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'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.

SATURNINUS.

Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?

TITUS.

Because I would be sure to have all well

To entertain your Highness and your Empress.

TAMORA.

We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.

TITUS.

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 enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?

SATURNINUS.

It was, Andronicus.

TITUS.

Your reason, mighty lord.

SATURNINUS.

Because the girl should not survive her shame,

And by her presence still renew his sorrows.

TITUS.

A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;

A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant

For me, most wretched, to perform the like.

Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee; [He kills her]

And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!

SATURNINUS.

What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?

TITUS.

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 now is done.

SATURNINUS.

What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.

TITUS.

Will't please you eat? Will't please your Highness feed?

TAMORA.

Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?

TITUS.

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.

SATURNINUS.

Go, fetch them hither to us presently.

TITUS.

Why, there they are, both baked in this 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.

[He stabs the EMPRESS]

SATURNINUS.

Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!

[He stabs TITUS]

LUCIUS.

Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?

There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.

[He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,

MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]

MARCUS.

You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,

By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl

Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?

O, let me teach you how to knit again

This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,

These broken limbs again into one body;

Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,

And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,

Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,

Do shameful execution on herself.

But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,

Grave witnesses of true experience,

Cannot induce you to attend my words,

[To Lucius] Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,

When with his solemn tongue he did discourse

To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear

The story of that baleful burning night,

When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.

Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,

Or who hath brought the fatal engine in

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 utt'rance, even in the time

When it should move ye to attend me most,

And force you to commiseration.

Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;

While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.

LUCIUS.

Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you

That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius

Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;

And they it were that ravished our sister.

For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,

Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd

Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out

And sent her enemies unto the grave.

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.

I am the turned forth, be it known to you,

That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood

And from her bosom took the enemy's point,

Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.

Alas!