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

Which of your hands hath not defended Rome

And reared aloft the bloody battleaxe,

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

My hand shall go.

LUCIUS

By heaven it shall not go.

TITUS

Sirs, strive no more. Such withered 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

And for our father’s sake and mother’s care,

Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.

TITUS

Agree between you. I will spare my hand.

LUCIUS

Then I’ll go fetch an axe.

MARCUS

But I will use the axe.

Exeunt Lucius and Marcus

TITUS

Come hither, Aaron. I’ll deceive them both.

Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.

AARON (aside)

If that be called 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.

He cuts off Titus’ hand.

Enter Lucius and Marcus again

TITUS

Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatched.

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 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.

He kneels

If any power pities wretched tears,

To that I call. (To Lavinia, who kneels) What, wouldst

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 possibility,

And do not break into these deep extremes.

TITUS

Is not my sorrows 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,

Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face?

And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?

I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow.

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 overflowed and drowned,

Forwhy 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 mocked,

That woe is me to think upon thy woes

More than remembrance of my father’s death.

⌈He sets down the heads and hand. Exit⌉

MARCUS

Now let hot Etna 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 Titus

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, flatt’ry; die, Andronicus.

Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads,

Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here,

Thy other banished son with this dear sight

Struck pale and bloodless, and thy brother, I,