We open with a monologue from Aaron the Moore. Dude is pretty sick and twisted but like the all the best Shakespeare villains he is smart, manipulative, and confident in his sexuality:
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, fetter'd in amorous chains
And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.
Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!
I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold,
To wait upon this new-made empress.
To wait, said I? to wanton with this queen,
Using wanton as a verb instead of an adjetive- brilliant. From the get go this character does not mess around. And he only gets more and more interesting as the play progresses. Aaron is really one of the reasons I can stick with this play instead of walking out and dismissing it as just a revenge tragedy (Though I will go on record and say that I find MOST revenge tragedies wildly interesting and at least a few characters I really love/feel intrigued by, etc. But you know what revenge tragedy I hated? Munich. I walked out of that film like 2 hours early. and I didn't even have my own ride home! Sometimes Titus feels a little like Munich to me, but then the language and some of the characters remind me it is SO. MUCH. BETTER.)
In come Tamora's living sons- Chiron and Demetrius and we find they are fighting over wanting Lavinia. We hear echoes of Richard III (I actually think you hear echoes of a lot of great plays in this one, images and phrases Shakespeare recycles later in his career and polishes a bit)
She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;
She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved.
Then Aaron nudges them a step further and suggests instead of fighting over Lavinia that they both work together to rape her:
AARON
Would you had hit it too!
Then should not we be tired with this ado.
Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools
To square for this? would it offend you, then
That both should speed?
CHIRON
Faith, not me.
DEMETRIUS
Nor me, so I were one.
AARON
For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar: '
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...
And strike her home by force, if not by words:
This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.
The boys think this is an excellent idea and start planning. The build up to this event is horrifying and so good at creating tension.
2.2
A very short scene establishing the wedding celebration/hunt that Titus referenced before. Titus greets everyone and an either sex-exhausted or else hung over Saturninus responds:
Many good morrows to your majesty;
Madam, to you as many and as good:
I promised your grace a hunter's peal.
SATURNINUS
And you have rung it lustily, my lord;
Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.
Demetrius closes out the scene with remounting the creepy sexual violence tension:
Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound, But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.
2.3
We start this scene with Aaron hiding a bag of gold and then getting ready to get it on with Tamora. There's a speech that reminds me of Theseus and Hippolyta in Midsummer:
Aaron, let us sit,
And, whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once,
Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise;
Shakespeare liked his dog images... (Someone write a book on Shakespeare's dogs. you know that would sell. or is there one already? I'm not bothering to look that up...)
Madam, though Venus govern your desires, Saturn is dominator over mine:
That sentence is awesome so I felt the need to highlight, now let's get into the details of the revenge set up:
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
Hark Tamora, the empress of my soul,
Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee,
This is the day of doom for Bassianus:
His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,
Thy sons make pillage of her chastity
And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.
Shortly thereafter Bassianus and Lavinia happen on the scene and catch Tamora in a compromising position with Aaron. There's some racism and slut shaming thrown about but what I think is notable is how BOLD Lavinia is, what a strong character she is, and how she is bold in talking about sexual things:
TAMORA
Saucy controller of our private steps!
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Actaeon's...
LAVINIA
Under your patience, gentle empress,
'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning;
And to be doubted that your Moor and you
Are singled forth to try experiments:
Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!
'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.
Tamora then gives a speech to Chiron and Demetrius weirdly making an excuse for why they should attack the newlyweds, as if others could hear her, when she could just sick them on Lavinia and Bassianus for no reason at all:
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life, Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.
And her children listen:
DEMETRIUS
This is a witness that I am thy son.
[Stabs BASSIANUS]
CHIRON
And this for me, struck home to show my strength.
[Also stabs BASSIANUS, who dies]
Based on those stage directions alone you get the difference between seeing this play and reading it. death death death!
Once they are done with Bassianus they go after Lavinia
CHIRON
An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.
Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,
And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.
TAMORA
But when ye have the honey ye desire,
Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.
WHOAH. did you READ THAT?! It doesn't get much darker than raping a girl on her husband's dead body. GEORGE RR MARTING AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON THAT SHIT. The red wedding looks like a fricken tea party compared to this.
Lavinia then begs for pity and Tamor proves herself what I think to be the worst villain in shakespeare
LAVINIA
The lion moved with pity did endure
To have his princely paws pared all away:
Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests:
O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,
Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!
TAMORA
I know not what it means; away with her!
LAVINIA
O, let me teach thee! for my father's sake,
That gave thee life, when well he might have slain thee,
Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.
TAMORA
Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me, Even for his sake am I pitiless...
Therefore, away with her, and use her as you will,
The worse to her, the better loved of me.
THE WORST. Aside from maybe killing children. What kind of woman lets another woman be sexually assaulted and mutilated, and takes it as a sign of love from her children?! sick sick sick. Lavinia again begs for mercy:
LAVINIA
'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more
That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:
O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,
And tumble me into some loathsome pit,
Where never man's eye may behold my body:
Do this, and be a charitable murderer.
TAMORA
So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee:
No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.
Lavinia sees there's really no hope but she at least goes down with a fight
LAVINIA
No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature!
The blot and enemy to our general name!
Confusion fall--
CHIRON
Nay, then I'll stop your mouth.
Creepy town that we see the beginning of the struggle onstage instead of her running and their chasing her off. As an audience member, don't you feel a LITTLE complicit that you didn't get up and stop the action? Then there's a whole bit about some of Titus' other countless sons falling into a pit and they are going to blame the murder on them. Saturninus enters and they have an easy time tricking him into believing their version of the story:
TAMORA
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.
[She giveth SATURNINUS a letter]
SATURNINUS [Reads]
'An if we miss to meet him handsomely-- Sweet huntsman, Bassianus 'tis we mean-- Do thou so much as dig the grave for him: Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward Among the nettles at the elder-tree
Aaron reveals the gold he buried at the beginning of the scene, and Tamora shows herself a part that is really hard for actresses because the writing is so painfully over the top here that if you don't have a director willing to play it for absurd comedy you are screwed:
What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing! How easily murder is discovered!
And then we get to what I think is the most horrifying scene of all
2.4
There's really nothing much to say about the most terrifying stage direction I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of them. I kind of have a love affair with Alan Dessen's Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama)
[Enter DEMETRIUS and CHIRON with LAVINIA, ravished; her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out]
What's worse is Chiron and Demetrius continue to mock poor Lavinia:
CHIRON
Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.
DEMETRIUS
She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;
And so let's leave her to her silent walks.
CHIRON
An 'twere my case, I should go hang myself.
DEMETRIUS
If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.
This is where I am always so close to walking out of the play. Why I thought I could never like Titus again. And then my would-be big brother Zac put it this way- Shakespeare makes you look at the horrors of rape in a way that could maybe bring some good. Yes, not every rape or sexual assault in our culture leads to the victim looking like something out of a Tim Burton movie:
If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
That I may slumber in eternal sleep!
It's amazing that the most BEAUTIFUL and gut wrenching language in the show is related to Lavinia. This scene is also a good lesson in implied stage direction:
Why dost not speak to me?
Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,
Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,
...
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,
Y'all, Marcus goes through so many stages of grief in this one speech, so if you are looking for a really stunning new monologue, this can show off an incredible range when done well. dibelief, horror, anger, despair, and an incredible amount of love
O, that I knew thy heart; and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him, to ease my mind!
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,
Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
And this is why Titus is an important play for me- because I have that same reaction. The desire to just scream at the people who do this, to never forgive them and come up with some marvelous vengeance, and this play shows- WHAT DOES THAT DO?! Does it bring back lavinia's hands or tongue or unscarred emotional life?! We'll talk about this more as the play progresses:
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like aspen-leaves, upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
He would not then have touch'd them for his life!
Or, had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
SEE WHAT I MEAN?! It's beautiful. But not as beautiful as the part that comes after:
Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee
O, could our mourning ease thy misery!
I would that more people would mourn with the victims of sexual violence instead of shaming them, not believing them, or awkwardly leaving them alone because they don't want to deal with the trauma. Because while mourning does not erase the misery, i believe it DOES ease it, even if just a fraction of a little bit. And that is why this speech is my favorite part of the play.
And now A SPECIAL REQUEST:
Want to help people who have survived sexual violence, or just help prevent it in the first place?! Check out THIS INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN and help RAINN make a difference. Personally, I think every production of titus should donate to some kind of organization like RAINN or else a violence prevention place or SOMETHING. Make it happen. Art+ Social Justice = My life mission!
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