Titus Andronicus: Act 3, Scene 1 Translation

Enter the Judges and Senators with Titus’ two sons
(Quintus and Martius) bound, passing on the stage to
the place of execution, and Titus going before, pleading.

TITUS
Hear me, grave fathers; 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 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 10
Because they died in honor’s lofty bed.

Andronicus lieth down, and the Judges pass by him.
They exit with the prisoners as Titus continues speaking.

For these, tribunes, in the dust I write
My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears.
Let my tears stanch the earth’s dry appetite.
My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush. 15
O Earth, I will befriend thee more with rain
That shall distil from these two ancient ruins
Than youthful April shall with all his showers.
In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee still;
In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snow 20
And keep eternal springtime on thy face,
So thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.

Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn.

O reverend tribunes, O gentle agèd men,
Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,
And let me say, that never wept before, 25
My tears are now prevailing orators.

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.— 30
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 me; if they did mark,
They would not pity me. Yet plead I must, 35
And bootless unto them.
Therefore I tell my sorrows 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 my tale. 40
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,
Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.
A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than 45
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, 50
For which attempt the Judges have pronounced
My everlasting doom of banishment.

TITUS, rising
O happy man, they have befriended thee!
Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers? 55
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?

Enter Marcus with Lavinia.

MARCUS
Titus, prepare thy agèd eyes to weep, 60
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. 65

LUCIUS Ay me, this object 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 70
Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?
My grief was at the height before thou cam’st,
And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.—
Give me a sword. I’ll chop off my hands too,
For they have fought for Rome and all in vain; 75
And they have nursed this woe in feeding life;
In bootless prayer have they been held up,
And they have served me to effectless use.
Now all the service I require of them
Is that the one will help to cut the other.— 80
’Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands,
For hands to do Rome service is but vain.

LUCIUS
Speak, gentle sister. Who hath martyred thee?

MARCUS
O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,
That blabbed them with such pleasing eloquence, 85
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, 90
Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer
That hath received some unrecuring wound.

TITUS
It was my dear, and he that wounded her
Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead.
For now I stand as one upon a rock, 95
Environed with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
This way to death my wretched sons are gone; 100
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
Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
Had I but seen thy picture in this plight 105
It would have madded me. What shall I do,
Now I behold thy lively 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 110
Thy brothers are condemned, and dead by this.—
Look, Marcus!—Ah, son Lucius, look on her!
When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks as doth the honeydew
Upon a gathered lily almost withered. 115

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. 120
Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.—
Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,
Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.
Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius
And thou and I sit round about some fountain, 125
Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks,
How they are stained like meadows yet not dry
With miry 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 130
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
Pass the remainder of our hateful days?
What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues 135
Plot some device of further misery
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. 140

TITUS
Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot
Thy napkin 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. 145
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 of woe is this, 150
As far from help as limbo is from bliss.

Enter Aaron the Moor alone.

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 155
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, 160
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, 165
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 battleax, 170
Writing destruction on the enemy’s castle?
O, none of both 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. 175

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 180
Are meet 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. 185

TITUS
Agree between you. I will spare my hand.

LUCIUS Then I’ll go fetch an ax.

MARCUS But I will use the ax.

Lucius and Marcus exit.

TITUS
Come hither, Aaron. I’ll deceive them both.
Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine. 190

AARON, aside
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 ere half an hour pass.

He cuts off Titus’ hand.

Enter Lucius and Marcus again.

TITUS
Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatched.— 195
Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
From thousand dangers. Bid him bury it.
More hath it merited; that let it have.
As for my sons, say I account of them 200
As jewels purchased at an easy price,
And yet dear, too, because I bought mine own.

AARON
I go, Andronicus, and for thy hand
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
Aside. Their heads, I mean. O, how this villainy 205
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
Let fools do good and fair men call for grace;
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.

He exits.

TITUS
O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
And bow this feeble ruin to the earth. He kneels. 210
If any power pities wretched tears,
To that I call. (Lavinia kneels.) What, wouldst thou
kneel with me?
Do, then, dear heart, for heaven shall hear our
prayers, 215
Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim
And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

MARCUS
O brother, speak with possibility,
And do not break into these deep extremes. 220

TITUS
Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?
Then be my passions bottomless with them.

MARCUS
But yet let reason govern thy lament.

TITUS
If there were reason for these miseries,
Then into limits could I bind my woes. 225
When heaven doth weep, doth not the Earth o’erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth flow! 230
She is the weeping welkin, I the Earth.
Then must my sea be movèd with her sighs;
Then must my Earth with her continual tears
Become a deluge, overflowed and drowned,
Forwhy my bowels cannot hide her woes 235
But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
Then give me leave, for losers will have leave
To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand.

MESSENGERWorthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
For that good hand thou sent’st the Emperor. 240
Here are the heads of thy two noble sons,
And here’s thy hand in scorn to thee sent back.
Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mocked,
That woe is me to think upon thy woes
More than remembrance of my father’s death. 245

He exits.

MARCUS
Now let hot Etna cool in Sicily,
And be my heart an everburning hell!
These miseries are more than may be borne.
To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,
But sorrow flouted at is double death. 250

LUCIUS
Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound
And yet detested life not shrink thereat!
That ever death should let life bear his name,
Where life hath no more interest but to breathe.

Lavinia kisses Titus.

MARCUS
Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless 255
As frozen water to a starvèd snake.

TITUS
When will this fearful slumber have an end?

MARCUS
Now farewell, flatt’ry; die, Andronicus.
Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads,
Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here, 260
Thy other banished son with this dear sight
Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,
Even like a stony image cold and numb.
Ah, now no more will I control thy griefs.
Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand, 265
Gnawing with thy teeth, and be this dismal sight
The closing up of our most wretched eyes.
Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still?

TITUS Ha, ha, ha!

MARCUS
Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour. 270

Titus and Lavinia rise.

TITUS
Why, I have not another tear to shed.
Besides, this sorrow is an enemy
And would usurp upon my wat’ry eyes
And make them blind with tributary tears.
Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave? 275
For these two heads do seem to speak to me
And threat me I shall never come to bliss
Till all these mischiefs be returned again
Even in their throats that hath committed them.
Come, let me see what task I have to do. 280
You heavy people, circle me about
That I may turn me to each one of you
And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.
The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,
And in this hand the other will I bear.— 285
And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employed in these arms.
Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy
teeth.—
As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight.
Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay. 290
Hie to the Goths and raise an army there.
And if you love me, as I think you do,
Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.

All but Lucius exit.

LUCIUS
Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,
The woefull’st man that ever lived in Rome. 295
Farewell, proud Rome, till Lucius come again.
He loves his pledges dearer than his life.
Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister.
O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!
But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives 300
But in oblivion and hateful griefs.
If Lucius live he will requite your wrongs
And make proud Saturnine and his empress
Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.
Now will I to the Goths and raise a power 305
To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine.

Lucius exits.