Titus Andronicus (Dover Publications) by William Shakespeare

Author:William Shakespeare [Shakespeare, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486790046
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2015-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

SCENE II. A Room in Titus’s House. A Banquet Set Out.

Enter TITUS MARCUS LAVINIA and young LUCIUS a Boy307

TIT. So, so; now sit: and look you eat no more

Than will preserve just so much strength in us

As will revenge those bitter woes of ours.

Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:4

Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,

And cannot passionate our tenfold grief6

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, 10

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;15

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.20

MARC. 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.

What violent hands can she lay on her life?

Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands;

To bid Æneas 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. 30

Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,31

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;

I can interpret all her martyr’d signs;36

She says she drinks no other drink but tears,

Brew’d with her sorrow, mesh’d upon her cheeks: 38

Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;

In thy dumb action will I be as perfect 40

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.45

BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments:

Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARC. Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved,

Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.

TITUS Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears, 50

And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

[Marcus strikes the dish with a knife.

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

MARC. At that that I have kill’d, my lord,—a fly.

TITUS Out on thee, murderer! thou kill’st my heart;

Mine eyes are cloy’d with view of tyranny:

A deed of death done on the innocent

Becomes not Titus’ brother: get thee gone;

I see thou art not for my company.

MARC. Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly. 60

TITUS “But!” How, if that fly had a father and mother?

How would he hang his slender gilded wings,

And buzz lamenting doings in the air!63

Poor harmless fly,

That, with his pretty buzzing melody,

Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill’d him.

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