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Titus Andronicus: Act III, Scene 2

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Titus Andronicus
Act III, Scene 2

A room in Titus’ house.

Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord production of Titus Andronicus

Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord production of Titus Andronicus

Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord, 2005

  1. A banquet set out.
  1. Enter Titus Andronicus, Marcus, Lavinia, and the boy, young
  2. Lucius.

Titus

1 - 20
  1. So, so, now sit, and look you eat no more
  2. Than will preserve just so much strength in us
  3. As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
  4. Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;
  5. Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands
  6. And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
  7. With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
  8. Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,
  9. Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
  10. Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
  11. Then thus I thump it down.
  12. To Lavinia.
  13. Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
  14. When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
  15. Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
  16. Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
  17. Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
  18. And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
  19. That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
  20. May run into that sink, and soaking in,
  21. Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.

Marcus

21 - 22
  1. Fie, brother, fie, teach her not thus to lay
  2. Such violent hands upon her tender life.

Titus

23 - 45
  1. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?
  2. Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
  3. What violent hands can she lay on her life?
  4. Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands,
  5. To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er
  6. How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
  7. O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
  8. Lest we remember still that we have none.
  9. Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,
  10. As if we should forget we had no hands,
  11. If Marcus did not name the word of hands!
  12. Come, let’s fall to, and, gentle girl, eat this.
  13. Here is no drink! Hark, Marcus, what she says;
  14. I can interpret all her martyr’d signs:
  15. She says, she drinks no other drink but tears,
  16. Brew’d with her sorrow, mesh’d upon her cheeks.
  17. Speechless complainant, I will learn thy thought;
  18. In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
  19. As begging hermits in their holy prayers.
  20. Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
  21. Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
  22. But I, of these, will wrest an alphabet,
  23. And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.

Young Lucius

46 - 47
  1. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments,
  2. Make my aunt merry with some pleasing talc.

Marcus

48 - 49
  1. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov’d,
  2. Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.

Titus

50 - 52
  1. Peace, tender sapling, thou art made of tears,
  2. And tears will quickly melt thy life away.
  3. Marcus strikes the dish with a knife.
  4. What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

Marcus

53
  1. At that that I have kill’d, my lord—a fly.

Titus

54 - 58
  1. Out on thee, murderer! Thou kill’st my heart!
  2. Mine eyes are cloy’d with view of tyranny.
  3. A deed of death done on the innocent
  4. Becomes not Titus’ brother. Get thee gone,
  5. I see thou art not for my company.

Marcus

59
  1. Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly.

Titus

60 - 65
  1. “But”? How if that fly had a father and mother?
  2. How would he hang his slender gilded wings
  3. And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
  4. Poor harmless fly,
  5. That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
  6. Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill’d him.

Marcus

66 - 67
  1. Pardon me, sir, it was a black ill-favor’d fly,
  2. Like to the Empress’ Moor, therefore I kill’d him.

Titus

68 - 78
  1. O, O, O,
  2. Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
  3. For thou hast done a charitable deed.
  4. Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,
  5. Flattering myself as if it were the Moor
  6. Come hither purposely to poison me.—
  7. There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora.
  8. Ah, sirrah!
  9. Yet I think we are not brought so low,
  10. But that between us we can kill a fly
  11. That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.

Marcus

79 - 80
  1. Alas, poor man, grief has so wrought on him,
  2. He takes false shadows for true substances.

Titus

81 - 85
  1. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me.
  2. I’ll to thy closet, and go read with thee
  3. Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
  4. Come, boy, and go with me, thy sight is young,
  5. And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.
  1. Exeunt.
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