Titus Andronicus
| ACT III SCENE II | A room in Titus’s house. A banquet set out. | |
| [Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA and Young LUCIUS, a boy] | ||
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | 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. | ||
| Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot: | ||
| Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands, | 5 | |
| 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, | 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 | |
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay | |
| Such violent hands upon her tender life. | ||
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | 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? | 25 | |
| 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. | 30 | |
| 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; | 35 | |
| I can interpret all her martyr’d signs; | ||
| She says she drinks no other drink but tears, | ||
| Brew’d with her sorrow, mesh’d upon her cheeks: | ||
| 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 practise learn to know thy meaning. | 45 | |
| Young LUCIUS | Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments: | |
| Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale. | ||
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved, | |
| Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness. | ||
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | 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? | ||
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | At that that I have kill’d, my lord; a fly. | |
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | Out on thee, murderer! thou kill’st my heart; | |
| Mine eyes are cloy’d with view of tyranny: | 55 | |
| A deed of death done on the innocent | ||
| Becomes not Titus’ brother: get thee gone: | ||
| I see thou art not for my company. | ||
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly. | |
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | But how, if that fly had a father and mother? | 60 |
| How would he hang his slender gilded wings, | ||
| And buzz lamenting doings in the air! | ||
| Poor harmless fly, | ||
| That, with his pretty buzzing melody, | ||
| Came here to make us merry! and thou hast | 65 | |
| kill’d him. | ||
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favor’d fly, | |
| Like to the empress’ Moor; therefore I kill’d him. | ||
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | O, O, O, | |
| Then pardon me for reprehending thee, | 70 | |
| For thou hast done a charitable deed. | ||
| Give me thy knife, I will insult on him; | ||
| Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor | ||
| Come hither purposely to poison me.– | ||
| There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora. | 75 | |
| Ah, sirrah! | ||
| Yet, I think, we are not brought so low, | ||
| But that between us we can kill a fly | ||
| That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor. | ||
| MARCUS ANDRONICUS | Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him, | 80 |
| He takes false shadows for true substances. | ||
| TITUS ANDRONICUS | Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me: | |
| I’ll to thy closet; and go read with thee | ||
| Sad stories chanced in the times of old. | ||
| Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young, | 85 | |
| And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle. | ||
| [Exeunt] | ||
Back to: Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 1