Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 2
Rome. Before TITUS’s house.
Tamora : Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
[p]I will encounter with
Andronicus,
[p]And say I am Revenge, sent from below
[p]To join with
him and right his heinous wrongs.
[p]Knock at his study, where, they
say, he keeps,
[p]To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
[p]Tell
him Revenge is come to join with him,
[p]And work confusion on his
enemies.
Titus Andronicus : Who doth molest my contemplation?
[p]Is it your trick to make me ope
the door,
[p]That so my sad decrees may fly away,
[p]And all my study
be to no effect?
[p]You are deceived: for what I mean to do
[p]See
here in bloody lines I have set down;
[p]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,
[p]Wanting a hand to give it
action?
[p]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:
[p]Witness this wretched stump,
witness these crimson lines;
[p]Witness these trenches made by grief
and care,
[p]Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
[p]Witness all
sorrow, that I know thee well
[p]For our proud empress, mighty
Tamora:
[p]Is not thy coming for my other hand?
Tamora : Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora;
[p]She is thy enemy, and I thy
friend:
[p]I am Revenge: sent from the infernal kingdom,
[p]To ease
the gnawing vulture of thy mind,
[p]By working wreakful vengeance on
thy foes.
[p]Come down, and welcome me to this world's
light;
[p]Confer with me of murder and of death:
[p]There's not a
hollow cave or lurking-place,
[p]No vast obscurity or misty
vale,
[p]Where bloody murder or detested rape
[p]Can couch for fear,
but I will find them out;
[p]And in their ears tell them my dreadful
name,
[p]Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
Titus Andronicus : Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me,
[p]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.
[p]Lo, by thy side where Rape
and Murder stands;
[p]Now give me some surance that thou art
Revenge,
[p]Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot-wheels;
[p]And then
I'll come and be thy waggoner,
[p]And whirl along with thee about the
globe.
[p]Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
[p]To hale
thy vengeful waggon swift away,
[p]And find out murderers in their
guilty caves:
[p]And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
[p]I
will dismount, and by the waggon-wheel
[p]Trot, like a servile
footman, all day long,
[p]Even from Hyperion's rising in the
east
[p]Until his very downfall in the sea:
[p]And day by day I'll do
this heavy task,
[p]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,
[p]Cause they take vengeance
of such kind of men.
Titus Andronicus : Good Lord, how like the empress' sons they are!
[p]And you, the
empress! but we worldly men
[p]Have miserable, mad, mistaking
eyes.
[p]O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
[p]And, if one arm's
embracement will content thee,
[p]I will embrace thee in it by and
by.
Tamora : This closing with him fits his lunacy
[p]Whate'er I forge to feed his
brain-sick fits,
[p]Do you uphold and maintain in your
speeches,
[p]For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;
[p]And, being
credulous in this mad thought,
[p]I'll make him send for Lucius his
son;
[p]And, whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
[p]I'll find some
cunning practise out of hand,
[p]To scatter and disperse the giddy
Goths,
[p]Or, at the least, make them his enemies.
[p]See, here he
comes, and I must ply my theme.
Titus Andronicus : Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee:
[p]Welcome, dread Fury, to
my woful house:
[p]Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
[p]How like
the empress and her sons you are!
[p]Well are you fitted, had you but
a Moor:
[p]Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
[p]For well I
wot the empress never wags
[p]But in her company there is a
Moor;
[p]And, would you represent our queen aright,
[p]It were
convenient you had such a devil:
[p]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,
[p]And I am sent to be
revenged on him.
Tamora : Show me a thousand that have done thee wrong,
[p]And I will be
revenged on them all.
Titus Andronicus : Look round about the wicked streets of Rome;
[p]And when thou find'st
a man that's like thyself.
[p]Good Murder, stab him; he's a
murderer.
[p]Go thou with him; and when it is thy hap
[p]To find
another that is like to thee,
[p]Good Rapine, stab him; he's a
ravisher.
[p]Go thou with them; and in the emperor's court
[p]There is
a queen, attended by a Moor;
[p]Well mayst thou know her by thy own
proportion,
[p]for up and down she doth resemble thee:
[p]I pray thee,
do on them some violent death;
[p]They have been violent to me and
mine.
Tamora : Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.
[p]But would it please
thee, good Andronicus,
[p]To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant
son,
[p]Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
[p]And bid him
come and banquet at thy house;
[p]When he is here, even at thy solemn
feast,
[p]I will bring in the empress and her sons,
[p]The emperor
himself and all thy foes;
[p]And at thy mercy shalt they stoop and
kneel,
[p]And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
[p]What says
Andronicus to this device?
Titus Andronicus : Marcus, my brother! 'tis sad Titus calls.
[p][Enter MARCUS]
[p]Go,
gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
[p]Thou shalt inquire him out
among the Goths:
[p]Bid him repair to me, and bring with him
[p]Some
of the chiefest princes of the Goths;
[p]Bid him encamp his soldiers
where they are:
[p]Tell him the emperor and the empress too
[p]Feast
at my house, and he shall feast with them.
[p]This do thou for my
love; and so let him,
[p]As he regards his aged father's life.
Marcus Andronicus : This will I do, and soon return again.
Tamora : Now will I hence about thy business,
[p]And take my ministers along
with me.
Titus Andronicus : Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me;
[p]Or else I'll call my
brother back again,
[p]And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
Tamora : [Aside to her sons] What say you, boys? will you
[p]bide with
him,
[p]Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor
[p]How I have govern'd
our determined jest?
[p]Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him
fair,
[p]And tarry with him till I turn again.
Titus Andronicus : [Aside] I know them all, though they suppose me mad,
[p]And will
o'erreach them in their own devices:
[p]A pair of cursed hell-hounds
and their dam!
Demetrius : Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.
Tamora : Farewell, Andronicus: Revenge now goes
[p]To lay a complot to betray
thy foes.
Titus Andronicus : I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.
Chiron : Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?
Titus Andronicus : Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
[p]Publius, come hither, Caius,
and Valentine!
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;
[p]The one is Murder,
Rape is the other's name;
[p]And therefore bind them, gentle
Publius.
[p]Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
[p]Oft have you
heard me wish for such an hour,
[p]And now I find it; therefore bind
them sure,
[p]And stop their mouths, if they begin to cry.
Chiron : Villains, forbear! we are the empress' sons.
Publius : And therefore do we what we are commanded.
[p]Stop close their mouths,
let them not speak a word.
[p]Is he sure bound? look that you bind
them fast.
[p][Re-enter TITUS, with LAVINIA; he bearing a
knife,]
[p]and she a basin]
Titus Andronicus : Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
[p]Sirs, stop their
mouths, let them not speak to me;
[p]But let them hear what fearful
words I utter.
[p]O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
[p]Here stands the
spring whom you have stain'd with mud,
[p]This goodly summer with your
winter mix'd.
[p]You kill'd her husband, and for that vile
fault
[p]Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,
[p]My hand cut
off and made a merry jest;
[p]Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and
that more dear
[p]Than hands or tongue, her spotless
chastity,
[p]Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forced.
[p]What
would you say, if I should let you speak?
[p]Villains, for shame you
could not beg for grace.
[p]Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr
you.
[p]This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
[p]Whilst that
Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
[p]The basin that receives your
guilty blood.
[p]You know your mother means to feast with me,
[p]And
calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:
[p]Hark, villains! I will
grind your bones to dust
[p]And with your blood and it I'll make a
paste,
[p]And of the paste a coffin I will rear
[p]And make two
pasties of your shameful heads,
[p]And bid that strumpet, your
unhallow'd dam,
[p]Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
[p]This
is the feast that I have bid her to,
[p]And this the banquet she shall
surfeit on;
[p]For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
[p]And
worse than Progne I will be revenged:
[p]And now prepare your throats.
Lavinia, come,
[p][He cuts their throats]
[p]Receive the blood: and
when that they are dead,
[p]Let me go grind their bones to powder
small
[p]And with this hateful liquor temper it;
[p]And in that paste
let their vile heads be baked.
[p]Come, come, be every one
officious
[p]To make this banquet; which I wish may prove
[p]More
stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.
[p]So, now bring them in,
for I'll play the cook,
[p]And see them ready 'gainst their mother
comes.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 3
