TITUS.
Now stay your strife: what shall be is despatch’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 purchas’d 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 villainy
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.
[Exit.]
TITUS.
O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
And bow this feeble ruin to the earth:
If any power pities wretched tears,
To that I call!—[To LAVINIA.] What, wilt thou kneel with me?
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 possibilities,
And do not break into these deep extremes.
TITUS.
Is not my sorrow 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,
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-swol’n face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea; hark, how her sighs do flow!
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, overflow’d and drown’d;
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.]
MESSENGER.
Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
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 mock’d:
That woe is me to think upon thy woes,
More than remembrance of my father’s death.
[Exit.]
MARCUS.
Now let hot Aetna 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;
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!
[LAVINIA kisses him.]
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,
Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;
Thy other banish’d 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:
Rent 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!
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:
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 return’d again
Even in their throats that have committed them.
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.—
The vow is made.—Come, brother, take a head;
And in this hand the other will I bear.
And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ’d in these things;
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:
Hie to the Goths, and raise an army there:
And if you love me, as I think you do,
Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.
[Exeunt TITUS, MARCUS, and LAVINIA.]
LUCIUS.
Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,—
The woefull’st man that ever liv’d in