We start act 5 with Lucius riling up the Goths and the Goths seem happy to have him.
Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus, Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort;
and all the goths agree (this is a scene where I feel like a huge ensemble can be so powerful instead of having 2-3 goths) because there's something amazing about hearing a true chorus of people say:
And as he saith, so say we all with him.
Then in comes another Goth who has discovered Aaron and Aaron's baby. WE find out that it is the baby who gave him away, and Aaron sticks to his earlier declarations. He won't speak until his child is threatened:
LUCIUS
Say, wall-eyed slave, whither wouldst thou convey This growing image of thy fiend-like face? Why dost not speak? what, deaf? not a word? A halter, soldiers! hang him on this tree. And by his side his fruit of bastardy. AARON
Touch not the boy; he is of royal blood.
He is so fierce about his son. it never ceases to amaze me.
AARON
Lucius, save the child,
And bear it from me to the empress.
If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things,
That highly may advantage thee to hear:
If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,
I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'
LUCIUS
Say on: an if it please me which thou speak'st Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.
and what comes next is so full of the philosophical debate Shakespeare approaches with religion over and over again, what will and will not guide our choices and whether we should be grateful for or frustrated with our consciences:
LUCIUS
Who should I swear by? thou believest no god:
That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?
AARON
What if I do not? as, indeed, I do not; Yet, for I know thou art religious And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
Then Aaron has a long speech about all the terrible things he's done, i'll just give you a highlight of the act I find most disturbing:
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, And set them upright at their dear friends' doors, Even when their sorrows almost were forgot; And on their skins, as on the bark of trees, Have with my knife carved in Roman letters, 'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.' Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things As willingly as one would kill a fly,
and Lucius decides to wait and not hang Aaron but to bring him into Rome with his Goth army and dispatch with him later.
5.2
This is the one scene where I just wonder how to reconcile act 5 Tamora with Tamora the rest of the play. It's like all the brains she used earlier just disappeared, and the plot seems stretched so thin in this scene it's painful.It makes me wonder what Shakespeare would have done with it if he'd written this play later in his career... or if he just doesn't care about this clunky bridge because 5.3 moves so fast and ruthlessly most audience members will forgive this scene in practice... but still it's ROUGH on the actress playing Tamora.
Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
I will encounter with Andronicus,
And say I am Revenge, sent from below
To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
So after tamora comes up with this brilliant plan she refuses to swerve from it...
TAMORA
If thou didst know me, thou wouldest talk with me.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
I am not mad; I know thee well enough:
Titus is telling her the truth! and whether this is an aside or not, Tamora should really start worrying after Titus tels her this:
Do me some service, ere I come to thee. Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands; Now give me some surance that thou art Revenge, Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot-wheels;
Tamora tries to justify not stabbing her poorly disguised sons by saying they are Revenge's helpers. She is just SO overly confident that Titus is totally crazy town and has not one of his wits left to him:
This closing with him fits his lunacy Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits, Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
And perhaps the first time she starts to sense something could go wrong is here:
TAMORA
Now will I hence about thy business,
And take my ministers along with me.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me; Or else I'll call my brother back again, And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
And whether it's because she buys Titus' crazy again or she knows she's being blackmailed and needs more time to scheme a way to save herself and her sons, she talks with Chiron and Demetrius about this option and they agree to stay with Titus. and then Titus has this line to the audience that just rings of lines in later palys:
I know them all, though they suppose me mad, And will o'erreach them in their own devices: A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam!
This just makes me think of Hal saying "I know you all" followed by Hamlet's supposed madness followed by one of my favorite lines from Macbeth, "Turn, hell hound, turn" I love the traces of language and poetry to come again. all the echoes throughout the canon.
So of course, once Tamora is gone, Titus lets loose and Chiron and Demetrius know the game is up. Titus takes great pains to tell Chiron and Demetrius what he's going to do with them:
Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound. Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me; But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.
This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
Whilst that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
The basin that receives your guilty blood.
You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:
Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust
And with your blood and it I'll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
So yes, long before sweeney todd, baking people into pies was a thing. and speaking of other stories who use this plot point....
Any of you who have seen the Southpark Episode Scott Tenorman Must Die probably recognized this plot point. I remember a friend of mine, David, expected me to be utterly horrified by the end of the episode and was a bit disappointed when my only reaction was yeah.... Shakespeare already did that... here's how I imagine Titus wishes he would have reacted before what goes down next with Tamora:
but let's get to that finale right now:
the scene begins with all the major players left assembling at Titus' house- including Lucius and his Goths- who hide Aaron inside the house, and Saturninus and Tamora. Next comes another goldmine of a stage direction
[Enter TITUS dressed like a Cook, LAVINIA veiled, Young LUCIUS, and others. TITUS places the dishes on the table]
How can you not start to giggle when the specific direction is that Titus has dressed up as a crazy chef to serve Tamora her sons?! SERIOUSLY!
OK, here's the bit that makes me super uncomfortable with this play/ why I wasn't sure I could like it again:
TITUS ANDRONICUS
An if your highness knew my heart, you were.
My lord the emperor, resolve me this:
Was it well done of rash Virginius
To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
Because she was enforced, stain'd, and deflower'd?
SATURNINUS
It was, Andronicus. TITUS ANDRONICUS
Your reason, mighty lord?
SATURNINUS
Because the girl should not survive her shame, And by her presence still renew his sorrows.
The attitude that we should kill all the raped girl because they should not outlive their shame (THEIR shame for an act THEY didn't do = problem #1, strike that, make KILLING THEM problem #1 and that other problem problem #2) seriously. and it's an attitude i think is still all too common in the world today and it's upsetting and depressing and all sorts of things, but maybe that's why we need to have this here, so that we can see Lavinia in an extreme situation, and still get to talk afterward about how we feel that Titus kills her, kills her in front of everyone with Saturninus' justification. When he's asked why he did this his crazy town awesome response is:
Will't please you eat? will't please your highness feed?
and then he reveals why he was obsessed with everyone eating, and after that, things happen in rapid succession
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point.
[Kills TAMORA]
SATURNINUS
Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!
[Kills TITUS]
LUCIUS
Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?
There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed!
[Kills SATURNINUS. A great tumult.]To quote anchor man:
Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn of us
yes, learn of all the vengeance and tears young one. be like the other men in this story, seeing as there are NO FEMALES LEFT in the play (we'll come to this again in Timon, shakespeare seems to paint a pretty bleak picture when we get to worlds without women...) and then we get back to Aaron's punishment since Lucius promised him a death worse than hanging:
Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food;
If any one relieves or pities him,
For the offence he dies. This is our doom:
Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth.
and as for Tamora:
No funeral rite, nor man m mourning weeds, No mournful bell shall ring her burial; But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey: Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity; And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
then the last line of the play is this little couplet desperately trying to cling to what's left of society:
Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.
The big staging question in this scene (you know, aside from all that fight choreography that just happened) is what to do with Aaron's baby. THere's no specific mention other than it is referenced someone has it in their arms at some point. Do you ignore it and focus on Lucius at the end? Does young Lucius bash it's little head in to re-start the cycle of violence? Do they look like they might actually forgive and be kind to this baby? I think what you do with this baby has a huge impact on how you read the ending of this play, and i'm not the only one.
Next up: I've gone a bit out of order again and realized that the two new plays I did for my undergrad shakespeare acting class should have come before this one, but that's ok we'll do them next. So get ready for Othello! You better believe I'll have a good deal to say about Paula Vogel's Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief as well!!
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