Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.

I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.

TITUS

Will it consume me? Let me see it then.

MARCUS

This was thy daughter.

TITUS

Why, Marcus, so she is.

LUCIUS (falling on his knees)

Ay me, this object kills me.

TITUS

Faint-hearted boy, arise and look upon her.

⌈Lucius rises⌉

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 cam‘st,

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 is but vain.

LUCIUS

Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyred thee.

MARCUS

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,

That blabbed 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

O, thus I found her, straying in the park,

Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer

That hath received some unrecuring wound.

TITUS

It was my dear, 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 martyred thee.

Thy husband he is dead, and for his death

Thy brothers are condemned 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 gathered lily almost withered.

MARCUS

Perchance she weeps because they killed her

husband;

Perchance because she knows them innocent.

TITUS

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 stained, like 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 device of further misery,

To make us wondered at in time to come.

LUCIUS

Sweet father, cease your tears, for at your grief

See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.

MARCUS

Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.

TITUS

Ah, Marcus, Marcus, brother, well I wot

Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,

For thou, poor man, hast drowned it with thine own.

LUCIUS

Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.

TITUS

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 the Moor, alone

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

O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron,

Did ever raven sing so like a lark

That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?