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138 TITUS ANDKONICUS'S COMPLAINT. |
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TITUS ANDRONICUS'S COMPLAINT.
On the 6th of February, 1593-4, A Noble Roman Historye of Tytus Andronicus, was entered in the Stationers' Registers, to John Danter, and also " the ballad thereof." The earliest known edition of Shakespeare's play was in 1600. The differences between this play and the ballad are thus stated by Percy.
" In the ballad is no mention of the contest for the empire between the two brothers, the composing of which makes the ungrateful treatment of Titus afterwards the more flagrant: neither is there any notice taken of his sacrificing one of Tamora's sons, which the tragic poet has assigned as the original cause of all her cruelties. In the play, Titus loses twenty-one of his sons in war, and kills another for assisting Bassianus to carry off Lavinia; the reader will find it different in the ballad. In the latter she is betrothed to the Emperor's son: in the play to his brother. In the tragedy, only two of his sons fall into the pit, and the third, being banished, returns to Rome with a victorious army, to avenge the wrongs of his house: in the ballad, all three are entrapped, and suffer death. In the scene, the Emperor kills Titus, and is in return stabbed by Titus's surviving son. Here Titus kills the Emperor, and afterwards himself." *****
" The following is given from a copy in The Golden Garland, entitled as above; compared with three others, two of them in black letter in the Pepys col- |
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