The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
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AARON I go, Andronicus, and for thy hand
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
[aside] Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it.
Let fools do good and fair men call for grace,
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Aaron will have his soul black like his face. Exit.
TITUS O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven
And bow this feeble ruin to the earth. [Kneels.]
If any power pities wretched tears,
To that I call. [Lavinia kneels.]
What, wouldst thou kneel with me?
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Do then, dear heart, for heaven shall hear our
prayers,
Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim
And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.
MARCUS O brother, speak with possibility,
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And do not break into these deep extremes.
TITUS Is not my sorrows deep, having no bottom?
Then be my passions bottomless with them.
MARCUS But yet let reason govern thy lament.
TITUS If there were reason for these miseries,
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Then into limits could I bind my woes.
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threatening the welkin with his big-swollen face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
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I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow.
She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.
Then must my sea be moved with her sighs,
Then must my earth with her continual tears
Become a deluge overflowed and drowned,
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For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,
But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
Then give me leave, for losers will have leave
To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.
Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand.
[Titus and Lavinia may rise here.]
MESSENGER Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
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For that good hand thou sent’st the emperor.
Here are the heads of thy two noble sons,
And here’s thy hand in scorn to thee sent back:
Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mocked,
That woe is me to think upon thy woes
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More than remembrance of my father’s death.
Sets down heads and hand, exit.
MARCUS Now let hot Etna cool in Sicily,
And be my heart an ever-burning hell!
These miseries are more than may be borne.
To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,
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But sorrow flouted at is double death.
LUCIUS
Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound
And yet detested life not shrink thereat!
That ever death should let life bear his name,
Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!
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[Lavinia kisses the heads.]
MARCUS Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless
As frozen water to a starved snake.
TITUS When will this fearful slumber have an end?
MARCUS Now farewell flattery, die Andronicus.
Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads,
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Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here,
Thy other banished son with this dear sight
Struck pale and bloodless, and thy brother, I,
Even like a stony image, cold and numb.
Ah, now no more will I control thy griefs:
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Rend off thy silver hair, thy other hand
Gnawing with thy teeth, and be this dismal sight
The closing up of our most wretched eyes.
Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still?
TITUS Ha, ha, ha!
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MARCUS Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.
TITUS Why? I have not another tear to shed.
Besides, this sorrow is an enemy
And would usurp upon my watery eyes
And make them blind with tributary tears.
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Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?
For these two heads do seem to speak to me
And threat me I shall never come to bliss
Till all these mischiefs be returned again
Even in their throats that hath committed them.
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Come, let me see what task I have to do.
You heavy people, circle me about,
That I may turn me to each one of you
And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.
[They make a vow.]
The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,
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And in this hand the other will I bear.
And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employed:
Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.
As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight:
Thou art an exile and thou must not stay;
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Hie to the Goths and raise an army there,
And if ye love me, as I think you do,
Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.
They kiss. Exeunt. Lucius remains.
LUCIUS Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,
The woefull’st man that ever lived in Rome.
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Farewell, proud Rome, till Lucius come again;
He loves his pledges dearer than his life.
Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister,
O would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!
But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives
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But in oblivion and hateful griefs.
If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs
And make proud Saturnine and his empress
Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.
Now will I to the Goths and raise a power,
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To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine. Exit Lucius.
F3.2 A banquet. Enter TITUS ANDRONICUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA and the Boy, Young Lucius.
TITUS So, so, now sit, and look you eat no more
Than will preserve just so much strength in us
As will revenge these bitter woes of ours. [They sit.]
MARCUS, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot.
Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands
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And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,
Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
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Then thus I thump it down.
[to Lavinia]
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs,
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans,
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Or get some little knife between thy teeth
And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
May run into that sink and, soaking in,
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
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MARCUS Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay
Such violent hands upon her tender life.
TITUS How now, has sorrow made thee dote already?
Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
Wha
t violent hands can she lay on her life?
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Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands
To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er
How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
O handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
Lest we remember still that we have none.
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Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,
As if we should forget we had no hands
If Marcus did not name the word of hands.
Come, let’s fall to, and, gentle girl, eat this.
Here is no drink! Hark, Marcus, what she says:
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I can interpret all her martyred signs –
She says she drinks no other drink but tears,
Brewed with her sorrow, mashed upon her cheeks.
Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought.
In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
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As begging hermits in their holy prayers.
Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
But I of these will wrest an alphabet
And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.
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BOY Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;
Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
MARCUS Alas, the tender boy in passion moved
Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.
TITUS Peace, tender sapling, thou art made of tears,
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And tears will quickly melt thy life away.
[Marcus strikes the dish with a knife.]
What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
MARCUS At that that I have killed, my lord – a fly.
TITUS Out on thee, murderer. Thou kill’st my heart.
Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny;
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A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus’ brother. Get thee gone;
I see thou art not for my company.
MARCUS Alas, my lord, I have but killed a fly.
TITUS ‘But’?
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How if that fly had a father and a mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings
And buzz lamenting doings in the air.
Poor harmless fly,
That with his pretty buzzing melody
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Came here to make us merry, and thou hast killed him.
MARCUS Pardon me, sir, it was a black ill-favoured fly,
Like to the empress’ Moor. Therefore I killed him.
TITUS Oh, Oh, Oh!
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
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For thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife; I will insult on him,
Flattering myself as if it were the Moor
Come hither purposely to poison me.
[Takes knife and strikes.]
There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora.
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Ah, sirrah!
Yet I think we are not brought so low
But that between us we can kill a fly
That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
MARCUS Alas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on him
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He takes false shadows for true substances.
TITUS Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;
I’ll to thy closet and go read with thee
Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,
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And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.
Exeunt.F
4.1 Enter Lucius’ son YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him, and the BOY flies from her with his books under his arm. He drops the books. Enter TITUS and MARCUS.
BOY Help, grandsire, help! My aunt Lavinia
Follows me everywhere, I know not why.
Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes.
Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
MARCUS Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
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TITUS She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
BOY Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.
MARCUS What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?
TITUS
Fear her not, Lucius – somewhat doth she mean.
MARCUS See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee;
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Somewhither would she have thee go with her.
Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
Read to her sons than she hath read to thee
Sweet poetry and Tully’s Orator.
Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?
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BOY My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,
Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her.
For I have heard my grandsire say full oft