Titus Andronicus: Act 5, Scene 2

tragedy

Rome. Before TITUS's house.

Scene Summary

Tamora arrives at Titus's house disguised as Revenge personified (revenge imagined as a supernatural figure come to help him), with her sons playing Rape and Murder. Titus recognises her immediately but plays along, pretending to be fooled. He asks Revenge to fetch Lucius, the emperor, and the empress for a feast. Tamora leaves Chiron and Demetrius behind while she goes to arrange it. The moment she's gone, Titus drops the act entirely: he has Chiron and Demetrius bound, tells them precisely what he knows and what he is about to do, then kills them and drains their blood. He bakes their flesh into pies to serve at the upcoming banquet. Lavinia holds the bowl to collect their blood, participating in the revenge for what was done to her.

Enter TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, disguised

TAMORA

Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,

I will encounter with Andronicus,

And say I am Revenge, sent from below

To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.

Knock at his study, where, they say, he keeps,

To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;

Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,

And work confusion on his enemies.

They knock

Enter TITUS, above

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Who doth molest my contemplation?

Is it your trick to make me ope the door,

That so my sad decrees may fly away,

And all my study be to no effect?

You are deceived: for what I mean to do

See here in bloody lines I have set down;

And what is written shall be executed.

TAMORA

Titus, I am come to talk with thee.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

No, not a word; how can I grace my talk,

Wanting a hand to give it action?

Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.

TAMORA

If thou didst know me, thou wouldest talk with me.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

I am not mad; I know thee well enough:

Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;

Witness these trenches made by grief and care,

Witness the tiring day and heavy night;

Witness all sorrow, that I know thee well

For our proud empress, mighty Tamora:

Is not thy coming for my other hand?

TAMORA

Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora;

She is thy enemy, and I thy friend:

I am Revenge: sent from the infernal kingdom,

To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind,

By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.

Come down, and welcome me to this world's light;

Confer with me of murder and of death:

There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,

No vast obscurity or misty vale,

Where bloody murder or detested rape

Can couch for fear, but I will find them out;

And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,

Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me,

To be a torment to mine enemies?

TAMORA

I am; therefore come down, and welcome me.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Do me some service, ere I come to thee.

Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;

Now give me some surance that thou art Revenge,

Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot-wheels;

And then I'll come and be thy waggoner,

And whirl along with thee about the globe.

Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,

To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,

And find out murderers in their guilty caves:

And when thy car is loaden with their heads,

I will dismount, and by the waggon-wheel

Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,

Even from Hyperion's rising in the east

Until his very downfall in the sea:

And day by day I'll do this heavy task,

So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.

TAMORA

These are my ministers, and come with me.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Are these thy ministers? what are they call'd?

TAMORA

Rapine and Murder; therefore called so,

Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Good Lord, how like the empress' sons they are!

And you, the empress! but we worldly men

Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.

O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;

And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,

I will embrace thee in it by and by.

Exit above

TAMORA

This closing with him fits his lunacy

Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits,

Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,

For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;

And, being credulous in this mad thought,

I'll make him send for Lucius his son;

And, whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,

I'll find some cunning practise out of hand,

To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,

Or, at the least, make them his enemies.

See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.

Enter TITUS below

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee:

Welcome, dread Fury, to my woful house:

Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.

How like the empress and her sons you are!

Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor:

Could not all hell afford you such a devil?

For well I wot the empress never wags

But in her company there is a Moor;

And, would you represent our queen aright,

It were convenient you had such a devil:

But welcome, as you are. What shall we do?

TAMORA

What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?

DEMETRIUS

Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.

CHIRON

Show me a villain that hath done a rape,

And I am sent to be revenged on him.

TAMORA

Show me a thousand that have done thee wrong,

And I will be revenged on them all.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Look round about the wicked streets of Rome;

And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself.

Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.

Go thou with him; and when it is thy hap

To find another that is like to thee,

Good Rapine, stab him; he's a ravisher.

Go thou with them; and in the emperor's court

There is a queen, attended by a Moor;

Well mayst thou know her by thy own proportion,

for up and down she doth resemble thee:

I pray thee, do on them some violent death;

They have been violent to me and mine.

TAMORA

Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.

But would it please thee, good Andronicus,

To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,

Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,

And bid him come and banquet at thy house;

When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,

I will bring in the empress and her sons,

The emperor himself and all thy foes;

And at thy mercy shalt they stoop and kneel,

And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.

What says Andronicus to this device?

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Marcus, my brother! 'tis sad Titus calls.

Enter MARCUS

Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;

Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths:

Bid him repair to me, and bring with him

Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;

Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are:

Tell him the emperor and the empress too

Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.

This do thou for my love; and so let him,

As he regards his aged father's life.

MARCUS ANDRONICUS

This will I do, and soon return again.

Exit

TAMORA

Now will I hence about thy business,

And take my ministers along with me.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me;

Or else I'll call my brother back again,

And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.

TAMORA

[Aside to her sons] What say you, boys? will you

bide with him,

Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor

How I have govern'd our determined jest?

Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,

And tarry with him till I turn again.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

[Aside] I know them all, though they suppose me mad,

And will o'erreach them in their own devices:

A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam!

DEMETRIUS

Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.

TAMORA

Farewell, Andronicus: Revenge now goes

To lay a complot to betray thy foes.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.

Exit TAMORA

CHIRON

Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Tut, I have work enough for you to do.

Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine!

Enter PUBLIUS and others

PUBLIUS

What is your will?

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Know you these two?

PUBLIUS

The empress' sons, I take them, Chiron and Demetrius.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceived;

The one is Murder, Rape is the other's name;

And therefore bind them, gentle Publius.

Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.

Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,

And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,

And stop their mouths, if they begin to cry.

Exit

PUBLIUS, & c. lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS

CHIRON

Villains, forbear! we are the empress' sons.

PUBLIUS

And therefore do we what we are commanded.

Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.

Is he sure bound? look that you bind them fast.

Re-enter TITUS, with LAVINIA; he bearing a knife, and she a basin

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.

Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;

But let them hear what fearful words I utter.

O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!

Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud,

This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.

You kill'd her husband, and for that vile fault

Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,

My hand cut off and made a merry jest;

Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear

Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,

Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forced.

What would you say, if I should let you speak?

Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.

Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.

This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,

Whilst that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold

The basin that receives your guilty blood.

You know your mother means to feast with me,

And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:

Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust

And with your blood and it I'll make a paste,

And of the paste a coffin I will rear

And make two pasties of your shameful heads,

And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,

Like to the earth swallow her own increase.

This is the feast that I have bid her to,

And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;

For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,

And worse than Progne I will be revenged:

And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,

He cuts their throats

Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,

Let me go grind their bones to powder small

And with this hateful liquor temper it;

And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.

Come, come, be every one officious

To make this banquet; which I wish may prove

More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.

So, now bring them in, for I'll play the cook,

And see them ready 'gainst their mother comes.

Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies