by Isaac Asimov
Tamora has had ample revenge for the loss of her son and now it is Titus who begins to plan revenge. So does Lucius, still under sentence of exile. Alone on the stage, he plans to go abroad and raise an army against Rome, saying to his absent father, in soliloquy:
// Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs, And make proud Saturnine and his empress Beg at the gates, like Tarquin and his queen.
—Act III, scene i, lines 296-98
Tarquin was the last king of ancient Rome, who was expelled from Rome in 509 b.c. (see page I-211). He had occasion to stand at the gates of Rome in an attempt to get the throne back, and failed. To be sure, he didn't beg in the usual sense of the word. He had an army at his back.
The idea of revenge by means of an outside army fits in just a little with the time of Belisarius and Narses. Belisarius himself never attempted revenge against the ungrateful Emperor Justinian, even though legend has him reduced, toward the end of his life, to begging in the streets. (The legend has no basis in truth, however.)
Belisarius' successor, Narses, is a different matter. He ruled Italy into extreme old age, and after Justinian's death, when Narses was more than ninety years old, the aged general was ordered home. According to the legend (probably not true) his recall was accompanied by an insulting message. He was told that since he was a eunuch, he should return and confine himself to spinning wool with the palace maidens.
The insulted Narses said, "I will spin them such a skein as they will not easily unravel" and invited the barbarous Lombards to invade Italy-which they did most effectively.
… Cornelia never with more care
The play now shifts to the Andronicus house. For the first time, a grandson of Titus appears. He is a son of Lucius and is also named Lucius.
Young Lucius enters, carrying books and running. Mute Lavinia is running after him. The boy is frightened but Titus and Marcus catch and comfort him, assuring him that Lavinia means him no harm, and loves him. Titus says:
Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
Read to her sons than she hath read to thee
Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.
—Act IV, scene i, lines 12-14
The Cornelia referred to was a daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the Roman general who finally defeated Hannibal in 202 b.c. Cornelia was considered the model of the virtuous Roman matron, chaste, honorable, and loving-and utterly devoted to her two sons.
These two sons received the finest education available at the time. So proud was she of them that when another Roman matron, on a visit, displayed her jewelry and asked to see Cornelia's, the latter merely pointed to her sons. "These are my jewels," she said.
As for Tully, that is a name by which the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (see page I-268) is sometimes known in English. One of his famous works was De Oratore (Concerning the Orator), and it is to this that Titus refers.
… Ovid's Metamorphoses
But Lavinia stirs the books that young Lucius has let fall, concentrating on one, which the boy identifies for his grandfather:
Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses:
My mother gave it me.
—Act IV, scene i, lines 42-43
One of the myths contained in Metamorphoses (see page I-8), which deals with tales of transformations of human beings into other forms, is that of Philomela and Procne, for in the end, Philomela is turned into a nightingale and Procne into a swallow. Lavinia wants to find that tale in order to have Titus and Marcus understand that her mutilation was the result of a rape.
Clearly, this shows haste on Shakespeare's part. After all, Marcus has guessed as much when he first encountered Lavinia after the mutilation. He then said:
But, sure, some Tereus hath deflowered thee,
And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.
—Act II, scene iv, lines 26-27
It now occurs to Marcus that a person can write with a stick in the sand by holding that stick in his mouth and guiding it with his wrists. Hands are not required at all. Lavinia uses this method to reveal that Chiron and Demetrius are the guilty ones. Now Titus is certain against whom he must plan revenge.
… not Enceladus
Apparently considerable time has elapsed since the beginning of the play, for Tamora is about to have a baby and it is to be presumed that the Emperor Saturninus is the father. However, events have miscarried. It is Aaron, not Saturninus who is the father, and this is shown all too plainly in that the baby is a black infant.
Naturally, this fact must be hidden, or Tamora's infidelity will be plain even to Saturninus and she will be destroyed. The Nurse who attended Tamora brings the baby to Aaron, with instructions from Tamora to kill it and destroy the evidence.
But Aaron, in this one respect, departs from the line of flat villainy. He becomes a proud father and in words that strangely fore-echo the pride of the black activists of the 1960s, cries out to the Nurse, who is expressing disgust at the child:
Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?
Sweet blowze, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.
—Act IV, scene ii, lines 71-72
When Chiron and Demetrius, who are also present, offer to kill their baby half brother to secure their mother's safety, Aaron draws his sword fiercely, saying:
I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,
Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
—Act IV, scene ii, lines 93-96
Enceladus was one of a brood of tremendous giants (with serpents for legs) which were brought forth by Mother Earth, who was annoyed to see Jupiter (Zeus) and his fellow gods destroy the Titans, for the Titans had been her children.
The giants, under Enceladus' leadership, fought the gods in a battle which, in the versions that reach us, seem to be described as a burlesque of Homer-almost a comic retelling of a myth, with grotesque exaggerations. For instance, Enceladus is killed by Athena, who throws a huge mountain at him; a mountain that flattens him and becomes the island of Sicily.
Aaron's remark makes it seem that Enceladus and the other giants are the offspring of Typhon, but this is not so. Typhon was born after the defeat of the giants and was the greatest and most fearful monster of all. Typhon engaged Jupiter in a great duel and was almost victor, for he cut out and hid the sinews of Jupiter's hands and feet and paralyzed the great god. It wasn't till Mercury (Hermes), the god of thieves, stole back the sinews and restored Jupiter's powers of movement that Typhon was finally killed by the lightning bolts of the king of the gods.
After the mention of Enceladus and Typhon, to go on to Alcides (Hercules) and the god of war (Mars) seems distinct anticlimax.
The Gothic princes wilt before Aaron's fury and ask him what he means to do. His first act is to kill the Nurse, thus reducing, by one, the number of those who know the secret. He then prepares to change the baby for a white one who will be made heir to the throne while Aaron will secretly raise his own black baby to become a warrior.
… one of Taurus' horns
In preparing his revenge, Titus feigns madness, meanwhile, in order to throw Saturninus and Tamora off the scent and lull them into a false security. Titus' madness (and surely he has suffered enough to make the onset of madness plausible) consists of a wild search for justice through Heaven and Hell. He cries out:
I'll dive into the burning lake below,
And pull her [justice] out of Acheron by the heels.
—Act IV, scene iii, lines 44-45
The Acheron is another of the rivers of Hades. (Two others, Styx and Cocytus, have already been mentioned in this play.)
Titus goes on to bemoan the physical shortcomings of the Andronici, in the face of so huge an undertaking as the search for justice. He says to his brother:
Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,
No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops' size.
—Act I
V, scene iii, lines 46-47
The Cyclopes were one-eyed giants who forged the lightning for Jupiter. They were also a race of giants who lived on Sicily in the time of the Trojan War. At least Ulysses, on his return from Troy, falls in with one of them in particular, Polyphemus, and defeats him-one of the best-known events in the Odyssey.
The main thrust of the search for justice, however, consists in shooting arrows into the sky with letters attached; letters that plead with the gods for justice. Titus has all the Andronici helping him in this respect. He advances his own apparent madness by pretending to see the effects of the action in the constellations, which he describes as though having literal existence.
He exclaims to young Lucius:
Good boy, in Virgo's lap; give it Pallas.
—Act IV, scene iii, line 65
To Publius, the son of Marcus, he says:
Publius, Publius, what hast thou done!
See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.
—Act IV, scene iii, lines 69-70
Virgo (the Maiden) and Taurus (the Bull) are both included among the signs of the zodiac. Very likely most of Shakespeare's audience did suspect that the imaginary creatures pieced out in the sky by the imaginary lines connecting stars existed there in literal truth. The humor lay in the thought that man-hurled arrows could reach them. (Pallas, by the way, is an alternate name for the Greek goddess Athena.)
Marcus keeps the play at madness going. He says to Titus:
… When Publius shot,
The bull being galled, gave Aries such a knock
That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court,
And who should find them but the Empress' villain? [Aaron]
She [Tamora] laughed, and told the Moor he should not
choose But give them to his master for a present.
—Act IV, scene iii, lines 71-76
Aries (the Ram) is also a constellation of the zodiac. It neighbors Taurus so that one can well imagine the Bull charging the Ram. It enables Marcus to get off a kind of joke beloved by the Elizabethans, concerning the cuckolding of the Emperor.
… as ever Coriolanus did
If it is Titus' plan to lull the Emperor and Empress into total security, it falls short. Saturninus is furious at the letters of appeal to the heavens, since they end in Rome's streets where they are found by the people, who grow to sympathize with the ill-treated Titus.
The Emperor is further irritated by a Clown (a lowborn person, that is) who delivers a message to him from Titus. The Emperor forthwith orders the Clown hanged.
He prepares to go further and have Titus arrested, when a messenger arrives to say that a Gothic army is at the gates of Rome:
They hither march amain, under conduct
Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
Who threats, in course of this revenge, to do
As much as ever Coriolanus did.
—Act IV, scene iv, lines 66-69
Coriolanus was a legendary figure in early Roman history who, out of revenge for what he considered mistreatment, raised an enemy army, placed himself at its head, and laid siege to Rome. Fifteen years after Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus he wrote Coriolanus about the earlier event (see page I-245).
Tamora, however, promises to make Lucius into a Coriolanus indeed. Coriolanus withdrew without taking Rome because his mother begged him to (see page I-250). Now Tamora intends to try to persuade Titus to beg his son to withdraw. (She is not aware that Titus has discovered the full extent of the villainy of her sons.)
… worse than Procne …
The scene shifts to the outskirts of Rome, where Lucius is leading the Gothic army to the city's walls. A Goth has captured Aaron, who has been trying to find a place of safety for his baby. Lucius, when Aaron is brought to him, threatens to hang father and child, and, to save the baby, Aaron confesses all.
Meanwhile, Tamora has worked out her plan to persuade Titus to call off his son. She proposes to take advantage of his madness by disguising herself as Revenge and her two sons as Rape and Murder (that is, as spirits specifically designed to avenge those two crimes).
In her guise as Revenge, Tamora promises to make mad Titus quits with all his enemies and asks him, in turn, to send for his son, Lucius, to attend a feast which Titus will give. It will then be Revenge's part (supposedly) to bring in the Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress' sons for Titus to wreak vengeance upon. (Actually, it is Tamora's plan, once she has Lucius with Titus, to have both killed, and then somehow to arrange to have the leaderless Goths dispersed.)
Titus pretends to fall in with this plan and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to the feast.
But then, when Revenge turns to leave, Titus insists on keeping Rape and Murder. Otherwise, he says, he will call back Marcus and leave things as they were. Tamora orders her sons to humor him and leaves by herself.
Once Tamora is gone, Titus instantly calls his friends and orders Rape and Murder tied up. They announce themselves to be the Empress' sons, hoping this will awe their assailants, but Titus merely orders them gagged. He then tells them what he intends to do by way of revenge, saying:
For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
And worse than Procne I will be revenged.
—Act V, scene ii, lines 195-96
When Procne discovered what her husband, Tereus, had done to Philomela, she took a horrible revenge. She killed Itys, the young son of Tereus and herself, boiled his flesh, and fed it to Tereus.
This Titus intended to surpass. They had cut off not only the tongue but the hands of Lavinia. In return, Titus intended to have their mother feed on not one, but two sons.
With that, he cuts the throats of Chiron and Demetrius, catching the blood in a basin held by Lavinia.
… rash Virginius
The feast begins now. All are present (even Aaron and his baby). Titus, dressed as a cook, poses the Emperor a question:
Was it well done of rash Virginius
To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
Because she was enforced, stained, and deflow'red?
—Act V, scene iii, lines 36-38
Virginius was a plebeian soldier who, according to legend, lived about 450 b.c. (a generation after Coriolanus). His beautiful daughter, Virginia, attracted the attention of Appius Claudius, a patrician who was then the most powerful man in Rome. Appius Claudius planned to seize the girl by having false witnesses testify that the girl was actually the daughter of one of his slaves and was therefore also his slave.
The distracted Virginius, seeing no way of stopping Appius Claudius, suddenly stabbed his daughter to death in the midst of the trial, proclaiming that only through death could he save her honor.
Titus Andronicus states the situation erroneously, by the way. Virginius' daughter was not "enforced, stained, and deflow'red." She was merely threatened with that.
Saturninus says that Virginius was justified in his action, whereupon Titus promptly stabs Lavinia to death. When Saturninus angrily demands the reason for that action, Titus says she has been raped by Chiron and Demetrius, and that they in turn have been killed and baked into a pie which the Empress is at that moment eating.
Titus then stabs and kills Tamora; at which the Emperor Saturninus stabs and kills Titus; at which Lucius stabs and kills Saturninus.
… what Sinon…
A Roman Lord now asks Lucius what has brought Rome to this civil war and assassination:
Tell us what Sinon hath bewitched our ears,
Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound
—Act V, scene iii, lines 85-87
Sinon is the Greek who persuaded the Trojans to allow entry to the wooden horse ("the fatal engine") and made the final sack of the city possible (see page I-210).
I do repent…
Lucius and Marcus, between them, now tell all the wrongs done the Andronici by the Emperor, the Empress, her sons, and Aaron. They even sh
ow Aaron's baby as proof of another kind of wickedness.
The appalled Romans hail Lucius as the new Emperor and call in Aaron for punishment. Lucius orders that he be buried breast-deep in the earth and allowed to starve to death.
Even now, Aaron refuses to crawl, and one can't help but feel a kind of sneaking admiration for his defiance. He says, ferociously, after having heard his doom:
/ 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.
—Act V, scene iii, lines 185-90
It is a fitly grisly speech to end a grisly play that opens with:
(1) the dead body of one of Titus' sons, then continues with
(2) the sacrifice of Tamora's son, Alarbus, by Lucius,
(3) the stabbing of Mutius by his father, Titus,
(4) the stabbing of Bassianus by Chiron and Demetrius,
(5) the rape and mutilation of Lavinia by Chiron and Demetrius,
