SCENE II. A room in Titus's house. A banquet set out. Titus Andronicus  Shakespeare homepage  |  Titus Andronicus  | Act 3, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. A room in Titus's house. A banquet set out. 

 Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA and Young LUCIUS, a boy  TITUS ANDRONICUS  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 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, 

 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. 

 MARCUS ANDRONICUS  Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay 

 Such violent hands upon her tender life. 

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  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 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. 

 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, mesh'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 practise learn to know thy meaning. 

 Young LUCIUS  Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments: 

 Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale. 

 MARCUS ANDRONICUS  Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved, 

 Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness. 

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  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? 

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

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  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. 

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

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  But how, if that fly had a father and 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. 

 MARCUS ANDRONICUS  Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favor'd fly, 

 Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him. 

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  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. 

 MARCUS ANDRONICUS  Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him, 

 He takes false shadows for true substances. 

 TITUS ANDRONICUS  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 begin to dazzle. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Titus Andronicus  | Act 3, Scene 2 

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