The Same. A Room in TITUS’ House. A Banquet set out. | |
| |
Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and young LUCIUS, a Boy. | |
| Tit. So, so; now sit; and look you eat no more | |
| Than will preserve just so much strength in us | 4 |
| As will revenge these bitter woes of ours. | |
| Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot: | |
| Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands, | |
| And cannot passionate our ten-fold grief | 8 |
| With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine | |
| Is left to tyrannize upon my breast; | |
| And when my heart, all mad with misery, | |
| Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh, | 12 |
| 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. | 16 |
| 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 | 20 |
| May run into that sink, and, soaking in, | |
| Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears. | |
| Mar. Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay | |
| Such violent hands upon her tender life. | 24 |
| Tit. 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; | 28 |
| 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. | 32 |
| 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: | 36 |
| Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says; | |
| I can interpret all her martyr’d signs: | |
| She says she drinks no other drink but tears, | |
| Brew’d with her sorrow, mash’d upon her cheeks. | 40 |
| 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, | 44 |
| 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. | |
| Boy. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments: | 48 |
| Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale. | |
| Mar. Alas! the tender boy, in passion mov’d. | |
| Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness. | |
| Tit. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears, | 52 |
| And tears will quickly melt thy life away. [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife. | |
| What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife? | |
| Mar. At that that I have kill’d, my lord; a fly. | |
| Tit. Out on thee, murderer! thou kill’st my heart; | 56 |
| 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. | 60 |
| Mar. Alas! my lord, I have but kill’d a fly. | |
| Tit. But how if that fly had a father and a mother? | |
| How would he hang his slender gilded wings | |
| And buzz lamenting doings in the air! | 64 |
| Poor harmless fly, | |
| That, with his pretty buzzing melody, | |
| Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill’d him. | |
| Mar. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour’d fly, | 68 |
| Like to the empress’ Moor; therefore I kill’d him. | |
| Tit. O, O, O! | |
| Then pardon me for reprehending thee, | |
| For thou hast done a charitable deed. | 72 |
| 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. | 76 |
| 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. | 80 |
| Mar. Alas! poor man; grief has so wrought on him, | |
| He takes false shadows for true substances. | |
| Tit. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me: | |
| I’ll to thy closet; and go read with thee | 84 |
| Sad stories chanced in the times of old. | |
| Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young, | |
| And thou shalt read when mine begins to dazzle. [Exeunt. | |
