Titus Andronicus: Act 3, Scene 2 Translation

A banquet. Enter Titus Andronicus, Marcus, Lavinia,
and the boy Young Lucius, with Servants.

TITUS
So, so. Now sit, and look you eat no more
Than will preserve just so much strength in us
As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot.
Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands 5
And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,
Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh, 10
Then thus I thump it down.—
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.
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans; 15
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
May run into that sink and, soaking in,
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears. 20

MARCUS
Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay
Such violent hands upon her tender life.

TITUS
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? 25
Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands,
To bid Aeneas 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.— 30
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.
Here is no drink!—Hark, Marcus, what she says. 35
I can interpret all her martyred signs.
She says she drinks no other drink but tears
Brewed with her sorrow, mashed upon her cheeks.—
Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought.
In thy dumb action will I be as perfect 40
As begging hermits in their holy prayers.
Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
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. 45

YOUNG LUCIUS, weeping
Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments.
Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARCUS
Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved,
Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.

TITUS
Peace, tender sapling. Thou art made of tears, 50
And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

Marcus strikes the dish with a knife.

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

MARCUS
At that that I have killed, my lord, a fly.

TITUS
Out on thee, murderer! Thou kill’st my heart.
Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny; 55
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus’ brother. Get thee gone.
I see thou art not for my company.

MARCUS
Alas, my lord, I have but killed a fly.

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

MARCUS
Pardon me, sir. It was a black, ill-favored fly,
Like to the Empress’ Moor. Therefore I killed him.

TITUS O, O, O!
Then pardon me for reprehending thee, 70
For thou hast done a charitable deed.
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. 75
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.

MARCUS
Alas, poor man, grief has so wrought on him 80
He takes false shadows for true substances.

TITUS
Come, take away.—Lavinia, go with me.
I’ll to thy closet and go read with thee
Sad stories chancèd in the times of old.—
Come, boy, and go with me. Thy sight is young, 85
And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.

They exit.