Act III
Scene I
36- bootless- in vain
71- Nilus- the Nile, known for its annual flooding
67-68- Speak my Lavinia, what accrused hand/ Hath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?- Some thing that sight should be “spight”: Titus has attempted to prevent Lavinia’s mutilation but it had happened despite his efforts.
89-90- Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer/ That hath received some unrecuring wound.- Proverbial: As the stricken Deer withdraws himself to die.
96- envious- malicious
112- honey-dew- sweet dew, not the melon.
129- brine-pit- a salt spring or well, from which water is taken to be boiled or evaporated for making salt.
206- feeble ruin- mutilated body
210- breathe the welkin dim- make the sky cloudy
240- Etna- Sicilian volcano
244- flouted- mocked
250- starved- numbed
292- tofore- formerly
297- Tarquin- the King of Rome who was expelled with his family after his son raped Lucrece.
Scene ii
4- unkit that sorrow-wreathen knot- unfold your arms, folded arms were a sign of melancholy or grief.
15- wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans- There was a belief that each sigh draws a drop of blood from the heart.
27-8- To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er/ How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?- An allusion to the Aeneid in which Dido bids Aeneas tell his story and he laments over how painful it is to renew his grief.