AAR. Madam, though Venus govern your defires,
Saturn is dominator over mine: 4
What fignifies my deadly-ftanding eye,
My filence, and my cloudy melancholy?
My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls,
Even as an adder, when the doth unroll
To do fome fatal execution?

No, madam, these are no venereal figns;
Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
Hark, Tamora, the empress of my foul,
Which never hopes more heaven than refts in thee,-
This is the day of doom for Baffianus ;
His Philomel muft lofe her tongue to-day :5
Thy fons make pillage of her chastity,
And wash their hands in Baffianus' blood.
Seeft thou this letter? take it up I pray thee,

And by meant houfe; go to by is go to houfe or cradle. The common compliment at parting, good by is good houfe, may your houfe profper; and Selby, the Archbishop of York's palace, is great houfe. So that lullaby implies literally fleep in houfe, i. e.

the cradle. HOLT WHITE.

4 though Venus govern your defires,

Saturn is dominator over mine:] The meaning of this paffage may be illuftrated by the aftronomical description of Saturn, which Venus gives in Greene's Planetomachia, 1585: "The star of Saturn is especially cooling, and somewhat drie," &c. Again, in The Sea Voyage, by Beaumont and Fletcher: for your aspect

"You're much inclin'd to melancholy, and that

"Tells me the fullen Saturn had predominance

"At your nativity, a malignant planet!
"And if not qualified by a fweet conjunction
"Of a foft ruddy wench, born under Venus,
"It may prove fatal." COLLINS.

Thus alfo, Propertius, L. IV. i. 84:

"Et grave Saturni fydus in omne caput." STEEVENS.

5 His Philomel &c.] See Vol. XVIII. p. 471, n. 9.

And give the king this fatal-plotted scroll :-
Now question me no more, we are espied;
Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,
Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.

TAM. Ah, my fweet Moor, fweeter to me than
life!

AAR. No more, great emprefs, Baffianus comes: Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy fons To back thy quarrels, whatfoe'er they be.

Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA.

[Exit.

BAS. Who have we here? Rome's royal emperefs, Unfurnish'd of her well-befeeming troop?

Or is it Dian, habited like her;

Who hath abandoned her holy groves,

To see the general hunting in this foreft?

TAM. Saucy controller of our private steps!"
Had I the power, that, fome fay, Dian had,
Thy temples fhould be planted presently
With horns, as was Acteon's; and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,8
Unmannerly intruder as thou art!

of her-] Old copies-of our. Corrected by Mr. Rowe.

The edition 1600, reads exactly thus:

MALONE.

Vnfurnisht of her well befeeming troop? TODD. 7 our private steps!] Edition 1600:-my private steps.

TODD.

8 Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,] Mr. Heath fufpects that the poet wrote:

Should thrive upon thy new-transformed limbs,as the former is an expreffion that fuggefts no image to the fancy. But drive, I think, may ftand, with this meaning: the hounds fhould pass with impetuous hafie, &c. So, in Hamlet:

Pyrrhus at Priam drives," &c.

i. e. flies with impetuofity at him. STEEVENS.

LAP. Under your patience, gentle emperefs,
"Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning;
And to be doubted, that your Moor and you
Are fingled forth to try experiments:

Jove fhield your hufband from his hounds to-day! 'Tis pity, they fhould take him for a ftag.

BAS. Believe me, queen, your swarth Cimmerian
Doth make your honour of his body's hue,
Spotted, detefted, and abominable.

Why are you fequester'd from all your train?
Difmounted from your fnow-white goodly steed,
And wander'd hither to an obfcure plot,
Accompanied with a barbarous Moor,'
If foul defire had not conducted you?

LAV. And, being intercepted in your fport,
Great reason that my noble lord be rated
For faucinefs. I pray you, let us hence,
And let her 'joy her raven-colour'd love;
This valley fits the purpofe paffing well.

BAS. The king, my brother, fhall have note of this.

The old copies have-upon his new-transformed limbs. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. MALOne.

It is faid in a note by Mr. Malone, that the old copies read, 86 upon his new-transformed limbs," and that Mr. Rowe made the emendation thy. The edition of 1600 reads precisely thus : Should drive vpon thy new transformed limbes. TODD. fwarth Cimmerian -] Swarth is black. The Moor is called Cimmerian, from the affinity of blackness to darkness. JOHNSON.

9

fwarth Cimmerian-] Edition 1600-fwartie Cyme

rion. TODD.

I

2

Accompanied with a barbarous Moor,] Edition 1600 reads:
Accompanied but with a barbarous Moore. TODD.

have note of this,] Old copies-notice. STEEVENS, Thus alfo the 4to. 1600. TODD.

LAV. Ay, for these flips have made him noted

long :3

Good king! to be fo mightily abus'd!

TAM. Why have I patience to endure all this?

Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS.

DEM. How now, dear fovereign, and our gracious mother,

Why doth your highness look fo pale and wan?

TAM. Have I not reafon, think you, to look pale?
These two have 'tic'd me hither to this place,
A barren detefted vale,4 you fee, it is:

The trees, though fummer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with mofs, and baleful misletoe.
Here never fhines the fun;5 here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.

And, when they show'd me this abhorred pit,
They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hiffing fnakes,

3

made him noted long :] He had yet been married but one night. JOHNSON.

The true reading may be-made her, i. e. Tamora.

STEEVENS.

4 A barren detefted vale,] As the verfification of this play is by no means inharmonious, I am willing to fuppofe the author

wrote:

A bare detefted vale,

STEEVENS.

Here never fhines the fun; &c.] Mr. Rowe seems to have thought on this paffage in his Jane Shore:

"This is the houfe where the fun never dawns,
"The bird of night fits icreaming o'er its roof,
"Grim fpectres fweep along the horrid gloom,
"And nought is heard but wailings and lamentings."

STEEVENS.

Ten thousand fwelling toads, as many urchins,"
Would make fuch fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,

Should ftraight fall mad, or elfe die fuddenly."
No fooner had they told this hellish tale,

But ftraight they told me, they would bind me here

Unto the body of a difinal yew;

And leave me to this miferable death.
And then they call'd me, foul adulteress,
Lafcivious Goth, and all the bittereft terms
That ever ear did hear to fuch effect.

And, had you not by wondrous fortune come,
This vengeance on me had they executed:
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
Or be ye not henceforth call'd
my children.
DEM. This is a witness that I am thy fon.
[Stabs BASSIANUS.
CHI. And this for me, ftruck home to fhow my
[Stabbing him likewife.
LAV. Ay come, Semiramis,-nay, barbarous Ta-

ftrength.

mora!

urchins,] i. e. hedgehogs. See Vol. IV. p. 38, n. 3.

STEEVENS.

"Should flraight fall mad, or elfe die fuddenly.] This is faid in fabulous phyfiology, of those that hear the groan of the mandrake torn up. JOHNSON.

The fame thought and almost the fame expreffions occur in Romeo and Juliet. STEEVENS.

8 Ay come, Semiramis,] The propriety of this addrefs will be beft understood from the following paffage in P. Holland's tranflation of the 8th Book of Pliny's Nat. Hift. ch. 42: “Queen Semiramis loved a great horfe that she had, fo farre forth, that fhe was content he should doe his kind with her." The incontinence of this lady has been already alluded to in the Induction to the Taming of a Shrew, fcene the fecond. STEEVENS.