This act continues to focus on the next generation with Young Lucius spurring the action:
Young LUCIUS
Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia
Follows me every where, I know not why:
Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes.
Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
It strikes me how over and over on this read through that there is a whole lot of love expressed about/toward/from Lavinia. This scene of course is when Lavinia finally gets to express what has happened to her:
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
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.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?
Young LUCIUS
Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;
OK, confession, I have never read Ovid's Metamorphoses... and I feel guilty about that because it comes up over and over again in early modern works. Don't worry, it's going on my list... it will be strange because I'm familiar with so many of the components but should really read the whole thing...
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Lavinia, wert thou thus surprised, sweet girl,
Ravish'd and wrong'd, as Philomela was,
Forced in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods? See, see!
Ay, such a place there is, where we did hunt--
O, had we never, never hunted there!--
Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,
By nature made for murders and for rapes.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
O, why should nature build so foul a den, Unless the gods delight in tragedies?
I love that they curse the woods, blame the place. I get that. Also note the comparison to Philomel and look back at my Midsummer post when I said it was a WEIRD thing to sing about in a lullabye...
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 of any hand at all.
[He writes his name with his staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]
Cursed be that heart that forced us to this shift!
Write thou good niece; and here display, at last,
What God will have discover'd for revenge;
Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,
That we may know the traitors and the truth!
OK, this is where Shakespeare's weird manipulation of time throughout his plays makes you go.. wait, huh? how long has it been between scenes?! Have months passed and it took Marcus (and everyone else) THAT LONG to realize Lavinia could write with a stick in the ground? (Or with her feet for that matter, right?) Or is this only a few days after and they needed that time for the shock to wear off? Think on that and let's come back to the time conundrum next scene...
My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;
And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;
And swear with me, as, with the woful fere
And father of that chaste dishonour'd dame,
Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape,
That we will prosecute by good advice
Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
And see their blood, or die with this reproach.
And so we're back to revenge as god and the indoctrination of the next generation into this religion of revenge is complete:
Young LUCIUS
I say, my lord, that if I were a man,
Their mother's bed-chamber should not be safe
For these bad bondmen to the yoke of Rome.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Ay, that's my boy! thy father hath full oft
For his ungrateful country done the like.
Young LUCIUS
And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.
The scene ends with Marcus appealing to the gods:
O heavens, can you hear a good man groan, And not relent, or not compassion him?
4.2
We go from Titus' family to Tamora's family. Chiron and Demetrius receive a little gift with a note- a note in Latin no less.
DEMETRIUS
What's here? A scroll; and written round about?
Let's see;
[Reads]
'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.'
CHIRON
O, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
I read it in the grammar long ago.
AARON
Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.
[Aside]
Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
Here's no sound jest! the old man hath found their guilt;
And sends them weapons wrapped about with lines,
There's always something fun about watching some characters who are rather dim right next to characters who are quite brilliant. And then this happens:
[Enter a Nurse, with a blackamoor Child in her arms]
Oh snap, It seems that Tamora has had a baby. and it's black! So there are a ton of components to this- 1. our discussion of time. Tamora has either needed apx. 9 months to have a baby OR she was already pregnant when Saturninus decided she was hot and wanted to wed her. but that brings up another issue- the rest of the scene hinges on the emperor needing to think the child is his instead of Aaron's. Which brings up another issue- this is a ROYAL BABY!!! so imagine the scandal, think about all the hubbub around the new royal baby this past week:
Now imagine them appearing for that picture with a black baby.... awkward times! Even the super stupid Chiron and Demetrius can put that together:
DEMETRIUS
Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON
That which thou canst not undo.
CHIRON
Thou hast undone our mother.
AARON
Villain, I have done thy mother.
BEST/one of the oldest YOUR MOM moments EVER!!!! right?! But what's even more amazing is that Aaron the "villain" of the play finds his moral non negotiable- when Chiron and Demetrius try to fulfill Tamora's wish about killing the baby, Aaron stops them:
Stay, murderous villains! will you kill your brother?
Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,
That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point
That touches this my first-born son and heir!
This incredible, beautiful fatherly instinct is one of the most compelling pieces of this play. When they question his disobeying Tamora his reply is:
My mistress is my mistress; this myself,
The vigour and the picture of my youth:
This before all the world do I prefer;
This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
Again, family vs. country vs. love would be an excellent essay topic for a teacher to assign on this play... Then Aaron goes about to do PR control. He asks the midwife who saw the baby-
AARON
The empress, the midwife, and yourself:
Two may keep counsel when the third's away:
Go to the empress, tell her this I said.
[He kills the nurse]
Weke, weke! so cries a pig prepared to the spit.c
And so the doting father then turns and kills a woman and makes fun of the noise she makes when she dies. With Aaron you never know what's coming next.
4.3
A very strange scene highlighting Titus' madness as well as things that are a pain in the ass for a theatre to stage:
Sir boy, now let me see your archery;
Yes, they shoot bows and arrows during this scene and it's definitely in the text/would be weird if you didn't do that. I hope you have actors who can aim because nothing looks worse than prop arrows bouncing off scenery...
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Publius, how now! how now, my masters!
What, have you met with her?
PUBLIUS
No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,
If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall:
Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,
He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,
So that perforce you must needs stay a time.
So everyone is playing along with Titus' crazy town, when in comes a clown:
[Enter a Clown, with a basket, and two pigeons in it]
TITUS ANDRONICUS
But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?
Clown
Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all my life.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?
Clown
Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.
Poor clown, you absurd delightful little thing, interacting with Titus can bring NO GOOD to you!!!
4.4
In the palace of Saturninus, where Titus and co. have been shooting arrows, Saturninus is not pleased:
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!
What's this but libelling against the senate,
And blazoning our injustice every where?
A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?
As who would say, in Rome no justice were.
But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
Shall be no shelter to these outrages:
And in comes our poor clown who has no idea what he's in for and leads us in with a lovely anachronistic phrase:
Clown
'Tis he. God and Saint Stephen give you good e'en: I have brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.
[SATURNINUS reads the letter]
SATURNINUS
Go, take him away, and hang him presently.
Cue sound: WHA WHA. poor clown. but seriously, we meet this character for such a short time and Saturninus is so cray cray you can't help but laugh at this moment.. then we get this lovely message:
Arm, arm, my lord;--Rome never had more cause.
The Goths have gather'd head; and with a power
high-resolved men, bent to the spoil,
They hither march amain, under conduct
Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
Who threats, in course of this revenge, to do
As much as ever Coriolanus did.
Alright! now it's a national issue of war again. Not to mention I am looking forward to talking about Coriolanus as we reach the end of my experience with the canon... so Tamora comes up with this wacktastic plan:
Go thou before, be our ambassador:
Say that the emperor requests a parley
Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting
Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.
This doesn't seem like the smartest idea but it comes from Tamora so we'll give her the benefit of the doubt for now...
Now will I to that old Andronicus;
And temper him with all the art I have,
To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.
And now, sweet emperor, be blithe again,
And bury all thy fear in my devices.
And that's how we'll leave the blog today. hopefully tomorrow we'll get to the twistastic ending. In the meantime, just another reminder that if you live in Phoenix you should check out the Brelby production of Midsummer! We opened last night to a sold out house and had great reactions!
Tickets: brelby.showclix.com
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