Even like a stony image, cold and numb.

Ah, now no more will I control thy griefs.

Rend 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 wat’ry 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 returned again

Even in their throats that hath committed them.

Come, let me see what task I have to do.

⌈He and Lavinia rise⌉

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.

Marcus, Lucius, and Lavinia circle Titus. He

pledges them

The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,

And in this hand the other will I bear.

And Lavinia, thou shalt be employed.

Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thine arms.

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 ye love me, as I think you do,

Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.

They kiss. Exeunt all but Lucius

LUCIUS

Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,

The woefull‘st man that ever lived in Rome.

Farewell, proud Rome, till Lucius come again;

He loves his pledges dearer than his life.

Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister:

O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!

But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives

But in oblivion and hateful griefs.

If Lucius live he will requite your wrongs

And make proud Saturnine and his empress

Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.

Now will I to the Goths and raise a power,

To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine. Exit

3.2 A banquet. Enter Titus Andronicus, Marcus, Lavinia, and the boy (young Lucius)

TITUS

So, so, now sit, and look you eat no more

Than will preserve just so much strength in us

As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.

⌈They sit⌉

Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot.

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

And cannot passionate our tenfold grief

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,

Then thus I thump it down.

He beats his breast

(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,

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.

MARCUS

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 Aeneas 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.

Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,

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 martyred signs.

She says she drinks no other drink but tears,

Brewed with her sorrow, mashed upon her cheeks.

Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought.

In thy dumb action will I be as perfect

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.

YOUNG LUCIUS

Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments.

Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARCUS

Alas, the tender boy in passion moved

Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.

TITUS

Peace, tender sapling, thou art made of tears,

And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

Marcus strikes the dish with a knife

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

MARCUS