The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 493
Dismiss your followers and, as suitors should,
Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.
SATURNINUS
How fair the tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.
BASSIANUS Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy
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In thy uprightness and integrity,
And so I love and honour thee and thine,
Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,
And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,
Gracious Lavinia, Rome’s rich ornament,
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That I will here dismiss my loving friends
And to my fortune’s and the people’s favour
Commit my cause in balance to be weighed.
Exeunt his soldiers.
SATURNINUS
Friends that have been thus forward in my right,
I thank you all and here dismiss you all,
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And to the love and favour of my country
Commit myself, my person and the cause.
Exeunt his soldiers.
Rome, be as just and gracious unto me
As I am confident and kind to thee.
Open the gates and let me in.
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BASSIANUS Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.
Flourish. They go up into the Senate House.
Enter a Captain.
CAPTAIN Romans, make way: the good Andronicus,
Patron of virtue, Rome’s best champion,
Successful in the battles that he fights,
With honour and with fortune is returned
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From where he circumscribed with his sword
And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.
Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter two of Titus’ sons, and then two men bearing a coffin covered with black, then two other sons, then TITUS ANDRONICUS, and then, as prisoners, TAMORA, the Queen of Goths, and her three sons, ALARBUS, CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, with AARON the Moor, and others as many as can be. Then set down the coffin and Titus speaks.
TITUS Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!
Lo, as the bark that hath discharged his freight
Returns with precious lading to the bay
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From whence at first she weighed her anchorage,
Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To resalute his country with his tears,
Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.
Thou great defender of this Capitol,
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Stand gracious to the rites that we intend.
Romans, of five-and-twenty valiant sons,
Half of the number that King Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive and dead:
These that survive, let Rome reward with love;
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These that I bring unto their latest home,
With burial amongst their ancestors.
Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.
Titus, unkind and careless of thine own,
Why suffer’st thou thy sons unburied yet
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To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
Make way to lay them by their brethren.
[They open the tomb.]
There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country’s wars.
O sacred receptacle of my joys,
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Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
How many sons hast thou of mine in store
That thou wilt never render to me more!
LUCIUS Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs and on a pile
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Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh
Before this earthly prison of their bones,
That so the shadows be not unappeased,
Nor we disturbed with prodigies on earth.
TITUS I give him you, the noblest that survives,
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The eldest son of this distressed queen.
TAMORA [kneeling]
Stay, Roman brethren, gracious conqueror,
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother’s tears in passion for her son!
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
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O, think my son to be as dear to me.
Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome
To beautify thy triumphs, and return
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke?
But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets
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For valiant doings in their country’s cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
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Draw near them then in being merciful.
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge:
Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.
TITUS Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren whom your Goths beheld
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Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain,
Religiously they ask a sacrifice.
To this your son is marked, and die he must,
T’appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
LUCIUS Away with him, and make a fire straight,
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And with our swords upon a pile of wood
Let’s hew his limbs till they be clean consumed.
Exeunt Titus’ sons with Alarbus.
TAMORA [rising] O cruel, irreligious piety!
CHIRON Was never Scythia half so barbarous!
DEMETRIUS Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
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Alarbus goes to rest and we survive
To tremble under Titus’ threatening look.
Then, madam, stand resolved, but hope withal
The self-same gods that armed the queen of Troy
With opportunity of sharp revenge
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Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent
May favour Tamora, the queen of Goths
(When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen),
To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.
Enter the Sons of Andronicus again.
LUCIUS See, lord and father, how we have performed
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Our Roman rites: Alarbus’ limbs are lopped
And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,
Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.
Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren
And with loud ’larums welcome them to Rome.
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TITUS Let it be so, and let Andronicus
Make this his latest farewell to their souls.
[Sound trumpets, and lay the coffin in the tomb.]
In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;
Rome’s readiest champions, repose you here in rest,
Secure from worldly chances and mishaps.
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Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:
In peace and honour rest you here, my sons.
Enter LAVINIA.
LAVINIA In peace and honour, live Lord Titus long:
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My noble lord and father, live in fame!
Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears
I render for my brethren’s obsequies,
[kneeling] And at thy feet I kneel with tears of joy
Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.
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O bless me here with thy victorious hand,
Whose fortunes Rome’s best citizens applaud.
TITUS Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserved
The cordial of mine age to glad my heart.
Lavinia live, outlive thy father’s days
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And fame’s eternal date, for virtue’s praise.
[Lavinia rises.]
Enter MARCUS below.
MARCUS Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,
Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!
TITUS Thanks, gentle tribune, noble brother Marcus.
MARCUS
And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,
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You that survive and you that sleep in fame.
Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all
That in your country’s service drew your swords;
But safer triumph is this funeral pomp
That hath aspired to Solon’s happiness
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And triumphs over chance in honour’s bed.
Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,
Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,
Send thee by me, their tribune and their trust,
This palliament of white and spotless hue,
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And name thee in election for the empire
With these our late-deceased emperor’s sons.
Be candidatus then and put it on,
And help to set a head on headless Rome.
[Offers robe.]
TITUS A better head her glorious body fits
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Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.
What, should I don this robe and trouble you?
Be chosen with proclamations today,
Tomorrow yield up rule, resign my life
And set abroad new business for you all?
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Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,
And led my country’s strength successfully,
And buried one-and-twenty valiant sons,
Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms
In right and service of their noble country:
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Give me a staff of honour for mine age,
But not a sceptre to control the world.
Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.
MARCUS Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.
SATURNINUS [aloft]
Proud and ambitious tribune, canst thou tell?
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TITUS Patience, prince Saturninus.
SATURNINUS [aloft] Romans, do me right.
Patricians, draw your swords and sheathe them not
Till Saturninus be Rome’s emperor.
Andronicus, would thou were shipped to hell
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Rather than rob me of the people’s hearts.
LUCIUS Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good
That noble-minded Titus means to thee.
TITUS Content thee, prince, I will restore to thee
The people’s hearts, and wean them from
themselves.
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BASSIANUS [aloft] Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,
But honour thee, and will do till I die.
My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,
I will most thankful be, and thanks to men
Of noble minds is honourable meed.
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TITUS People of Rome, and people’s tribunes here,
I ask your voices and your suffrages.
Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?
TRIBUNES [aloft] To gratify the good Andronicus
And gratulate his safe return to Rome,
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The people will accept whom he admits.
TITUS Tribunes, I thank you, and this suit I make,
That you create our emperor’s eldest son,
Lord Saturnine, whose virtues will, I hope,
Reflect on Rome as Titan’s rays on earth,
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And ripen justice in this commonweal –
Then if you will elect by my advice,
Crown him and say, ‘Long live our emperor!’
MARCUS With voices and applause of every sort,
Patricians and plebeians, we create
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Lord Saturninus Rome’s great emperor,
And say, ‘Long live our emperor Saturnine!’
[A long flourish till they come down.]
SATURNINUS Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done
To us in our election this day,
I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,
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And will with deeds requite thy gentleness.
And for an onset, Titus, to advance
Thy name and honourable family,
Lavinia will I make my empress,
Rome’s royal mistress, mistress of my heart,
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And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.
Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?
TITUS It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match