Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/110

96 other editors begin a new scene with line 64. There is no change of place, however, and later editors prefer to make no change in the scene.

Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh. Human sacrifices to propitiate the shades of the dead were, of course, unknown in Rome, but neither the author nor his audience was scrupulous with respect to historical or geographical accuracy. Cf. note on I. i. 323.

Wilt thou draw near nobility's true badge. It is hardly necessary to mention the resemblance between this sentiment of Tamora's and that expressed by Portia, Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 184–202.

Was ever Scythia half so barbarous?. Cf. King Lear, I. i. 118–120:

the Thracian tyrant. Polymnestor, upon whom Hecuba, Queen of Troy, took vengeance for the death of her son, Polydorus. It was not in his tent, however, but in her own, to which she had induced Polymnestor to come, that she made the 'opportunity of sharp revenge.' The allusion is to the Hecuba of Euripides, which had not been translated into English in Shakespeare's time.

grudges. The Quarto of 1600 has drugs, but the Quarto of 1611 and the First Folio have grudges, a word which seems to be more in keeping with the sense of the preceding line.

fame's eternal date. Cf. Sonnets, 18. 4:

Dr. Johnson remarks: 'To outlive an eternal date is, though not philosophical, yet poetical sense. He