Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.
This do thou for my love, and so let him,
As he regards his aged father’s life.
130
MARCUS This will I do, and soon return again. Exit.
TAMORA Now will I hence about thy business,
And take my ministers along with me.
TITUS Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me –
Or else I’ll call my brother back again
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And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
TAMORA [aside to her sons]
What say you, boys, will you abide with him
Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor
How I have governed our determined jest?
Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,
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And tarry with him till I turn again.
TITUS [aside]
I knew them all, though they supposed me mad,
And will o’erreach them in their own devices –
A pair of cursed hellhounds and their dam.
DEMETRIUS Madam, depart at pleasure, leave us here.
145
TAMORA Farewell, Andronicus: Revenge now goes
To lay a complot to betray thy foes.
TITUS I know thou dost – and sweet Revenge, farewell.
Exit Tamora.
CHIRON Tell us, old man, how shall we be employed?
TITUS Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
150
Publius, come hither; Caius and Valentine.
Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS and VALENTINE.
PUBLIUS What is your will?
TITUS Know you these two?
PUBLIUS
The empress’ sons I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.
TITUS Fie, Publius, fie, thou art too much deceived.
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The one is Murder and Rape is the other’s name,
And therefore bind them, gentle Publius;
Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,
And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,
160
And stop their mouths if they begin to cry. Exit.
CHIRON Villains, forbear! We are the empress’ sons.
PUBLIUS
And therefore do we what we are commanded.
[They bind and gag them.]
Stop close their mouths; let them not speak a word.
Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.
165
Enter TITUS ANDRONICUS with a knife, and LAVINIA with a basin.
TITUS Come, come, Lavinia: look, thy foes are bound.
Sirs, stop their mouths; let them not speak to me,
But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
O villains, Chiron and Demetrius,
Here stands the spring whom you have stained with mud,
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This goodly summer with your winter mixed.
You killed her husband, and for that vile fault
Two of her brothers were condemned to death,
My hand cut off and made a merry jest,
Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
175
Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
Inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.
What would you say if I should let you speak?
Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.
Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr you:
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This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
Whiles that Lavinia ’tween her stumps doth hold
The basin that receives your guilty blood.
You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge and thinks me mad.
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Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
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Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on:
For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
And worse than Progne I will be revenged.
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And now, prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,
Receive the blood, and when that they are dead
Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it,
And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.
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Come, come, be everyone officious
To make this banquet, which I wish may prove
More stern and bloody than the Centaurs’ feast.
[He cuts their throats.]
So, now bring them in, for I’ll play the cook,
And see them ready against their mother comes.
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Exeunt with the bodies.
5.3 Enter LUCIUS, MARCUS and the Goths, with AARON prisoner and one carrying his child.
LUCIUS Uncle Marcus, since ’tis my father’s mind
That I repair to Rome, I am content.
1GOTH And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.
LUCIUS Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,
This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;
5
Let him receive no sustenance, 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.
10
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.
15
Exit Aaron under guard. Sound trumpets.
The trumpets show the emperor is at hand.
Enter Emperor and Empress, with tribunes and others including EMILLIUS.
SATURNINUS
What, hath the firmament more suns than one?
LUCIUS What boots it thee to call thyself a sun?
MARCUS
Rome’s emperor, and nephew, break the parle;
These quarrels must be quietly debated.
20
The feast is ready which the careful Titus
Hath 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.
25
Trumpets sounding, a table brought in. They sit. Enter TITUS like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA with a veil over her face and YOUNG LUCIUS.
TITUS
Welcome, my gracious lord; welcome, dread queen;
Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;
And welcome, all. Although the cheer be poor,
’Twill fill your stomachs. Please you, eat of it.
SATURNINUS Why art thou thus attired, Andronicus?
30
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 And if your highness knew my heart you were.
My lord the emperor, resolve me this:
35
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,
40
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.
[Unveils Lavinia.]
Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee,
45
And with thy shame thy father’s sorrow die.
[He kills her.]
SATURNINUS
What hast thou 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
50
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 hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?
TITUS Not I, ’twas Chiron and Demetrius:
55
They ravished her and cut away her tongue,
And they, ’twas they, that did her all this wrong.
SATURNINUS
Go, fetch them hither to us presently.
TITUS Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
60
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
’Tis true, ’tis true, witness my knife’s sharp point.
[He stabs the Empress.]
SATURNINUS Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed.
[He kills Titus.]
LUCIUS Can the son’s eye behold his father bleed?
There’s meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.
65
[He kills Saturninus. Uproar. The Goths protect the Andronici, who go aloft.]
MARCUS [aloft]
You sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,
By uproars 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,
70
These broken limbs again into one body.
A ROMAN LORD Let Rome herself be bane unto herself,
And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,
Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
Do shameful execution on herself!
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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
80
To lovesick Dido’s sad-attending ear
The story of that baleful burning night
When subtle Greeks surprised King Priam’s Troy.
Tell us what Sinon hath bewitched our ears,
Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
85
That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.
MARCUS [aloft]
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
90
When it should move ye 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 [aloft]
Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you
95
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
100
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,
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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,
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Sheathing the steel in my adventurous body.
Alas, you know I am no vaunter, I;
My scars can witness, dumb although they are,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 504
