LUCIUS My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 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;
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:
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 tribune like to these.
A stone is soft as wax,–tribunes more hard than stones;
A stone is silent, and offendeth not,
And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
Rises
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
My everlasting doom of banishment.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 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
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 and LAVINIA
MARCUS ANDRONICUS Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep;
Or, if not so, thy noble heart to break:
I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Will it consume me? let me see it, then.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS This was thy daughter.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Why, Marcus, so she is.
LUCIUS Ay me, this object kills me!
TITUS ANDRONICUS Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.
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?
My grief was at the height before thou camest,
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;
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;
For hands, to do Rome service, are but vain.
LUCIUS Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr’d thee?
MARCUS ANDRONICUS O, that delightful engine of her thoughts
That blabb’d them with such pleasing eloquence,
Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,
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 ANDRONICUS O, thus I found her, straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer
That hath received some unrecuring wound.
TITUS ANDRONICUS It was my deer; 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,
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,
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
Now I behold thy lively body so?
Thou hast no hands, to wipe away thy tears:
Nor tongue, to tell me who hath martyr’d thee:
Thy husband he is dead: and for his death
Thy brothers are condemn’d, and dead by this.
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 gather’d lily almost wither’d.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS Perchance she weeps because they kill’d her husband;
Perchance because she knows them innocent.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 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.
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
How they are stain’d, as 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?
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 deuce of further misery,
To make us wonder’d at in time to come.
LUCIUS Sweet father, cease your tears; for, at your grief,
See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Ah, Marcus, Marcus! brother, well I wot
Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,
For thou, poor man, hast drown’d it with thine own.
LUCIUS Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs:
Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
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!
Enter AARON
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
Will send thee hither both thy sons alive;
And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
TITUS ANDRONICUS O gracious emperor! O gentle Aaron!
Did ever raven sing so like a lark,
That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?
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:
My youth can better spare my blood than you;
And therefore mine shall save my brothers’ lives.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS Which of your hands hath not defended Rome,
And rear’d aloft the bloody battle-axe,
Writing destruction on the enemy’s castle?
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,
For fear they die before their pardon come.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS My hand shall go.
LUCIUS By heaven, it shall not go!
TITUS ANDRONICUS Sirs, strive no more: such wither’d herbs as these
Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.
LUCIUS Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,
Let me redeem my brothers both from death.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS And, for our father’s sake and mother’s care,
Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Agree between you; I will spare my hand.
LUCIUS Then I’ll go fetch an axe.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS But I will use the axe.
Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS
TITUS ANDRONICUS Come hither, Aaron; I’ll deceive them both:
Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.
AARON [Aside]
If that be call’d deceit, I will be honest,
And never, whilst I live, deceive men so:
But I’ll deceive you in another sort,
And that you’ll say, ere half an hour pass.
Cuts off TITUS’s hand
Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS
TITUS ANDRONICUS Now stay your strife: what shall be is dispatch’d.
Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand:
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
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.
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 villany
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace.
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.