Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens (10 page)

TITUS
    Hear me,
grave fathers!
¹
Noble tribunes, stay!

For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent

In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept,

For all
my blood
in Rome’s great
quarrel
⁴
shed,

For all the frosty nights that I have
watched,
⁵

And for these bitter tears which now you see

Filling the agèd wrinkles in my cheeks,

Be pitiful to my condemnèd sons,

Whose souls is not corrupted as ’tis thought.

For two and twenty sons I never wept,

Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.

For these, two tribunes, in the dust I write

My heart’s deep
languor
¹³
and my soul’s sad tears:

Let my tears
stanch
¹⁴
the earth’s dry appetite,

My sons’ sweet blood will make it
shame
¹⁵
and blush.

O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain

That shall
distil
from
these two ancient ruins
¹⁷

Than youthful April shall with all his showers.

In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee
still:
¹⁹

In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snow

And keep eternal springtime on thy face,

So
²²
thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.

O reverend tribunes, O gentle, agèd men,

Unbind my sons, reverse the
doom
²⁴
of death,

And let me say, that never wept before,

My tears are now
prevailing orators.
²⁶

LUCIUS
    O noble father, you lament in vain:

The tribunes hear you not, no man is by,

And you recount your sorrows to a stone.

TITUS
    Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.

Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you—

LUCIUS
    My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.

TITUS
    Why, tis no matter, man: if they did hear,

They would not
mark
³⁴
me, or if they did mark,

They would not pity me.

Therefore I tell my sorrows
bootless
³⁶
to the stones,

Who, though they cannot answer my distress,

Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes

For that they will not
intercept
³⁹
my tale:

When I do weep, they humbly at my feet

Receive my tears and seem to weep with me,

And were they but
attirèd
in
grave
weeds,
⁴²

Rome could
afford
⁴³
no tribune like to these.

A stone is as soft wax, tribunes more hard than stones:

A stone is silent, and offendeth not,

And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.

But wherefore stand’st thou with thy weapon drawn?

LUCIUS
    To rescue my two brothers from their death,

For which attempt the judges have pronounced

My everlasting doom of banishment.

TITUS
    O
happy
⁵¹
man, they have befriended thee.

Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive

That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?

Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey

But me and mine: how happy art thou, then,

From these devourers to be banishèd!

But who comes with our brother Marcus here?

MARCUS
    Titus, prepare thy noble eyes to weep,

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
    Ay me, this
object
⁶⁴
kills me.

TITUS
    Faint-hearted boy, arise and look upon her.—

Speak, Lavinia, what accursèd 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
⁷¹
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:
⁷⁴

In bootless prayer have they been held up,

And they have served me to
effectless
⁷⁶
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
⁸¹
thee?

MARCUS
    O, that delightful
engine
⁸²
of her thoughts

That
blabbed
⁸³
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,
⁸⁸

Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer

That hath received some
unrecuring
⁹⁰
wound.

TITUS
    It was my
dear
⁹¹
, 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
⁹⁴
with a wilderness of sea,

Who marks the
waxing
⁹⁵
tide grow wave by wave,

Expecting ever
when some
envious
⁹⁶
surge

Will in his
brinish
⁹⁷
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
¹⁰¹

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
¹⁰⁵
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
¹⁰⁹
.—

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
¹¹²

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 signs how I may
do thee ease:
¹²¹

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
¹²⁶
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,
¹²⁸

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
¹³¹

Pass the remainder of our hateful days?

What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues

Plot some
device
¹³⁴
of further miseries

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
¹³⁹

Thy
napkin
¹⁴⁰
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
¹⁴⁸
of woe is this:

As far from help as
Limbo
¹⁴⁹
is from bliss!

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?

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 battle-axe,

Writing destruction on the enemy’s
castle?
¹⁶⁹

O,
none of both
¹⁷⁰
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
¹⁷⁹
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
¹⁸⁴
my hand.

LUCIUS
    Then I’ll go fetch an axe.

MARCUS
    But I will use the axe.

TITUS
    Come hither, Aaron, I’ll deceive them both:

Lend me thy hand and I will give thee mine.

AARON
    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
¹⁹²
, ere half an hour pass.

TITUS
    Now
stay your strife
¹⁹³
: what shall be is dispatched.

Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand:

Tell him it was a hand that
warded
¹⁹⁵
him

From thousand dangers: bid him bury it:

More hath it merited:
that
¹⁹⁷
let it have.

As for my sons, say I
account of
¹⁹⁸
them

As jewels purchased at an easy price,

And yet
dear
too, because I bought
mine own.
²⁰⁰

AARON
    I go, Andronicus, and for thy hand

Look
²⁰²
by and by to have thy sons with thee.—