Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens (18 page)

Lines 1–69:
Saturninus and Bassianus, the two sons of the recently deceased emperor, each plead with the people of Rome to elect them in their father’s place; Saturninus on the grounds of primogeniture, and Bassianus for his virtue and honor. Marcus Andronicus, the Tribune of the People, silences them with the announcement that the people have chosen his brother, Titus, a long-serving, fiercely loyal, and mighty general of Rome who is returning home after conquering the Goths.

Lines 70–339:
Titus enters with Tamora, Alarbus, Chiron, Demetrius (the wife and three sons of the dead Priam, King of the Goths), and Aaron, a moor, as prisoners. Against Tamora’s pleas, Titus sacrifices her eldest son, Alarbus, in payment for the twenty-one sons he has lost in battle (his four remaining sons are with him living, two more are in coffins). Titus inters his two dead sons, and is greeted by Marcus with the news of his election, which he in his old age refuses, preferring a younger man. He passes the honor on to Saturninus as the first-born, who demands Titus’ daughter, Lavinia (betrothed to Bassianus), as his empress. Titus consents without a second thought but Bassianus, horrified, flees with Lavinia, aided by Titus’ remaining sons, one of whom, Mutius, Titus slays for his defiance. Humiliated, Saturninus instead takes Tamora as his empress, disdaining Lavinia.

Lines 340–497:
Titus feels Mutius has dishonored him and refuses to bury him with his brothers in the family tomb. Marcus and Titus’ remaining sons see Saturninus’ dishonorable character and beg for Mutius’ proper interment, to which Titus grudgingly consents. Bassianus and Lavinia, now married, return. Tamora in an aside tells Saturninus to accept Titus’ apologies and show friendship while she secretly devises terrible revenges they may exact upon the
Andronici. The scene closes with Saturninus proffering peace and festivity, and Titus offering to organize a hunt for the following day, which Saturninus accepts.

Aaron reveals in a soliloquy that he is Tamora’s secret lover, rejoicing that her newfound fortune will help him to prosper and that together they will bring about the fall of Saturninus and of Rome. Chiron and Demetrius enter amid a fierce quarrel over Lavinia, with whom both are in love. Aaron intercedes, warning them that open revolt near to the palace is very dangerous, but that the hunt in the forest will provide the perfect opportunity for them to steal Lavinia away and rape her.

Titus, taking a rest from the hunt, tells his sons that he had a troubled sleep but that today he is refreshed. Saturninus, Tamora, Bassianus, Lavinia, Marcus, Chiron, and Demetrius enter and Titus leads them all off on the hunt for “the proudest panther.” Demetrius forebodingly confides to Chiron that they mean “to pluck a dainty doe to ground.”

Lines 1–191:
Away from the hunt Aaron buries a bag of gold under a tree to “coin a stratagem.” Tamora finds him and begs him to make love to her, but he claims to be preoccupied with vengeance and gives her a letter to give to Saturninus. They see Bassianus and Lavinia approaching and Aaron leaves to fetch Chiron and Demetrius. The couple see Aaron leaving Tamora and taunt her with accusations of infidelity. As Chiron and Demetrius enter Tamora tells them that she has been lured to this place by Bassianus and Lavinia who intended to leave her to die. They kill Bassianus and dump his body in a nearby pit (as Aaron told them to do). Lavinia pleads to Tamora for mercy but finds none. Chiron and Demetrius take her away to rape her and
Tamora leaves to seek Aaron, saying she will never “know merry cheer indeed, / Till all the Andronici be made away.”

Lines 192–306:
Aaron reenters with two of Titus’ sons, Quintus and Martius, telling them he saw a panther in a pit. Martius falls in and finds Bassianus’ body, and while Quintus struggles to rescue his brother, Aaron rushes to fetch Saturninus who will think Titus’ sons responsible for the murder. Quintus falls in too, and Aaron leads Saturninus’ party to the pit. Tamora gives Saturninus the letter that tells falsely of Quintus and Martius’ plot to kill Bassianus for gold buried beneath an elder tree. Aaron’s gold is dug up and Saturninus, convinced of their guilt, commits Quintus and Martius to prison while he devises “Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.” Titus pleads for them to be bailed until their guilt is proved but Saturninus refuses.

Chiron and Demetrius leave the ravished Lavinia for dead, having cut off her hands and tongue to stop her revealing the names of her attackers. Marcus finds her and in a long and moving soliloquy tries to rationalize the horror before him. He takes her to find Titus.

Lines 1–57:
Titus prostrates himself on the floor before the judges who are bearing his sons away to execution, invoking his age and service done for Rome as reasons for sparing their lives. His words have no effect, and in desperation he vows to stay there and weep until the earth’s thirst has been quenched so that it will not drink his sons’ blood. Lucius, his last remaining son, finds him and tells him his lament is “in vain … you recount your sorrows to a stone.” Lucius has been banished for trying to rescue his brothers, though Titus tells him he is lucky to escape the “wilderness of tigers” that is Rome.

Lines 58–234:
Marcus enters bringing Lavinia with him and while Lucius falls to the ground in anguish, Titus at first appears resolute,
telling Lucius to “arise, and look upon her”; but he gradually yields to sorrow, exclaiming that “he that wounded her / Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead.” Aaron enters and tells them that if one of them chops off his own hand and sends it as a token, Martius and Quintus will be spared. All three offer to do it, arguing over the matter. Titus appears to yield and tells Lucius and Marcus to settle it between themselves. While they go to fetch an axe Titus says he will “deceive them both” and asks Aaron to chop off his hand for him. Aaron does so, and Marcus and Lucius return to find him taking Titus’ hand for Martius and Quintus’ ransom. In an aside, Aaron reveals that it’s a trick and that he intends to send Titus’ sons’ heads back to him. Titus turns to Lavinia and starts to speak madly out of grief. Marcus urges him to “speak with possibilities” and use “reason” but Titus rebukes him, saying he has been “overflowed and drowned” with Lavinia’s tears and cries.

Lines 235–301:
A Messenger enters with Martius and Quintus’ heads and Titus’ hand, and he, Marcus, and Lucius all grieve for Titus’ “woes.” Titus, however, begins to laugh, saying that he has “not another tear to shed” and that watery eyes would prevent him from finding “Revenge’s cave.” He calls his three remaining family members to form a circle around him and swears to each in turn to revenge their wrongs. He then takes up one head, gives Marcus another, and gives Lavinia his hand to carry in her teeth. In an internal struggle between newly resolved anarchic revenger and lifelong disciplinarian, Titus orders Lucius from his sight because he is “an exile” and “must not stay,” but tells him to go to the Goths and raise an army to attack Rome. Lucius in a soliloquy at the scene’s end laments his father and sister’s sufferings, and vows to do as Titus commanded.

Titus, Marcus, Lavinia, and Young Lucius (Lucius’ son) sit down to eat. Titus feeds Lavinia and speaks strangely and passionately as he tries to interpret her signs. Marcus and Young Lucius ask him to stop, feeling that his wild mood and words add to all their griefs. Marcus
kills a fly that lands on his plate, for which Titus chastises him for “tyranny,” reminding him that even that fly had parents. Marcus says he did it because it was a “black ill-favoured fly” like Aaron, which pleases Titus, who strikes at the dead fly himself. Marcus believes that Titus has become unhinged by grief. Titus takes Lavinia and Young Lucius away to read “Sad stories chancèd in the times of old.”

Lavinia enters pursuing Young Lucius, who is carrying a pile of books. He doesn’t understand why she is following him so earnestly, and in fear he drops the books. Lavinia begins to search through them, lighting on Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
. She turns to the tale of Tereus, who raped Philomel and cut out her tongue to prevent her revealing the crime, and Titus and Marcus adduce that this is what happened to her. Marcus writes his own name in the sand with his staff using just his mouth and feet, and, seeing it can be done, urges Lavinia to reveal her attacker thus, which she does, writing “
Stuprum
[“rape” in Latin], Chiron, Demetrius.” The image is a rather grotesque, almost blackly comic advance on the tale in Ovid in which Philomel, who kept her hands, sewed the name of her attacker in a sampler. Titus and Marcus vow a bloody revenge but Titus urges caution, as Tamora still has influence over “the lion” Saturninus. He warns Marcus to stay out of what will ensue, and gives Young Lucius some weapons from his armory to deliver to Chiron and Demetrius as a gift.

Young Lucius delivers the weapons along with a scroll bearing a quote from Horace, which translates as “The man of upright life and free from crime does not need the javelins or bows of the Moor.” It means nothing to the foolish young Goths, but Aaron privately understands the message’s meaning: “The old man hath found their guilt.” A Nurse enters carrying the lovechild of Aaron and Tamora, ordering Aaron to kill the “dismal, black, and sorrowful issue.” He refuses, drawing his sword upon the advancing Chiron and Demetrius,
and threatening: “He dies upon my scimitar’s sharp point / That touches this my first-born son and heir.” After establishing that only the Nurse, Tamora, and a midwife knew of the child, Aaron kills the Nurse, and Chiron and Demetrius declare allegiance with him for keeping their mother’s secret safe. Aaron resolves to return to the camp of the Goths to protect his son.

Titus enters with Marcus, Marcus’ son Publius, Young Lucius, and other kinsmen. Titus has a sheaf of arrows with letters tied to them detailing Saturninus’ crimes which he orders his companions to send to the gods in the sky with their bows. Everyone fears for Titus’ sanity, and Marcus tells them all to shoot their messages over the palace walls so that they may have some real effect. A Clown enters, on his way to the court to try and settle a private dispute, and Titus mistakes him for a god. Titus gives the Clown a letter for Saturninus, promising him a reward if he delivers it along with the pigeons he is carrying. The Clown agrees.

Saturninus, incensed by Titus’ messages, receives the Clown into his presence. Upon reading the letter he brings, Saturninus orders the Clown to be hanged. Emillius, a messenger, then brings word that Lucius and the Goths intend to attack Rome. Saturninus fears that the people will not support him as they hold Lucius dear, but Tamora sends Emillius to summon Lucius to Titus’ home for peace talks. In the meantime, Tamora resolves to go to Titus, who she thinks mad, to try to manipulate him into ensuring Lucius attends the summit, hinting that it will be “dangerous” for the Andronici to believe her “sweet” words.

In the camp of the Goths, Lucius says he has received letters importing the Roman people’s support for him and hatred of Saturninus.
The Goths state how proud they are to fight alongside so noble and brave a former adversary, and one enters with Aaron and the child captive, saying he found them in a ruined monastery (an anachronism that betrays the play’s Elizabethan origins). Lucius orders them to be hanged, but Aaron swears to reveal secrets if the child is spared. Lucius gives his word and Aaron uncovers all Chiron’s, Demetrius’, Tamora’s, and his own villainies against the Andronici, as well as revealing Tamora as the child’s mother. He also admits to many other terrible deeds he has committed in his life, and expresses sorrow that he “cannot do ten thousand more.” Lucius orders Aaron to be taken down, as hanging is too “sweet” a death for him. Emillius arrives and requests that Lucius meet Saturninus at Titus’ house. Lucius agrees.

Tamora, Chiron, and Demetrius, believing Titus to be mad, go to his house disguised as the deities Revenge, Rape, and Murder. In a blackly comic moment Titus notes of the latter two “how like the empress’ sons they are.” Tamora (as Revenge) promises that if Titus sends for Lucius to come to his house for a banquet, she will bring all Titus’ enemies there for him to be revenged upon. Titus sends Marcus to fetch Lucius, and while Tamora and her sons are leaving on the pretense of doing what Revenge has promised (though they are of course going back to Saturninus), Titus demands that Rape and Murder be allowed to stay with him. They confer in an aside that it will be best in order to placate him and keep him occupied, but with Tamora gone, Titus’ kinsmen come out and seize upon Chiron and Demetrius, gagging and binding them. Titus reenters, carrying a knife, alongside Lavinia, who is supporting a basin on her stumps. Titus, in a long, blood-curdling speech, reveals that he is not mad, that he knows what they have done, and that he will exact a revenge “worse than Progne.” He tells them he is going to cut their throats, catch their blood in Lavinia’s basin, mix it with their bones which he will grind “to powder small,” and make “two pasties” to feed to Tamora at the banquet (as in Act 4 Scene 1, this is an escalation of an Ovidian myth). As good as his word, he slits their throats and orders the bodies brought in so that he may “play the cook.”

Marcus, Lucius, and the Goths arrive at Titus’ home with Aaron and the child prisoner. Lucius asks Marcus to keep Aaron alive so that they may later extract testimony of Tamora’s crimes, and Aaron is led away. Saturninus and Tamora arrive and they and all the rest sit down to dinner. Titus enters
“like a cook”
and asks Saturninus if he thinks Virginius—an infamous centurion—was right to kill his daughter for being raped. Saturninus replies that he was, because the girl “should not survive her shame.” At this Titus kills Lavinia. Saturninus, horrified, demands to know the reason for this “Unnatural and unkind” act. Titus tells him of Chiron and Demetrius’ crime, and Saturninus orders them to be sent for. Titus, however, reveals that they are already present, “bakèd in that pie.” He then stabs and kills Tamora; Saturninus leaps up and kills Titus; and Lucius in turn kills him. Uproar ensues, but Marcus and Lucius justify the grim events by telling the people everything that Tamora, Chiron, Demetrius, and Aaron have done. They also reveal the parentage of the child, and offer to kill themselves if Rome is not satisfied. Emillius calls for Lucius to be emperor, saying the people “do cry it shall be so.” Lucius accepts, and he, Marcus, and Young Lucius honor Titus’ body. Aaron is brought out and Lucius orders for him to be buried “breast-deep” and starved to death, though Aaron remains unrepentant. Lucius orders that Saturninus’ body be interred with his ancestors, and Tamora’s be cast out “to beasts and birds of prey.”