The Tragedy Of Titus Andronicus

1 Enter Tamora and her two sons, disguised.
2 TAMORA.
3 Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
4 I will encounter with Andronicus,
5 And say I am Revenge, sent from below
6 To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
7 Knock at his study, where they say he keeps
8 To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
9 Tell him Revenge is come to join with him
10 And work confusion on his enemies.
11 [_They knock._]
12 Titus above opens his study door.
13 TITUS.
14 Who doth molest my contemplation?
15 Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
16 That so my sad decrees may fly away
17 And all my study be to no effect?
18 You are deceived; for what I mean to do
19 See here in bloody lines I have set down;
20 And what is written shall be executed.
21 TAMORA.
22 Titus, I am come to talk with thee.
23 TITUS.
24 No, not a word; how can I grace my talk,
25 Wanting a hand to give it action?
26 Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.
27 TAMORA.
28 If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.
29 TITUS.
30 I am not mad; I know thee well enough.
31 Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;
32 Witness these trenches made by grief and care;
33 Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
34 Witness all sorrow that I know thee well
35 For our proud empress, mighty Tamora.
36 Is not thy coming for my other hand?
37 TAMORA.
38 Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora;
39 She is thy enemy, and I thy friend.
40 I am Revenge, sent from th’ infernal kingdom
41 To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
42 By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
43 Come down and welcome me to this world’s light;
44 Confer with me of murder and of death.
45 There’s not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
46 No vast obscurity or misty vale,
47 Where bloody murder or detested rape
48 Can couch for fear but I will find them out,
49 And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
50 Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
51 TITUS.
52 Art thou Revenge? And art thou sent to me
53 To be a torment to mine enemies?
54 TAMORA.
55 I am; therefore come down and welcome me.
56 TITUS.
57 Do me some service ere I come to thee.
58 Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
59 Now give some surance that thou art Revenge:
60 Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels,
61 And then I’ll come and be thy waggoner,
62 And whirl along with thee about the globe.
63 Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
64 To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
65 And find out murderers in their guilty caves.
66 And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
67 I will dismount, and by the waggon-wheel
68 Trot like a servile footman all day long,
69 Even from Hyperion’s rising in the east
70 Until his very downfall in the sea.
71 And day by day I’ll do this heavy task,
72 So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.
73 TAMORA.
74 These are my ministers, and come with me.
75 TITUS.
76 Are they thy ministers? What are they called?
77 TAMORA.
78 Rapine and Murder; therefore called so
79 ’Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.
80 TITUS.
81 Good Lord, how like the empress’ sons they are,
82 And you the empress! But we worldly men
83 Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
84 O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
85 And, if one arm’s embracement will content thee,
86 I will embrace thee in it by and by.
87 [_He exits above._]
88 TAMORA.
89 This closing with him fits his lunacy.
90 Whate’er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,
91 Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
92 For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;
93 And, being credulous in this mad thought,
94 I’ll make him send for Lucius his son;
95 And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
96 I’ll find some cunning practice out of hand
97 To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,
98 Or, at the least, make them his enemies.
99 See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.
100 Enter Titus.
101 TITUS.
102 Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.
103 Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.
104 Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
105 How like the empress and her sons you are!
106 Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.
107 Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
108 For well I wot the empress never wags
109 But in her company there is a Moor;
110 And, would you represent our queen aright,
111 It were convenient you had such a devil.
112 But welcome as you are. What shall we do?
113 TAMORA.
114 What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?
115 DEMETRIUS.
116 Show me a murderer, I’ll deal with him.
117 CHIRON.
118 Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
119 And I am sent to be revenged on him.
120 TAMORA.
121 Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,
122 And I will be revenged on them all.
123 TITUS.
124 Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,
125 And when thou find’st a man that’s like thyself,
126 Good Murder, stab him; he’s a murderer.
127 Go thou with him; and when it is thy hap
128 To find another that is like to thee,
129 Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.
130 Go thou with them; and in the emperor’s court
131 There is a queen, attended by a Moor;
132 Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,
133 For up and down she doth resemble thee.
134 I pray thee, do on them some violent death;
135 They have been violent to me and mine.
136 TAMORA.
137 Well hast thou lessoned us; this shall we do.
138 But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
139 To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
140 Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
141 And bid him come and banquet at thy house?
142 When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
143 I will bring in the empress and her sons,
144 The emperor himself, and all thy foes,
145 And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,
146 And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
147 What says Andronicus to this device?
148 TITUS.
149 Marcus, my brother, ’tis sad Titus calls.
150 Enter Marcus.
151 Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
152 Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.
153 Bid him repair to me and bring with him
154 Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;
155 Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.
156 Tell him the emperor and the empress too
157 Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.
158 This do thou for my love; and so let him,
159 As he regards his aged father’s life.
160 MARCUS.
161 This will I do, and soon return again.
162 [_Exit._]
163 TAMORA.
164 Now will I hence about thy business,
165 And take my ministers along with me.
166 TITUS.
167 Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,
168 Or else I’ll call my brother back again
169 And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
170 TAMORA.
171 [_Aside to them_.] What say you, boys? Will you abide with him,
172 Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor
173 How I have governed our determined jest?
174 Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,
175 And tarry with him till I come again.
176 TITUS.
177 [_Aside_.] I knew them all, though they suppose me mad,
178 And will o’erreach them in their own devices,
179 A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.
180 DEMETRIUS.
181 Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.
182 TAMORA.
183 Farewell, Andronicus. Revenge now goes
184 To lay a complot to betray thy foes.
185 TITUS.
186 I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.
187 [_Exit Tamora._]
188 CHIRON.
189 Tell us, old man, how shall we be employed?
190 TITUS.
191 Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
192 Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.
193 Enter Publius and others.
194 PUBLIUS.
195 What is your will?
196 TITUS.
197 Know you these two?
198 PUBLIUS.
199 The empress’ sons, I take them, Chiron, Demetrius.
200 TITUS.
201 Fie, Publius, fie, thou art too much deceived.
202 The one is Murder, and Rape is the other’s name;
203 And therefore bind them, gentle Publius.
204 Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
205 Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,
206 And now I find it. Therefore bind them sure,
207 And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.
208 [_Exit Titus._]
209 CHIRON.
210 Villains, forbear! We are the empress’ sons.
211 PUBLIUS.
212 And therefore do we what we are commanded.
213 Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.
214 Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.
215 Enter Titus Andronicus with a knife, and Lavinia with a basin.
216 TITUS.
217 Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
218 Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me,
219 But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
220 O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
221 Here stands the spring whom you have stained with mud,
222 This goodly summer with your winter mixed.
223 You killed her husband, and for that vile fault
224 Two of her brothers were condemned to death,
225 My hand cut off and made a merry jest,
226 Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
227 Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
228 Inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.
229 What would you say if I should let you speak?
230 Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.
231 Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr you.
232 This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
233 Whiles that Lavinia ’tween her stumps doth hold
234 The basin that receives your guilty blood.
235 You know your mother means to feast with me,
236 And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
237 Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,
238 And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
239 And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
240 And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
241 And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
242 Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
243 This is the feast that I have bid her to,
244 And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
245 For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
246 And worse than Procne I will be revenged.
247 And now prepare your throats.—Lavinia, come
248 Receive the blood.
249 [_He cuts their throats._]
250 And when that they are dead,
251 Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
252 And with this hateful liquor temper it,
253 And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.
254 Come, come, be everyone officious
255 To make this banquet, which I wish may prove
256 More stern and bloody than the Centaurs’ feast.
257 So, now bring them in, for I’ll play the cook,
258 And see them ready against their mother comes.
259 [_Exeunt, carrying the dead bodies._]