. Romeo, v. ii. 6. 184. O! why should wrath, etc.]

170

175

180

Crude as this may be, compared with Shakespeare's later work, it is by no means inconsistent with it. Shakespeare does not make his worst characters repent; his Regans and Gonerils, his Iago, even Macbeth and his wife, cannot be said to repent. Edmund is, I think, the only character in the

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

185

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

190

Be closed in our household's monument.

As for that heinous tiger, Tamora,

195

No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weeds,
No mournful bell shall ring her burial;

But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey.
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
See justice done on Aaron, that damn'd Moor,
By whom our heavy haps had their beginning:
Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.

Tragedies, who can be ranked as a
villain, who repents. In Shakespeare's
comedies or romances the wrong-doers
cannot be left without giving some
sign of grace. But when he gives us
the full grim truth of life in tragedy,
he deals little in repentance.

189. If one good deed] makes one think on Satan's "Evil, be thou my good," Paradise Lost, iv. 110.

195. heinous] wicked, used usually by Shakespeare of deeds, as nowadays; here of a person.

196. No funeral rite] We must

200

[Exeunt.

understand some phrase like "there shall be," or we might read "and for her," etc.

198. But throw her forth, etc.] cf. Macbeth, III. iv. 71, "Our monuments shall be the maws of kites."

203. Then, afterwards] The whole is elliptical, and we must understand some phrase here as we must proceed."

66

204. ruinate] ruin. 3 Henry IV. v. 183; Lucrece, 944, and elsewhere. Bacon and Spenser also use the word, which hardly proves that either of them wrote this play.

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