Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/113

Titus Andronicus metrius, on the not very plausible ground that it is Chiron who has made the 'reproachful speeches.'

This discord's ground. 'There is a play upon the musical sense of ground (="plain-song" or theme).' (Rolfe.)

She is a woman, etc. A quasi-proverbial expression found in several plays of Shakespeare, as well as elsewhere. Cf. 1 Henry VI, V. iii. 78, 79:

more water glideth by the mill, Than wots the miller of; and easy it is Of a cut loaf to steal a shive. Collier noted the fact that both of these proverbs occur within a page of each other in The Cobler of Canterburie, 1590: 'Much water runnes by the mill that the miller wots not on. The Prior perceived that the scull had cut a shive on his loafe.' (Cf. Ouvry's reprint, London, 1862, pp. 12 ff.) Both The Cobler of Canterburie and Titus Andronicus have been attributed to Greene. Cf. Appendix C. Rolfe quotes the Scottish proverb, 'Mickle water goes by the miller when he sleeps.'

Vulcan's badge. The cuckold's horns. The allusion is to the intrigue of Mars and Venus, the wife of Vulcan.

Lucrece was not more chaste. The story of Tarquin's rape of Lucrece seems to have been much in the mind of the author at this time. Cf. below IV. i. 63, 89 ff. Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece was printed first in 1594, the date also of the first Quarto of Titus Andronicus. On the similarities between the two works, see Appendix C.

sacred wit. Although sacred is usually taken here as a Latinism meaning accursed, there is, as has been noted in some quarters, an ironical sound about the word in this connection which accords well with Aaron's character.