What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes?
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Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;
O, could our mourning ease thy misery! Exeunt.
3.1 Enter the Tribunes as judges and the senators, with Titus’ two sons QUINTUS and MARTIUS bound, passing to the place of execution, and TITUS going before pleading.
TITUS Hear me, grave fathers; noble tribunes, stay!
For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;
For all my blood in Rome’s great quarrel shed,
For all the frosty nights that I have watched,
5
And for these bitter tears which now you see
Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,
Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
Whose souls is not corrupted as ’tis thought.
For two-and-twenty sons I never wept,
10
Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.
[Andronicus lieth down, and the judges pass by him.]
For these two, tribunes, in the dust I write
My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears.
Let my tears staunch the earth’s dry appetite;
My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush.
15
Exeunt all but Titus.
O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain
That shall distil from these two ancient ruins
Than youthful April shall with all his showers.
In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee still;
In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snow
20
And keep eternal springtime on thy face,
So thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.
Enter LUCIUS with his weapon drawn.
O reverend tribunes, O gentle aged men,
Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,
And let me say, that never wept before,
25
My tears are now prevailing orators.
LUCIUS O noble father, you lament in vain:
The tribunes hear you not, no man is by,
And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
TITUS Ah Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.
30
Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you –
LUCIUS My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
TITUS Why, ’tis no matter, man: if they did hear,
They would not mark me, or if they did mark,
They would not pity me; yet plead I must,
35
And bootless unto them.
Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones,
Who, though they cannot answer my distress,
Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes
For that they will not intercept my tale.
40
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears and seem to weep with me,
And were they but attired in grave weeds
Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.
A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than
stones;
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A stone is silent and offendeth not,
And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
But wherefore stand’st thou with thy weapon drawn?
LUCIUS To rescue my two brothers from their death,
For which attempt the judges have pronounced
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My everlasting doom of banishment.
TITUS [rising]
O happy man, they have befriended thee!
Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
55
But me and mine. How happy art thou then
From these devourers to be banished.
But who comes with our brother Marcus here?
Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA.
MARCUS Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,
Or if not so, thy noble heart to break:
60
I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
TITUS Will it consume me? Let me see it then.
MARCUS This was thy daughter.
TITUS Why, Marcus, so she is.
LUCIUS [falling to his knees] Ay me, this object kills me.
65
TITUS Faint-hearted boy, arise and look upon her.
[Lucius rises.]
Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand
Hath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?
What fool hath added water to the sea?
Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?
70
My grief was at the height before thou cam’st,
And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.
Give me a sword, I’ll chop off my hands too,
For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;
And they have nursed this woe in feeding life;
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In bootless prayer have they been held up,
And they have served me to effectless use.
Now all the service I require of them
Is that the one will help to cut the other.
’Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands,
80
For hands to do Rome service is but vain.
LUCIUS Speak, gentle sister: who hath martyred thee?
MARCUS O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,
That blabbed them with such pleasing eloquence,
Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage
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Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung
Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear.
LUCIUS O, say thou for her: who hath done this deed?
MARCUS O, thus I found her, straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer
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That hath received some unrecuring wound.
TITUS It was my dear, and he that wounded her
Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead.
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environed with a wilderness of sea,
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Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
This way to death my wretched sons are gone;
Here stands my other son, a banished man,
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And here my brother, weeping at my woes.
But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn
Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,
It would have madded me; what shall I do
105
Now I behold thy lively body so?
Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,
Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyred thee;
Thy husband he is dead, and for his death
Thy brothers are condemned, and dead by this.
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Look, Marcus, ah, son Lucius, look on her!
When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gathered lily almost withered.
MARCUS
Perchance she weeps because they killed her
husband,
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Perchance because she knows them innocent.
TITUS If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,
Because the law hath ta’en revenge on them.
No, no, they would not do so foul a deed:
Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.
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Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips
Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.
Shall thy
good uncle and thy brother Lucius
And thou and I sit round about some fountain,
Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks,
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How they are stained like meadows yet not dry,
With miry slime left on them by a flood?
And in the fountain shall we gaze so long
Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness
And made a brine pit with our bitter tears?
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Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?
Or shall we bite our tongues and in dumb shows
Pass the remainder of our hateful days?
What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues
Plot some device of further misery
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To make us wondered at in time to come.
LUCIUS Sweet father, cease your tears, for at your grief
See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.
MARCUS
Patience, dear niece; good Titus, dry thine eyes.
[Gives handkerchief.]
TITUS Ah Marcus, Marcus, brother, well I wot
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Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,
For thou, poor man, hast drowned it with thine own.
LUCIUS Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.
TITUS Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs:
Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
145
That to her brother which I said to thee.
His napkin with his true tears all bewet
Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
O, what a sympathy of woe is this;
As far from help as limbo is from bliss.
150
Enter AARON the Moor alone.
AARON Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor
Sends thee this word: that if thou love thy sons,
Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
Or any one of you, chop off your hand
And send it to the king, he for the same
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Will send thee hither both thy sons alive –
And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
TITUS O gracious emperor, O gentle Aaron!
Did ever raven sing so like a lark
That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?
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With all my heart I’ll send the emperor my hand.
Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?
LUCIUS Stay, father, for that noble hand of thine
That hath thrown down so many enemies
Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn.
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My youth can better spare my blood than you,
And therefore mine shall save my brothers’ lives.
MARCUS
Which of your hands hath not defended Rome
And reared aloft the bloody battleaxe,
Writing destruction on the enemy’s casque?
170
O, none of both but are of high desert.
My hand hath been but idle: let it serve
To ransom my two nephews from their death,
Then have I kept it to a worthy end.
AARON Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,
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For fear they die before their pardon come.
MARCUS My hand shall go.
LUCIUS By heaven it shall not go.
TITUS
Sirs, strive no more. Such withered herbs as these
Are meet for plucking up – and therefore mine.
LUCIUS Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,
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Let me redeem my brothers both from death.
MARCUS And for our father’s sake and mother’s care,
Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.
TITUS Agree between you: I will spare my hand.
LUCIUS Then I’ll go fetch an axe.
185
MARCUS But I will use the axe.
Exeunt Lucius and Marcus.
TITUS Come hither, Aaron. I’ll deceive them both:
Lend me thy hand and I will give thee mine.
AARON [aside] If that be called deceit, I will be honest
And never whilst I live deceive men so.
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But I’ll deceive you in another sort,
And that you’ll say ere half an hour pass.
[He cuts off Titus’ hand.]
Enter LUCIUS and MARCUS again.
TITUS
Now stay your strife; what shall be is dispatched.
Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
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From thousand dangers, bid him bury it:
More hath it merited; that let it have.
As for my sons, say I account of them
As jewels purchased at an easy price,
And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 498