Titus Andronicus: Act 2

Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,
And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fettered in amorous chains
And faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.

Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!

Why, boy, although our mother, unadvised,
Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,
Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?

What, is Lavinia then become so loose
Or Bassianus so degenerate
That for her love such quarrels may be broached
Without controlment, justice, or revenge?

Or know you not in Rome
How furious and impatient they be,
And cannot brook competitors in love?

Then should not we be tired with this ado.

’Tis policy and stratagem must do
That you affect, and so must you resolve
That what you cannot as you would achieve,
You must perforce accomplish as you may.

’Tis policy and stratagem must do
That you affect, and so must you resolve
That what you cannot as you would achieve,
You must perforce accomplish as you may.

Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste
Than this Lavinia, Bassianus’ love.

Uncouple here, and let us make a bay
And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,
And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter’s peal,
That all the court may echo with the noise.

I have dogs, my lord,
Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase
And climb the highest promontory top.

Let him that thinks of me so abjectly
Know that this gold must coin a stratagem
Which, cunningly effected, will beget
A very excellent piece of villainy.

Let him that thinks of me so abjectly
Know that this gold must coin a stratagem
Which, cunningly effected, will beget
A very excellent piece of villainy.

And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest
That have their alms out of the Empress’ chest.

His Philomel must lose her tongue today,
Thy sons make pillage of her chastity
And wash their hands in Bassianus’ blood.

We are espied.

Saucy controller of my private steps,
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Acteon’s, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformèd limbs,
Unmannerly intruder as thou art.

Believe me, queen, your swarthy Cimmerian
Doth make your honor of his body’s hue

Why are you sequestered from all your train,
Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,
And wandered hither to an obscure plot,
Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,
If foul desire had not conducted you?

Why are you sequestered from all your train,
Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,
And wandered hither to an obscure plot,
Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,
If foul desire had not conducted you?

How now, dear sovereign and our gracious mother,
Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?

These two have ticed me hither to this place,
A barren, detested vale you see it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe.

These two have ticed me hither to this place,
A barren, detested vale you see it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe.

And when they showed me this abhorrèd pit,
They told me, here at dead time of the night
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confusèd cries
As any mortal body hearing it
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.

And then they called me foul adulteress,
Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms
That ever ear did hear to such effect.

No sooner had they told this hellish tale
But straight they told me they would bind me here
Unto the body of a dismal yew
And leave me to this miserable death.

Give me the poniard!

This minion stood upon her chastity,
Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty

And if she do, I would I were an eunuch!

The lion, moved with pity, did endure
To have his princely paws pared all away.

For my father’s sake,
That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,
Be not obdurate; open thy deaf ears.

My sight is very dull, whate’er it bodes.

Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart
Will not permit mine eyes once to behold
The thing whereat it trembles by surmise.

Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,
The complot of this timeless tragedy,
And wonder greatly that man’s face can fold
In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.

Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody kind,
Have here bereft my brother of his life.

Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody kind,
Have here bereft my brother of his life.—

High Emperor, upon my feeble knee
I beg this boon with tears not lightly shed,
That this fell fault of my accursèd sons—
Accursèd if the faults be proved in them—

I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail,
For by my father’s reverend tomb I vow
They shall be ready at your Highness’ will
To answer their suspicion with their lives.

Ah, now thou turn’st away thy face for shame,
And notwithstanding all this loss of blood,
As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,
Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face,
Blushing to be encountered with a cloud.

O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind.