Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/119

Titus Andronicus usual expression, has caused much trouble to commentators. Nares explains the word castle as meaning a kind of helmet, quoting unconvincingly from Troilus and Cressida (V. ii. 184):

some deal. Deal is from the O. E. Dæl, part. Cf. Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1182, 1183:

The word survives to-day in such expressions as a good deal, etc.

This scene appears for the first time in the First Folio.

sorrow-wreathen knot. Marcus' arms, which are crossed on his breast in an attitude of profound grief. Cf. The Tempest, I. ii. 224, 'His arms in this sad knot.'

Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans. It was formerly thought that a heavy sigh draws a drop of blood from the heart. Cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 96, 97:

Brew'd with her sorrow, mash'd upon her cheeks. A rather prosaic allusion to the mash-tub and the operations of the brewing-house.

Hecuba of Troy Ran mad through sorrow. After avenging the death of her son, Polydorus, Hecuba, wife of Priam, ran mad. Cf. above, note on I. i. 138.

Immediately before this line in the Folio occur the words, 'What booke?' Most modern editors omit them from the text, concurring in Dyce's