The reader has here an ancient ballad on the same subject as the play of Titus Andronicus, and it is probable that the one was borrowed from the other: but which of them was the original it is not easy to decide. And yet, if the argument offered above for the priority of the ballad of the Jew of Venice may be admitted, somewhat of the same kind may be urged here; for this ballad differs from the play in several particulars, which a simple ballad-writer would be less likely to alter than an inventive tragedian. Thus 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.
Let the reader weigh these circumstances and some others wherein he will find them unlike, and then pronounce for himself. After all, there is reason to conclude that this play was rather improved by Shakespeare with a few fine touches of his pen, than originally written by him; for, not to mention that the style is less figurative than his others generally are, this tragedy is mentioned with discredit in the Induction to Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, in 1614, as one that had then been exhibited "five and twenty or thirty years:" which, if we take the lowest number, throws it back to the year 1589, at which time Shakespeare was but 25: an earlier date than can be found for any other of his pieces:[881] and if it does not clear him entirely of it, shews at least it was a first attempt.[882]
The following is given from a copy in The Golden Garland intitled as above; compared with three others, two of them in black letter in the Pepys Collection, intitled, The Lamentable and Tragical History of Titus Andronicus, &c. To the tune of, Fortune. Printed for E. Wright. Unluckily none of these have any dates.
[No original from which the plot of the play of Titus Andronicus could be taken has yet been discovered, and it is just possible that this ballad may have given the hint, but the Registers of the Stationers' Company go some way towards proving a negative to this supposition, for on the 6th of February, 1593-4, John Danter registered A noble Roman Historye of Tytus Andronicus, and also the ballad thereof.]
You noble minds, and famous martiall wights,
That in defence of native country fights,
Give eare to me, that ten yeeres fought for Rome,
Yet reapt disgrace at my returning home.
In Rome I lived in fame fulle threescore yeeres,5
My name beloved was of all my peeres;
Full five and twenty valiant sonnes I had,
Whose forwarde vertues made their father glad.
For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent,
Against them stille my sonnes and I were sent;10
Against the Goths full ten yeeres weary warre
We spent, receiving many a bloudy scarre.