LUCIUS
Uncle Marcus, since my father’s mind
That I repair to Rome, I am content.
FIRST GOTH
And ours with , befall what fortune will.
LUCIUS
Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,
This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;
Let him receive no sust’nance, fetter him,
Till he be brought unto the empress’ face
For testimony of her foul proceedings.
And see the ambush of our friends be strong;
I fear the emperor means no good to us.
AARON
Some devil whisper curses in my ear,
And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth
The venomous malice of my swelling heart!
LUCIUS
Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!
Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.
LUCIUS
The trumpets show the emperor is at hand.
SATURNINUS
What, the firmament more suns than one?
LUCIUS
What boots it to call thyself a sun?
MARCUS
Rome’s emperor, and nephew, break the parle;
These quarrels must be quietly debated.
The feast is ready which the careful Titus
ordained to an honourable end,
For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.
Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.
SATURNINUS
Marcus, we will.
TITUS
Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread queen;
Welcome, warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;
And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,
’Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.
SATURNINUS
Why art thus attired, Andronicus?
TITUS
Because I would be sure to have all well
To entertain your highness and your empress.
TAMORA
We are beholden to you, good Andronicus.
TITUS
An if your highness knew my heart, you were.
My lord the emperor, resolve me this:
Was it well done of rash Virginius
To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
Because she was enforced, stained, and deflowered?
SATURNINUS
It was, Andronicus.
TITUS
Your reason, mighty lord?
SATURNINUS
Because the girl should not survive her shame,
And by her presence still renew his sorrows.
TITUS
A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;
A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant
For me, most wretched, to perform the like.
Die, die, Lavinia, and shame with ;
And with shame father’s sorrow die!
SATURNINUS
What done, unnatural and unkind?
TITUS
Killed her for whom my tears have made me blind.
I am as woeful as Virginius was,
And have a thousand times more cause than he
To do this outrage, and it now is done.
SATURNINUS
What, was she ravished? Tell who did the deed.
TITUS
Will’t please you eat? Will’t please your highness feed?
TAMORA
Why slain only daughter thus?
TITUS
Not I; Chiron and Demetrius.
They ravished her, and cut away her tongue;
And they, they, that did her all this wrong.
SATURNINUS
Go fetch them to us .
TITUS
Why, there they are, both baked in that pie,
Whereof their mother daintily fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself bred.
true, true; witness my knife’s sharp point.
SATURNINUS
Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed.
LUCIUS
Can the son’s eye behold his father bleed?
LUCIUS
There’s meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.
MARCUS
You sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,
By uproar severed, as a flight of fowl
Scattered by winds and high tempestuous gusts,
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,
These broken limbs again into one body;
Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,
And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,
Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
Do shameful execution on herself.
But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,
Grave witnesses of true experience,
Cannot induce you to attend my words,
Speak, Rome’s dear friend, as erst our ancestor,
When with his solemn tongue he did discourse
To love-sick Dido’s sad attending ear
The story of that baleful burning night
When subtle Greeks surprised King Priam’s Troy.
Tell us what Sinon bewitched our ears,
Or who brought the fatal engine in
That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.
My heart is not compact of flint nor steel,
Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,
But floods of tears will drown my oratory
And break my utterance, even in the time
When it should move you to attend me most,
And force you to commiseration.
Here’s Rome’s young captain, let him tell the tale,
While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.
LUCIUS
Then, noble auditory, be it known to you
That Chiron and the damned Demetrius
Were they that murdered our emperor’s brother;
And they it were that ravished our sister.
For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,
Our father’s tears despised, and basely cozened
Of that true hand that fought Rome’s quarrel out
And sent her enemies unto the grave.
Lastly, myself unkindly banished,
The gates shut on me, and turned weeping out,
To beg relief among Rome’s enemies;
Who drowned their enmity in my true tears,
And oped their arms to embrace me as a friend.
I am the turned-forth, be it known to you,
That have preserved her welfare in my blood
And from her bosom took the enemy’s point,
Sheathing the steel in my advent’rous body.
Alas, you know I am no vaunter, I;
My scars can witness, dumb although they are,
That my report is just and full of truth.
But soft, I do digress too much,
Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me;
For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.
MARCUS
Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.
Of this was Tamora delivered,
The issue of an irreligious Moor,
Chief architect and plotter of these woes.
The villain is alive in Titus’ house,
And as he is to witness, this is true.
Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge
These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,
Or more than any living man could bear.
Now have you heard the truth. What say you, Romans?
Have we done amiss? Show us wherein,
And, from the place where you behold us pleading,
The poor remainder of Andronici
Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,
And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,
And make a mutual closure of our house.
Speak, Romans, speak, and if you say we shall,
Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.
AEMILIUS
Come, come, reverend man of Rome,
And bring our emperor gently in hand,
Lucius our emperor; for well I know
The common voice do cry it shall be so.
ROMANS
Lucius, all hail, Rome’s royal emperor!
MARCUS
Go, go into old Titus’ sorrowful house,
And hale that misbelieving Moor
To be adjudged some direful slaught’ring death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.
ROMANS
Lucius, all hail, Rome’s gracious governor!
LUCIUS
Thanks, gentle Romans. May I govern so
To heal Rome’s harms and wipe away her woe!
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
For nature puts me to a heavy task.
Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near
To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.
LUCIUS
O, take this warm kiss on pale cold lips.
These sorrowful drops upon blood-stained face,
The last true duties of noble son.
MARCUS
Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss
brother Marcus tenders on lips.
O, were the sum of these that I should pay
Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them.
LUCIUS
Come , boy; come, come, and learn of us
To melt in showers. grandsire loved well.
Many a time he danced on his knee,
Sung asleep, his loving breast pillow;
Many a story he told to ,
And bid bear his pretty tales in mind
And talk of them when he was dead and gone.
MARCUS
How many thousand times these poor lips,
When they were living, warmed themselves on !
O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss.
Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave.
Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.
YOUNG LUCIUS
O grandsire, grandsire, with all my heart
Would I were dead, so you did live again!
O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
My tears will choke me if I ope my mouth.
AEMILIUS
You sad Andronici, have done with woes.
Give sentence on the execrable wretch
That been breeder of these dire events.
LUCIUS
Set him breast-deep in earth and famish him;
There let him stand and rave and cry for food.
If anyone relieves or pities him,
For the offence he dies. This is our doom.
Some stay to see him fastened in the earth.
AARON
Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?
I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
I should repent the evils I have done.
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will.
If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.
LUCIUS
Some loving friends convey the emperor ,
And give him burial in his father’s grave.
My father and Lavinia shall forthwith
Be closed in our household’s monument.
As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,
No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weed,
No mournful bell shall ring her burial;
But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey.
Her life was beastly and devoid of pity;
And being dead, let birds on her take pity.