"King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name. Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it? The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby; Knowing that with the shadow of his wings He can at pleasure stint their melody. Even so may'st thou the giddy men of Rome." Unmistakably Shakespearian, too, are Titus's moving lament (iii. I) when he learns of Lavinia's mutilation, and his half-distraught outbursts in the following scene foreshadow even in detail a situation belonging to the poet's culminating period, the scene between Lear and Cordelia when they are both prisoners. Titus says to his hapless daughter: "Lavinia, go with me: I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee Sad stories chanced in the times of old." In just the same spirit Lear exclaims: "Come, let's away to prison ... . . . . . so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales." It is quite unnecessary for any opponent of blind or exaggerated Shakespeare-worship to demonstrate to us the impossibility of bringing _Titus Andronicus_ into harmony with any other than a barbarous conception of tragic poetry. But although the play is simply omitted without apology from the Danish translation of Shakespeare's works, it must by no means be overlooked by the student, whose chief interest lies in observing the genesis and development of the poet's genius. The lower its point of departure, the more marvellous its soaring flight. [1] "Gallops the zodiac" (ii. I, line 7) occurs twice in Peele. The phrase "A thousand deaths" (same scene, line 79) appears in Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_. IX _SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES--HIS MARRIAGE VIEWED IN THIS LIGHT--LOVES LABOUR'S LOST--ITS MATTER AND STYLE--JOHN LYLY AND EUPHUISM--THE PERSONAL ELEMENT_ During these early years in London, Shakespeare must have been conscious of spiritual growth with every day that passed. With his inordinate appetite for learning, he must every day have gathered new impressions in his many-sided activity as a hard-working actor, a furbisher-up of old plays in accordance with the taste of the day for scenic effects, and finally as a budding poet, in whose heart every mood thrilled into melody, and every conception clothed itself in dramatic form. He must have felt his spirit light and free, not least, perhaps, because he had escaped from his home in Stratford.