# Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale/Appendix E

The drawing and text described here appear as the frontispiece to the volume.
Layout 2
APPENDIX E
The First Illustration to 'Shakespeare'
The drawing and script reproduced at the head of this edition of Titus Andronicus is of special interest as the first known illustration to any play of the Shakespearean canon. It is from the pen of Henry Peacham, artist, schoolmaster, epigrammatist, and pamphleteer, and was discovered by Sir E. K. Chambers in Volume I of the Harley Papers at Longleat.
The document, dating from 1595, is important as indicating that the Elizabethans regarded Moors as coal-black, not tawny. In the drawing, Tamora is represented kneeling before Titus, pleading for the life of her sons. Two bound figures, presumably her sons, kneel behind her, and Aaron the Moor stands beside them. The figures behind Titus are supposedly the executioners. The only known text to which Peacham could have had access is the First Quarto of 1594. The text of the MS. is an arrangement of lines from the speeches of Tamora and Titus (I. i. 104–121) and of Aaron (V. i. 125–144), with an interpolation of two lines and a half for Titus which are not found in any of the printed texts. Peacham has supplied his own stage directions. Certain minor variations between the lines of the MS. and those of the printed texts are noticeable, and the possibility of an earlier version of the play might thence be inferred. There seems to be some confusion as to whether the death of only one son (Alarbus) or of more than one is contemplated. Titus's lines, as well as Tamora's last line, seem to indicate that only one is to be put to death, and this circumstance agrees substantially with the texts of the versions which we have. Chambers thinks that the drawing clearly indicates that ​both sons are to be put to death, but this does not seem necessarily to be the purport of the illustration.
The text of the dialogue accompanying the drawing reads as follows:
Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution Tam: Stay Romane bretheren gratious Conquerors Victorious Titus rue the teares I shed A mothers teares in passion of her sonnes And if thy sonnes were ever deare to thee Oh thinke my sonnes to bee as deare to mee Suffizeth not that wee are brought to Roome To beautify thy triumphes and returne Captiue to thee and to thy Romane yoake But must my sonnes be slaughtered in the streetes for valiant doinges in there Cuntryes cause Oh if to fight for kinge and Common weale Were piety in thine it is in these Andronicus staine not thy tombe with blood Wilt thou drawe neere the nature of the Godes Drawe neere them then in being mercifull Sweete mercy is nobilityes true badge Thrice noble Titus spare my first borne sonne Titus: Patient your self madame for dy hee must Aaron do you likewise prepare your selfe And now at last repent your wicked life Aron: Ah now I curse the day and yet I thinke few comes within the compasse of my curse Wherein I did not some notorious ill As kill a man or els devise his death Ravish a mayd or plott the way to do it Acuse some innocent and forsweare my selfe Set deadly enmity betweene too freendes Make poore mens cattell breake theire neckes Set fire on barnes and haystackes in the night And bid the owners quench them with their teares ​Oft have I digd vp dead men from their graves And set them vpright at their deere frendes dore Even almost when theire sorrowes was forgott And on their brestes as on the barke of trees Have with my knife carvd in Romane letters Lett not your sorrowe dy though I am dead Tut I have done a thousand dreadfull thinges As willingly as one would kill a fly And nothing greives mee hartily indeede for that I cannot doo ten thousand more & cetera Alarbus