What follows shows that
the instinct of secrecy is strong in him.
It seems likely, I may add, that Shakespeare here was influenced,
consciously or unconsciously, by recollection of a place in _Titus
Andronicus_ (IV. i.). In that horrible play Chiron and Demetrius, after
outraging Lavinia, cut out her tongue and cut off her hands, in order
that she may be unable to reveal the outrage. She reveals it, however,
by taking a staff in her mouth, guiding it with her arms, and writing in
the sand, 'Stuprum. Chiron. Demetrius.' Titus soon afterwards says:
I will go get a leaf of brass,
And with a gad of steel will write these words,
And lay it by. The angry northern wind
Will blow these sands, like Sibyl's leaves, abroad,
And where's your lesson then?
Perhaps in the old _Hamlet_, which may have been a play something like
_Titus Andronicus_, Hamlet at this point did write something of the
Ghost's message in his tables. In any case Shakespeare, whether he wrote
_Titus Andronicus_ or only revised an older play on the subject, might
well recall this incident, as he frequently reproduces other things in
that drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 258: The reader will observe that this suggestion of a
_further_ reason for his making the note may be rejected without the
rest of the interpretation being affected.
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