by Isaac Asimov
Titus Andronicus, defied by his family and snubbed by the Emperor who owes him everything, suddenly finds himself alone and dishonored, only minutes after he had been offered the imperial crown itself.
Yet Titus sticks to honor. He is even unwilling to have his dead son buried in the family tomb because he died opposing Titus' conception of proper obedience to the Emperor. Marcus, however, argues:
The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax
That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son
Did graciously plead for his funerals:
—Act I, scene i, lines 380-82
Ajax and Ulysses contended for the armor of Achilles after the latter's death (see page I-110). When Ulysses received the award, Ajax went mad and killed himself. Marcus points out that the Greeks, despite the dishonor of Ajax's last deeds, his madness and suicide, finally decided to give him honorable burial in view of the greatness of his earlier deeds. Ulysses himself (who is "Laertes' son") argued in favor of that.
Given this precedent, Titus allows the burial of his twenty-second son.
Other reconciliations are also made. Tamora, the new Empress, plays the role of peacemaker, reconciling the Emperor Saturninus with his younger brother, Bassianus (now married to Lavinia), and with his general, Titus Andronicus. (Nevertheless, she promises her new husband, in an aside, to take proper revenge on them all in due time.)
Titus Andronicus accepts the new peace and suggests a great hunt for the next day.
… Prometheus tied to Caucasus
All now leave the stage after the single action-packed scene of the first act, and one person alone remains to begin the second act, a person who has been on stage most of the first act but who till now has not spoken a single line. It is Aaron the Moor. Behind his existence is some complicated background.
The ancient Greeks could not help but notice that the inhabitants of the southern shores of the Mediterranean were somewhat darker in complexion than they themselves were. There would be a tendency to call the inhabitants of northern Africa "the dark ones."
The Greek word for "dark" is mauros, and this name came to be applied to north Africans. In Latin the word became maurus and this was the origin, in particular, of the name of a kingdom on the northwestern shoulder of the African continent, which came to be called Mauretania- the kingdom over which Cleopatra's daughter ruled in Augustus' time (see page I-385).
From the Latin maurus, came the French Maures, the Spanish Moros and the English "Moors." In the eighth century armies from north Africa (now Moslem in religion) invaded Spain and southern France. In the ninth century they invaded Sicily and Italy. Europeans came to know the Moors with a discomforting intimacy.
(There was a tendency for the Spaniards, who did not evict the Moors till nearly eight centuries had passed after their first invasion, to apply the name to all Moslems. In 1565 they occupied the Philippine Islands and were astonished to find tribes in the southern islands who were Moslems. Two centuries before the Spaniards came, Moslem traders had been visiting the islands and Moslem missionaries had converted the natives. The Spaniards called these southern Filipinos Moros, and the name is retained even today.)
In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese mariners, exploring down the coasts of west Africa, brought back black slaves and there began a new version of the abominable practice of human slavery. Since it was customary to call Africans "Moors," this new variety of African was called "black Moors" or "blackamoors." And then, to save syllables, they might still be called simply "Moors."
Aaron, in this play, though called a Moor, is distinctly a blackamoor, as we can tell from numerous illusions. The likelihood of a black being present in the Italy of Belisarius' time is not entirely zero. After all, the power of the East Roman Emperor, Justinian, extended far up the Nile. Why he should be associated with the Gothic armies is more puzzling-but then there is no question of any historical accuracy. He is introduced merely as a convenient villain.
A "Moor" would make a wonderful villain and an inhuman one at that. To the Elizabethans, the strange and therefore repulsive features of a black face and the habit of equating blackness with the devil made blacks a natural stereotype for villainy. (Such irrational thinking on the part of whites has caused innumerable blacks innumerable separate agonies then and since.)
Aaron ruminates on Tamora's sudden climb to the peak but is not disturbed thereby. Her rise is his as well, and he tells himself to:
fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,
And mount her pitch, whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fettered in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.
—Act II, scene i, lines 12-17
Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire from the sun and gave it to poor shivering mortals, in defiance of a decree of Zeus. In punishment Zeus chained him with divine, unbreakable fetters to Mount Caucasus (which Greeks imagined to be somewhere east of the Black Sea, and which gave its name to the Caucasian range of mountains which is really there.)
The fact that Tamora is so in love with Aaron mirrors another convention that was found in the literature of the time. Whites seemed to imagine that black men had some unusual power of attraction over white women; perhaps because of their supposedly more primitive "animal" nature and therefore their supposedly more powerful sexual prowess.
… this Semiramis.. .
Aaron goes on to glory in the prospect of what will come. He expects
To wanton with this queen,
This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,
This siren, that will charm Rome's Saturnine
And see his shipwrack and his commonweal's.
—Act II, scene i, lines 21-24
In 810 b.c. a queen, Sammu-rammat, ruled the kingdom of Assyria. She didn't rule either long or effectively, and Assyria was, at the time, rather weak. In the next century, however, Assyria rose to world power and dominated western Asia with its fearful and ruthless armies.
The dun memory that mighty and terrifying Assyria was once ruled by a woman seemed to impress the Greeks, for they distorted Sammu-rammat to Semiramis and began to weave legends around her. She was supposed to have been a great conquering monarch, who founded Babylon, established a huge empire, reigned forty-two years, and even tried to conquer India.
As if this were not enough to render her colorful, the Greeks also imagined her to be a monster of lust and luxury with numerous lovers and insatiable desires, so that the name "Semiramis" has come to be applied to any lustful woman in high place.
… Vulcan's badge
Aaron's soliloquy is interrupted by Tamora's two remaining sons, Chiron and Demetrius, who have suddenly decided, each one of them, to fall in love with Lavinia and are now quarreling over it. Aaron reminds them that she is the wife of Bassianus, the Emperor's brother. This does not bother Demetrius, who says:
Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,
Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.
—Act II, scene i, lines 88-89
This is a reference to Vulcan's cuckoldry, thanks to the love affair of his wife, Venus, with Mars (see page I-11).
Aaron thinks the quarrel is foolish. Why don't they both enjoy Lavinia in turn? To do this, persuasion will not be enough, for, as he says:
Lucrece was not more chaste
Than this Lavinia,
—Act II, scene i, lines 108-9
Lucrece, of course, is the Roman matron who was dealt with in The Rape of Lucrece (see page I-205), and is Shakespeare's favorite symbol of chastity. (The Rape of Lucrece was written at just about the time Titus Andronicus was. Might it be that this line set Shakespeare to thinking of the poem, or was it that the poem was running on in his mind and inspired this line?)
There are other ways than persuasion to win Lavinia, however. Coolly, Aaron points out that in the course of the next day's hunt, they might am
bush her and rape her in turn. The two Gothic princes agree enthusiastically.
Saturn is dominator…
Time moves on and the hunt starts. During its course, Aaron finds a spot in the forest where he may hide a bag of gold for a nefarious purpose that is still in the future.
Tamora comes upon him and urges him on to dalliance such as
The wandering prince and Dido once enjoyed,
—Act II, scene iii, line 22
This is another reference to Dido and Aeneas (see page I-20), a favorite mythical standby of Shakespeare's.
Aaron, however, has more important business at hand. He says:
Madam, though Venus govern your desires,
Saturn is dominator over mine:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 30-31
Astrologically speaking, each person is born under the domination of a particular planet which determines the major component of his or her personality. The nature of the influence of Venus is obvious.
Saturn is, of all the planets visible to the unaided eye, the farthest from Earth and therefore the most slowly moving among the stars. To be born under Saturn then is to be as heavy, grave, and gloomy as that slow-moving planet; to be "saturnine," in short.
His Philomel. ..
Aaron goes on to explain why he is so grave and gloomy. Dire thoughts of revenge are in his mind and he refers to:
My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls
Even as an adder when she doth unroll
To do some fatal execution?
—Act II, scene iii, lines 34-36
Mention of his "fleece of woolly hair" shows clearly that Shakespeare has in mind a black African and not the swarthy but non-black Moors of north Africa.
Aaron goes on to specifics, indicating that he has set in motion a horrible fate for Lavinia. He says:
This is the day of doom for Bassianus:
His Philomel must lose her tongue today,
—Act II, scene iii, lines 42-43
One of the more gruesome Greek myths deals with two sisters: Philomela and Procne, who were the daughters of a king of Athens. The latter was given in marriage to Tereus, the King of Thrace. Tereus, however, fell in love with Philomela, his sister-in-law, and, luring her to his court, raped her. Then, in order to prevent her from telling his crime, he cut her tongue out and hid her among his slaves.
The phrase "lose her tongue" can therefore be a metaphoric reference to rape. It turns out to be a literal forecast in this play.
… as was Actaeon's…
Aaron gives Tamora a letter to be used later in the development of his plan and leaves.
At this point, Bassianus and Lavinia enter. All are at the hunt, of course, and Tamora, in her hunting costume, is sardonically likened to Diana, the goddess of the hunt, by Bassianus. Tamora is offended at what she considers to be their spying and says:
Had I the power that some say Dion had
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Actaeon's, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
—Act II, scene iii, lines 61-64
Actaeon was a hunter in the Greek myths, who, in the course of a hunt, came inadvertently upon Diana bathing. Admiring, he stopped to watch. When he was caught at his peeping by Diana's nymphs, the indignant goddess turned him into a stag so that his own hounds ran him down and killed him.
The reference to the horns on Bassianus' head undoubtedly has the secondary purpose of referring to the planned rape of his wife.
.. your swart Cimmerian
Bassianus and Lavinia strike back by implying that Tamora has been surprised at something far less innocent than bathing and speak openly of her liaison with Aaron. Bassianus says:
Believe me, Queen, your swart Cimmerian
Doth make your honor of his body's hue,
—Act II, scene iii, lines 72-73
The Scythians, who lived north of the Black Sea (see page I-397), ar-rived there only in 700 b.c. Before that, the land was populated by those whom Homer named the Cimmerians. (Crimea, the peninsula jutting into he northern rim of the Black Sea, is thought to derive its name from hem.)
The Cimmerian regions were mistily distant to the Greeks of Homer's time and strange legends arose concerning them. They were supposed to live in a land of eternal mist and gloom where the sun never shone. (One wonders if explorers brought back tales of the polar regions.)
As a result, one speaks of "Cimmerian darkness" as expressing the ultimate in darkness. Aaron is a "Cimmerian" not because he comes from the Far North, but because his skin is so dark.
.. Cocytus" misty mouth
But now the cruel machinations of Aaron begin to work.
Tamora's two sons, Chiron and Demetrius, enter. Tamora tells them that she has been lured to the spot by Bassianus and Lavinia for evil purposes. The two Gothic princes promptly stab Bassianus, hide his body in a deep pit, and drag Lavinia offstage to rape her, each in turn, with Tamora egging them on fiendishly. She refuses the girl's pleas for mercy, reminding her of how Titus Andronicus had refused her own pleas for mercy for her oldest son.
She leaves and Aaron enters, guiding Quintus and Martius, two of Andronicus' three remaining sons. Martius slips into the pit in which Bassianus' body is hidden and while Quintus leans over anxiously to find out if he is hurt, Aaron slips away.
Martius discovers the body of Bassianus and is horrified. He says:
So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus,
When he by night lay bathed in maiden blood.
O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-
If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-
Out of this fell devouring receptacle
As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.
—Act II, scene iii, lines 231-36
Pyramus was an ill-fated lover in the ancient tale, who died by moonlight (see page I-23). Cocytus is one of the five rivers of the underworld and its name means "wailing." It is meant to symbolize the sorrow of death.
A craftier Tereus...
The horrors continue. Aaron brings the Emperor Saturninus on the scene and Quintus and Martius are found with Bassianus' body. The forged letter, prepared by Aaron, is produced to make it seem that the two had bribed a huntsman to kill Bassianus. The bribe in the shape of the bag of gold Aaron had planted on the scene is also produced.
Titus' sons, having been effectively framed, are dragged off to imprisonment at once.
All leave and Tamora's sons now emerge. They have raped Lavinia and have cut out her tongue to prevent her telling. They have, however, gone the old Greek myth one better, for they have cut off her hands as well. Chiron says, with sadistic humor:
Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
And if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.
—Act II, scene iv, lines 3-4
The princes leave, and Marcus, the brother of Titus Andronicus, comes upon the scene and discovers Lavinia. He grasps the meaning of the sight at once and says:
Fair Philomela, why she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind:
But lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee;
A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,
That could have better sewed than Philomel.
—Act II, scene iv, lines 38-43
In the Greek myth, Philomela had had her tongue cut out and been placed in the slaves' quarters. She could use her hands to reveal her secret, however, for she prepared a tapestry in which she wove the legend, "Philomela is among the slaves." This was delivered to her sister, Procne, who took instant action, liberating Philomela and preparing revenge.
By cutting off Lavinia's hands, the villainous princes had deprived her of Philomela's chance.
Marcus Andronicus finds it hard to believe anyone could have mangled so fair a person as Lavinia. Concerning the malefactor, Marcus says that
&n
bsp; … had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropped his knife, and fell asleep
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
—Act II, scene iv, lines 48-51
Orpheus, the sweet-singing minstrel from Thrace ("the Thracian poet"), descended into the underworld in order to win back his dead love, Eurydice (see page I-47). On approaching Cerberus (see page I-101), the three-headed hellhound who guarded the entrance, he sang so soft and sweet a lullaby that even that horrible creature fell asleep and let him pass unharmed.
… Tarquin and his queen
Unimaginable miseries now heap themselves on Titus Andronicus. His two sons, Quintus and Martius, are being led to execution and no one will hear his pleas on their behalf. His one remaining son, Lucius, has tried to rescue his brothers by force, has failed, and is sentenced to exile. Marcus then brings him the mutilated Lavinia and Titus breaks into fresh woe.
All is interrupted by Aaron, who brings the news that if one of the Andronici, Titus, Marcus, or Lucius, will sacrifice a hand, that hand would be accepted as an exchange for the lives of Titus' two sons, who would then be returned free. After an argument over which Andronicus should make the sacrifice, Titus wins out and his hand is struck off.
This is but to add to the sorrows of Titus, however, for his stricken hand is soon returned and with it the heads of his two sons, who had been executed anyway. Of all Titus' children, there now remain only Lucius and the mutilated Lavinia.
