Please you, therefore, draw nigh, and take your places. Sat. Marcus, we will. [Hautboys. A Table brought in. Enter TITUS, like a Cook, placing the Meat on the Table, and LAVINIA, with a Veil over her Face. Tit. Welcome, my gracious lord; welcome, dread queen; Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius; And welcome, all: although the cheer be poor, 400 'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it. Sat. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus ? Tit. Because I would be sure to have all well, To entertain your highness, and your emperess. Tam. We are beholden to you, good Andronicus. Tit. An if your highness knew my heart, you were. My lord the emperor, resolve me this; To slay his daughter with his own right hand, Sat. It was, Andronicus, Tit. Your reason, mighty lord? 411 Sat. Because the girl should not survive her shame, And by her presence still renew his sorrows. Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee; [He kills her. Sat. What hast thou done, unnatural, and un kind? 420 Tit. Kill'd her, for whom my tears have made me blind. I am as woeful as Virginius was: And have a thousand times more cause than he To do this outrage ;-and it is now done, Sat. What, was she ravished? tell, who did the deed. Tit. Will't please you eat? will't please your highness feed? Tam. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus ? Tit. Not I; 'twas Chiron, and Demetrius : They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue, And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong. Sat. Go, fetch them hither to us presently. Tit. Why, there they are both, baked in that pye; Whereof their mother daintily hath fed, Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred. 431 'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point. [He stabs TAMORA. Sat. Die, frantick wretch, for this accursed deed. [He stabs TITUS. Luc. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed? There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed. LUCIUS stabs SATURNINUS. Mar. Mar. You sad fac'd men, people and sons of Rome, By uproar sever'd, like a flight of fowl , let me teach you how to knit again This scatter'd corn into one mutual sheaf, These broken limbs again into one body. Goth. Let Rome herself be bane unto herself; Mar. But if my frosty signs and chaps of age, Cannot induce you to attend my words,— Speak, Rome's dear friend; as erst our ancestor, 440 450 [To LUCIUS. When with his solemn tongue he did discourse, The story of that, baleful burning night, When subtle Greeks surpriz'd king Priam's Troy; That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.— My heart is not compact of flint, nor steel; Nor can I utter all our bitter grief, But floods of tears will drown my oratory,› And break my very utterance; even in the time Here is a captain, let him tell the tale; 460 Your Your hearts will throb and weep to hear him speak. 471 Were they that murdered our emperor's brother; Lastly, myself unkindly banished, The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out, To beg relief among Rome's enemies; Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears, And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend : 480 For when no friends are by, men praise themselves. child, Of this was Tamora delivered; The issue of an irreligious Moor, Chief architect and plotter of these woes; 491 The villain is alive in Titus' house, And And as he is, to witness this is true. Now judge, what cause had Titus to revenge Now you have heard the truth, what say you, Ro mans? Have we done aught amiss? Shew us wherein, And, from the place where you behold us now, 500 Will, hand in hand, all headlong cast us down, 510 Emil. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome, Mar. Lucius, all hail; Rome's royal emperor ! Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans; May I govern so, To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe! 520 But, gentle people, give me aim a while,— For nature puts me to a heavy task;— O, take |