Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss,
Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips:
O were the sum of these that I should pay
Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!

Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
To Attendants
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,
To be adjudged some direful slaughtering death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.

Now is my turn to speak. Behold this child:
Pointing to the Child in the arms of an Attendant
Of this was Tamora delivered;
The issue of an irreligious Moor,
Chief architect and plotter of these woes:
The villain is alive in Titus' house,
And as he is, to witness ...

You sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,
By uproar sever'd, like a flight of fowl
Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts,
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scatter'd corn into one mutual sheaf,
These broken limbs again into one body;
Lest ...

Rome's emperor, and nephew, break the parle;
These quarrels must be quietly debated.
The feast is ready, which the careful Titus
Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,
For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome:
Please you, therefore, draw nigh, and take your places.

This will I do, and soon return again.

Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for
your oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to
the emperor from you.

This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,
The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock
That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;
And who should find them but the empress' villain?
She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose ...

My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;
Your letter is with Jupiter by this.

Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court:
We will afflict the emperor in his pride.

Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.
Join with the Goths; and with revengeful war
Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,
And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.

O Publius, is not this a heavy case,
To see thy noble uncle thus distract?

O heavens, can you hear a good man groan,
And not relent, or not compassion him?
Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,
That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart
Than foemen's marks upon his batter'd shield;
But yet so just that he will not revenge.
Revenge ...

Ay, that's my boy! thy father hath full oft
For his ungrateful country done the like.

O, calm thee, gentle lord; although I know
There is enough written upon this earth
To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts
And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.
My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;
And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;
And swear ...

What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora
Performers of this heinous, bloody deed?

Sit down, sweet niece: brother, sit down by me.
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,
Inspire me, that I may this treason find!
My lord, look here: look here, Lavinia:
This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst
This after me, when I have writ my name
Without the help ...

O, why should nature build so foul a den,
Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

See, brother, see; note how she quotes the leaves.

For love of her that's gone,
Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.

I think she means that there was more than one
Confederate in the fact: ay, more there was;
Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.

Lucius, I will.

Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?

What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?

Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.

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

Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favor'd fly,
Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.

Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.

At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly.

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

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

Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.

Now, farewell, flattery: die, Andronicus;
Thou dost not slumber: see, thy two sons' heads,
Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here:
Thy other banish'd 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 ...

Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless
As frozen water to a starved snake.

Now let hot AEtna cool in Sicily,
And be my heart an ever-burning 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.

But yet let reason govern thy lament.

O brother, speak with possibilities,
And do not break into these deep extremes.

But I will use the axe.

And, for our father's sake and mother's care,
Now let me show a brother's love to thee.

My hand shall go.

Which of your hands hath not defended Rome,
And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,
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 ...

Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.

Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;
Perchance because she knows them innocent.

O, thus I found her, straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer
That hath received some unrecuring wound.

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts
That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence,
Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,
Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung
Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!

This was thy daughter.

Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep;
Or, if not so, thy noble heart to break:
I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.

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

That, on mine honour, here I do protest.

My lord, to step out of these dreary dumps,
How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths
Is of a sudden thus advanced in Rome?