The Same. A Room in TITUS' House. A Banquet set out. |
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Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and young LUCIUS, a Boy. |
Tit. 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, |
And cannot passionate our ten-fold grief |
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine |
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast; |
And when my heart, all mad with misery, |
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh, |
Then thus I thump it down. |
[To LAVINIA.] 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; |
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. |
Mar. Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay |
Such violent hands upon her tender life. |
Tit. 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? |
Ah! wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands; |
To bid Æneas 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. |
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; |
I can interpret all her martyr'd signs: |
She says she drinks no other drink but tears, |
Brew'd with her sorrow, mash'd upon her cheeks. |
Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought; |
In thy dumb action will I be as perfect |
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. |
Boy. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments: |
Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale. |
Mar. Alas! the tender boy, in passion mov'd. |
Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness. |
Tit. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears, |
And tears will quickly melt thy life away. [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife. |
What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife? |
Mar. At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly. |
Tit. Out on thee, murderer! thou kill'st my heart; |
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny: |
A deed of death, done on the innocent, |
Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone; |
I see, thou art not for my company. |
Mar. Alas! my lord, I have but kill'd a fly. |
Tit. But how if that fly had a father and a mother? |
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 kill'd him. |
Mar. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly, |
Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him. |
Tit. O, O, O! |
Then pardon me for reprehending thee, |
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. |
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. |
Mar. Alas! poor man; grief has so wrought on him, |
He takes false shadows for true substances. |
Tit. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me: |
I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee |
Sad stories chanced in the times of old. |
Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young, |
And thou shalt read when mine begins to dazzle. [Exeunt. |
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