Titus Page #11

Why art thou thus attired,

Andronicus? Hmm?

Because I would be sure

to have all well...

to entertain your highness

and your empress.

We are beholden to you,

good Andronicus.

And if your highness

knew my heart, you were.

Will it please you eat?

Will it please

your highness feed?

My lord the emperor.

Hmm? Resolve me this.

Was it well done

of rash Virginius...

to slay his daughter

with his own right hand...

because she was enforced,

stained, and deflowered?

It was, Andronicus.

Your reason, mighty lord?

Because the girl

should not survive her shame...

and by her presence

still renew his sorrows.

Ah.

A reason mighty,

strong, and effectual.

A pattern, precedent,

and lively warrant...

for me, most wretched,

to perform the like.

Die, die, Lavinia,

and thy shame with thee.

What hast thou done-

Unnatural and unkind?

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...

to do this outrage,

and it now is done.

What, was she ravished?

Tell who did the deed.

Why hast thou slain

thine only daughter thus?

Not I.

'Twas Chiron and Demetrius.

They ravished her

and cut away her tongue.

And they, 'twas they...

that did her all this wrong.

Go fetch them to us

hither presently!

Why, there they are,

both baked in that pie...

whereof their mother

daintily hath fed-

Eating the flesh

that she herself hath bred!

'Tis true. 'Tis true!

Witness my knife's sharp point.

You sad-faced men,

people and sons of Rome

by uproar severed...

like a flight of fowl

scattered by winds...

and high tempestuous gusts,

oh, let me teach you

how to knit again...

this scattered corn

into one mutual sheaf,

these broken limbs

again into one body.

Come. Come,

you reverend men of Rome,

and take our emperor

gently by the hand-

Lucius our emperor,

for well I know the common voice

do cry it shall be so.

Now is my turn to speak.

Behold this child.

Of this was Tamora delivered-

the issue

of an irreligious Moor,

chief architect

and plotter of our woes.

O thou sad Andronicus,

give sentence

on this execrable wretch.

Set him breast-deep in earth

and famish him.

There let him stand

and rave and cry for food.

If anyone relieves or pities him,

for the offense he dies.

This is our doom.

Oh, why should wrath be mute

and fury dumb?

I am no baby, I,

that with base prayers...

I should repent the evils

I have done.

If one good deed

in all my life I did...

I do repent it

from my very soul.

Go, some of you.

Bear Saturninus hence, and give

him burial in his father's grave.

My father and Lavinia...

shall forthwith be closed

in our household monument.

As for that ravenous

tiger Tamora,

no funeral rite,

no man in mourning weeds,

nor mournful bell

shall ring her burial,

but throw her forth

to beasts and birds of prey.

Her life was beast-like...

and devoid of pity.

And, being dead,

let birds on her take pity.

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