Текст книги "Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1"

Автор книги: Isaac Asimov

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13. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

Of the four plays and one narrative history which are set in Rome, Titus Andronicus is the only one that does not deal with accepted Roman history or legend. It is utter fiction. Not one character in it, not one event, is to be found in history.

What's more, Titus Andronicus is the bloodiest and most gruesome of Shakespeare's plays, and the one in which the horror seems present entirely for the sake of horror.

Indeed, Titus Andronicus is so unpleasant a play that most critics would be delighted to be able to believe it was not written by Shakespeare. They cannot do so, however. There are contemporary references to Titus Andronicus as a Shakespearean tragedy, which also place the time of its writing at about 1593. It is an early play but by no means the earliest, and Shakespeare could surely have done better than Titus Andronicus by this time.

Apparently, what Shakespeare was doing was experimenting with Sene-can tragedy (see page I-270). These blood-and-thunder plays written about horrible crimes and horrible revenges were immensely popular in Elizabethan tunes. Thomas Kyd, for instance, had written such a drama, The Spanish Tragedy, shortly before Shakespeare had begun his dramatic career, and had scored an immense success.

Shakespeare had no objection to success and was perfectly willing to adjust himself to popular taste. In Titus Andronicus he therefore gave full vent to blood, cruelty, disaster, and revenge. Indeed, he went so far that one can almost wonder if he weren't deliberately pushing matters to the limit in order to express his disgust of the whole genre.

 
… the imperial diadem of Rome
 

The play opens in Rome, with the Romans in the process of selecting a new Emperor.

The two candidates for the throne are the two sons of the old Emperor; Saturninus, the older, and Bassianus, the younger. Both are clamoring for acceptance by the people. Saturninus stresses the fact that he is the elder:

 
/ am his first-born son that was the last
That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;
Then let my father's honors live in me.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 5-7

The younger son, with a lesser claim, is forced to be more emotional. He begins:

 
// ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,
Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 10-11

Who the Emperor was who was "the last that ware the imperial diadem of Rome" is never stated.

To be sure, Bassianus calls himself "Caesar's son," but this is not a reference to Julius Caesar (see page I-253) or Octavius Caesar (see page I-292). All Roman emperors were called "Caesar," for that was one of the royal titles (see page I-390).

In fact, the identity of the just-dead Roman Emperor couldn't possibly be determined, for the entire play is a weird amalgamation of different periods of Roman history. There is a panoply of senators, tribunes, and common Romans on stage, as though it were of the stern period of the Roman Republic, as in Coriolanus. On the other hand, we have emperors, of a later period, and barbarian invaders of a still later period.

The names of the sons have some points of interest. The only important Saturninus in real Roman history was a radical politician who was killed about 100 b.c. in the years when the Roman Republic began the public disorders that were eventually to kill it. As for Bassianus, the name of the younger son, that is to be found among the names of three of the emperors of the dynasty of Septimius Severus, who ruled in the early third century.

The elder son of Septimius Severus was Bassianus. He succeeded on his father's death in 211. Bassianus did not rule under that name but was universally called "Caracalla," a nickname derived from the long cloak (caracalla) he habitually wore.

Bassianus had a younger brother, Geta, who was supposed to have inherited the emperorship along with him. The two brothers were deadly enemies, however, and by 212 Bassianus had killed Geta under particularly cruel circumstances.

Thus, the competition between Saturninus and Bassianus in the play seems to reflect, faintly, the competition between Bassianus and Geta in history.

In one respect, in fact, the time of Caracalla might be thought to be the latest period in which the play could be set, for it treats of a thoroughly pagan Rome. There is no sign of Christianity in the play, yet after Cara-calla's time, the growth of Christianity would have made the new religion impossible to ignore.

There are, however, other aspects of the play that make the time of Caracalla far too early.

As it happens, there is in existence a tale called The Tragical History of Titus Andronicus, of which the only known copy was published about a century and a half after Shakespeare's play was written. That copy may, however, be a reprint and the original may have appeared early enough to serve as Shakespeare's source.

In the booklet the time is set in the reign of Theodosius, by whom is probably meant the most famous Emperor of that name, Theodosius I. He ruled from 379 to 395, nearly two centuries after Caracalla.

When Theodosius died, he left behind two sons, but these, unlike the sons of Septimius Severus (or those in the play), did not compete for the throne. They inherited the co-emperorship in peace, with the elder, Arcadius, ruling the Eastern half from Constantinople, and the younger, Honorius, ruling the Western half from Rome.

To be sure, by the time Theodosius was Emperor, Rome was thoroughly Christian and Theodosius himself was particularly pious in this respect, so that the paganism of the play would then become an anachronism. (On the other hand, considering the horrible events that take place in it, the existence of Christianity would be embarrassing.)

 
… surnamed Pius
 

It turns out that there are factions in Rome who want neither son of the old Emperor, but who turn instead to a valiant general. The announcement is made by Marcus Andronicus the tribune, who happens to be a brother of that general. He says:

 
Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand
A special party, have by common voice,
Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius
For many good and great deserts to Rome.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 20-23

Andronicus is the Titus Andronicus of the tide. The surname of "Pius" was sometimes used in Roman history to indicate a man who was devout and who honored his parents and his gods. The most famous case of such a usage is that of Emperor Antoninus Pius, who reigned from 138 to 161 and whose reign saw the Roman Empire at its most peaceful.

 
… the barbarous Goths
 

The special claim of Titus Andronicus to the gratitude of Rome lay in the wars he had been fighting. Marcus says:

 
He by the senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 27-28

Furthermore, the war has been going on a long time, as Marcus further explains:

 
Ten years are spent since first he undertook
This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms
Our enemies' pride:
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 31-33

The Goths were a group of Germanic tribes who began raiding the Roman Empire about the middle of the third century, not long after the time of Caracalla. They were badly defeated in 269 by the Roman Emperor Claudius II, who called himself Claudius Gothicus in consequence, but who died the year after.

The Gothic menace lightened for a century thereafter. In 375, however, a group of these Goths (of tribes known as Visigoths) were driven into the Roman Empire by the Huns. Within the border of the Empire, they defeated the Romans in a great battle at Adrianople in 378. Theodosius, whom we have mentioned earlier, then ascended the Roman throne and managed to contain the Gothic menace by diplomacy and judicious bribery, rather than by military victories.

After Theodosius' death, the Visigoths raided Italy and took Rome itself in 410. They were not defeated at this tune but wandered out of Italy of their own accord and finally set up a kingdom in southern France that eventually expanded into and over all Spam. In 489 another branch of the Gothic nation, the Ostrogoths, invaded Italy and set up a kingdom there.

Up to this point, there isn't much hope of finding any Roman that can serve as an inspiration for Titus Andronicus. Nowhere is there a general who fought long wars against the Goths and won. We must look still later in time.

In the prose story The Tragical History of Titus Andronicus, the Goths are said to have invaded Italy under their king "Tottilius."

Actually there was a king of the Ostrogoths, of nearly that name, who fought in Italy. He was Totila, who ruled from 541 to 552.

Here is what happened. Although the Germanic tribes had settled the Western provinces of the Roman Empire, the Eastern provinces remained intact and were ruled from Constantinople. In 527 Justinian became Roman Emperor in Constantinople and was determined to reconquer the West. In 535 he sent his great general, Belisarius, to Italy, and with that began a twenty-year (not a mere ten-year) war of Roman and Goth, in which the Romans were eventually victorious.

Belisarius won initial victories, but the Goths rallied when Totila became king. Belisarius was recalled and replaced with another general, Narses (a eunuch, the only one of importance in military history), who finally defeated Totila in 552 and completed the conquest of Italy in 556. In the Tragical History Titus Andronicus was a governor of Greece and came from Greece to rescue Italy, and that fits too.

Again, the name "Andronicus" is best known in history as that of several emperors who ruled in Constantinople, so that the very name of Titus Andronicus focuses our attention on the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Finally, both Belisarius and Narses were ill requited by ungrateful emperors, and the tale of Titus Andronicus tells how the general of the title is ill requited by an ungrateful Emperor.

We can suppose then that Titus Andronicus was inspired by the events of the tune of Belisarius and Narses, but none of the events in the play actually match the events in history.

 
Half of the number.. .
 

The two royal brothers retire before the awesome name of the victorious general.

In comes Titus Andronicus with a coffin and draws sad attention to his family's sufferings in the wars:

 
… of five and twenty valiant sons,
Half of the number that King Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 79-81

Priam is, of course, the King of Troy (see page I-79) whom legend credited with fifty sons. Of Titus' twenty-five sons, no less than twenty have died in the course of the ten-year war with the Goths. The twenty-first is brought back dead in his coffin from the latest battle, while the last four living sons attend it sorrowfully.

Also with them are Tamora, the captured Queen of the Goths, and her three sons.

 
… the dreadful shore of Styx
 

Andronicus' first care is to bury the dead son with due pagan rites. He reproaches himself for being so slow to do it:

 
Titus, unkind and careless of thine own,
Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 86-88

The Styx is the river that marks the boundary of Hades. The shades of dead men cannot cross that river till they have been buried with the proper ritual, and must till then hover disconsolately on its shore.

 
… Scythia…
 

Andronicus' sons demand that a human sacrifice be dedicated on the occasion of the funeral of their dead brother so that his soul may rest in peace. (An example of why the play cannot be placed in a Christian setting.)

Titus Andronicus orders Alarbus, the oldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, to be so sacrificed. Tamora pleads against it in a speech that can't help but appeal to us, but the stern Titus insists, not out of cruelty but out of what he conceives to be religious devotion.

Chiron, Tamora's youngest son, cries out:

 
Was never Scythia half so barbarous.
 

—Act I, scene i, line 131

When Greece was at its height, the Scythians were a nomadic people who lived on the plains north of the Black Sea. The Greeks knew little about them, but knew the area they inhabited to be tremendous and their numbers large. They were for some reason considered the epitome of bar-barousness by the Greeks, and their name, so maligned, has been used in that fashion ever since.

 
… the Thracian tyrant.. .
 

Tamora's remaining son, Demetrius, sounds a darker note:

 
The selfsame gods that armed the Queen of Troy
With opportunity of sharp revenge
Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent
May favor Tamora, the Queen of Goths,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 136-39

The Trojan Queen is Hecuba (see page I-85), who had sent her youngest son, Polydorus, for safekeeping to the court of the Thracian king, Polymnestor. After the fall of Troy, when all of Hecuba's other children were killed (save Helenus), Polymnestor was persuaded by the Greeks to kill Polydorus too.

Hecuba discovered this and persuaded Polymnestor to visit destroyed Troy by promising to reveal to him a treasure in its ruins. He came to Troy with his two sons and, according to the tale, Hecuba in a fit of despairing fury managed to stab his two sons to death and tear out Polymnestor's eyes.

Nevertheless, the sacrifice takes place and Lucius, the oldest of Titus' remaining sons, announces the result in triumphant goriness:

 
Alarbus' limbs are lopped,
And entrails feed the sacrificing fires,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 143-44

With that, the tale of double revenge begins-first Tamora's and then Titus'. And Demetrius' allusion to Hecuba indicates the crude and brutal bloodiness of what is ahead.

 
… to Solan's happiness
 

Titus' twenty-first son is thus buried and his brother, Marcus, points out (prophetically) that it is safer to be dead:

 
… safer triumph is this funeral pomp,
That hath aspired to Salon's happiness.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 176-77

This refers to the tale (probably apocryphal) of the visit of the great Athenian lawgiver, Solon, to the Asia Minor kingdom of Lydia. The rich king of Lydia, Croesus, displayed his treasures to Solon and then asked the Greek if this was not happiness indeed. Solon replied, sternly, "Call no man happy till he is dead." In other words, while there is life there is the possibility of disaster.

Of course, the disasters come. Croesus is defeated by Cyrus the Persian, his country is taken away, his throne is lost, and he himself is placed at the stake to be burned to death. Then he remembers Solon's remark and calls out the Athenian's name. The curious Cyrus asks the details and, on hearing the story, spares Croesus' life.

 
… the sacred Pantheon.. .
 

The throne is offered Titus Andronicus, who refuses it on the ground that he is too old. The sons of the old Emperor now show signs of breaking into rivalry again, but Andronicus ends it by speaking for Saturninus, the elder. He calls him:

 
Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,
Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on Earth,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 225-26

Titan is, of course, one of the names for the sun (see page I-11). Saturninus is promptly crowned and as promptly shows his gratitude:

 
Titus, to advance Thy name and honorable family,
Lavinia will I make my empress.
Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,
And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 238-42

Lavinia is Titus' daughter, noble and virtuous. Her name recalls a Lavinia of Roman legend, the daughter of Latinus, who was king of that region in Italy where Rome was later to be founded. The Trojan hero Aeneas, coming to Italy from fallen Troy (see page I-20), married Lavinia and founded the city of Lavinium, named in her honor. Lavinium was the parent city of Alba Longa and that, in turn, was the parent city of Rome.

A pantheon ("all gods") is any building dedicated to the gods generally. The Pantheon is in Rome, a structure first built under the sponsorship of Agrippa (see page I-340), the general and son-in-law of Octavius Caesar, in 27 b.c. It was rebuilt in its present form about a.d. 120 by the Emperor Hadrian. It is the one Roman building that remains in perfect preservation and it is still a place of worship, having been consecrated a Christian church in 609. In the time of Belisarius, then, it was in its last century as a pagan temple (though by that time there were virtually no pagans left in Italy).

 
… the stately Phoebe. ..
 

All seems well and then, with the suddenness of a summer thunderstorm, everything falls apart.

Bassianus, the new Emperor's younger brother, sets up a cry that Lavinia is his and begins to carry her away. Lavinia's four brothers are on Bassianus' side in this-apparently there is a recognized betrothal here, although no hint of that was given earlier-and so is Lavinia's uncle, Marcus.

Only Titus Andronicus stands out against them in rigid observance of his honor, for he has formally given Lavinia to Saturninus.

Titus dashes after his sons and kills Mutius, one of them. This is the twenty-second son of Titus to die.

Saturninus, however, orders Andronicus to make no further attempt to get Lavinia back. He has suddenly fallen in love with Tamora anyway and prefers to have the Gothic Queen as his wife. He describes her as:

 
… lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,
That like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs
Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 316-18

This comparison to Phoebe (see page I-12), goddess of the moon (with alternate names like Selene, Diana, and Artemis), seems odd. Tamora is no young maid who might aptly be compared to the virginal goddess, but is the widowed mother of three grown sons.

Nevertheless, Saturninus prepares to marry her at once:

 
Sith priest and holy water are so near,
And tapers burn so bright and everything
In readiness for Hymenaeus stand,
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 324-26

Hymenaeus is a longer form of Hymen, god of marriage (see page I-55).

 
… wise Laertes' son
 

Titus Andronicus, defied by his family and snubbed by the Emperor who owes him everything, suddenly finds himself alone and dishonored, only minutes after he had been offered the imperial crown itself.

Yet Titus sticks to honor. He is even unwilling to have his dead son buried in the family tomb because he died opposing Titus' conception of proper obedience to the Emperor. Marcus, however, argues:

 
The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax
That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son
Did graciously plead for his funerals:
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 380-82

Ajax and Ulysses contended for the armor of Achilles after the latter's death (see page I-110). When Ulysses received the award, Ajax went mad and killed himself. Marcus points out that the Greeks, despite the dishonor of Ajax's last deeds, his madness and suicide, finally decided to give him honorable burial in view of the greatness of his earlier deeds. Ulysses himself (who is "Laertes' son") argued in favor of that.

Given this precedent, Titus allows the burial of his twenty-second son.

Other reconciliations are also made. Tamora, the new Empress, plays the role of peacemaker, reconciling the Emperor Saturninus with his younger brother, Bassianus (now married to Lavinia), and with his general, Titus Andronicus. (Nevertheless, she promises her new husband, in an aside, to take proper revenge on them all in due time.)

Titus Andronicus accepts the new peace and suggests a great hunt for the next day.

 
… Prometheus tied to Caucasus
 

All now leave the stage after the single action-packed scene of the first act, and one person alone remains to begin the second act, a person who has been on stage most of the first act but who till now has not spoken a single line. It is Aaron the Moor. Behind his existence is some complicated background.

The ancient Greeks could not help but notice that the inhabitants of the southern shores of the Mediterranean were somewhat darker in complexion than they themselves were. There would be a tendency to call the inhabitants of northern Africa "the dark ones."

The Greek word for "dark" is mauros, and this name came to be applied to north Africans. In Latin the word became maurus and this was the origin, in particular, of the name of a kingdom on the northwestern shoulder of the African continent, which came to be called Mauretania– the kingdom over which Cleopatra's daughter ruled in Augustus' time (see page I-385).

From the Latin maurus, came the French Maures, the Spanish Moros and the English "Moors." In the eighth century armies from north Africa (now Moslem in religion) invaded Spain and southern France. In the ninth century they invaded Sicily and Italy. Europeans came to know the Moors with a discomforting intimacy.

(There was a tendency for the Spaniards, who did not evict the Moors till nearly eight centuries had passed after their first invasion, to apply the name to all Moslems. In 1565 they occupied the Philippine Islands and were astonished to find tribes in the southern islands who were Moslems. Two centuries before the Spaniards came, Moslem traders had been visiting the islands and Moslem missionaries had converted the natives. The Spaniards called these southern Filipinos Moros, and the name is retained even today.)

In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese mariners, exploring down the coasts of west Africa, brought back black slaves and there began a new version of the abominable practice of human slavery. Since it was customary to call Africans "Moors," this new variety of African was called "black Moors" or "blackamoors." And then, to save syllables, they might still be called simply "Moors."

Aaron, in this play, though called a Moor, is distinctly a blackamoor, as we can tell from numerous illusions. The likelihood of a black being present in the Italy of Belisarius' time is not entirely zero. After all, the power of the East Roman Emperor, Justinian, extended far up the Nile. Why he should be associated with the Gothic armies is more puzzling-but then there is no question of any historical accuracy. He is introduced merely as a convenient villain.

A "Moor" would make a wonderful villain and an inhuman one at that. To the Elizabethans, the strange and therefore repulsive features of a black face and the habit of equating blackness with the devil made blacks a natural stereotype for villainy. (Such irrational thinking on the part of whites has caused innumerable blacks innumerable separate agonies then and since.)

Aaron ruminates on Tamora's sudden climb to the peak but is not disturbed thereby. Her rise is his as well, and he tells himself to:

 
fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,
And mount her pitch, whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fettered in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.
 

—Act II, scene i, lines 12-17

Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire from the sun and gave it to poor shivering mortals, in defiance of a decree of Zeus. In punishment Zeus chained him with divine, unbreakable fetters to Mount Caucasus (which Greeks imagined to be somewhere east of the Black Sea, and which gave its name to the Caucasian range of mountains which is really there.)

The fact that Tamora is so in love with Aaron mirrors another convention that was found in the literature of the time. Whites seemed to imagine that black men had some unusual power of attraction over white women; perhaps because of their supposedly more primitive "animal" nature and therefore their supposedly more powerful sexual prowess.

 
… this Semiramis.. .
 

Aaron goes on to glory in the prospect of what will come. He expects

 
To wanton with this queen,
This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,
This siren, that will charm Rome's Saturnine
And see his shipwrack and his commonweal's.
 

—Act II, scene i, lines 21-24

In 810 b.c. a queen, Sammu-rammat, ruled the kingdom of Assyria. She didn't rule either long or effectively, and Assyria was, at the time, rather weak. In the next century, however, Assyria rose to world power and dominated western Asia with its fearful and ruthless armies.

The dun memory that mighty and terrifying Assyria was once ruled by a woman seemed to impress the Greeks, for they distorted Sammu-rammat to Semiramis and began to weave legends around her. She was supposed to have been a great conquering monarch, who founded Babylon, established a huge empire, reigned forty-two years, and even tried to conquer India.

As if this were not enough to render her colorful, the Greeks also imagined her to be a monster of lust and luxury with numerous lovers and insatiable desires, so that the name "Semiramis" has come to be applied to any lustful woman in high place.

 
… Vulcan's badge
 

Aaron's soliloquy is interrupted by Tamora's two remaining sons, Chiron and Demetrius, who have suddenly decided, each one of them, to fall in love with Lavinia and are now quarreling over it. Aaron reminds them that she is the wife of Bassianus, the Emperor's brother. This does not bother Demetrius, who says:

 
Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,
Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.
 

—Act II, scene i, lines 88-89

This is a reference to Vulcan's cuckoldry, thanks to the love affair of his wife, Venus, with Mars (see page I-11).

Aaron thinks the quarrel is foolish. Why don't they both enjoy Lavinia in turn? To do this, persuasion will not be enough, for, as he says:

 
Lucrece was not more chaste
Than this Lavinia,
 

—Act II, scene i, lines 108-9

Lucrece, of course, is the Roman matron who was dealt with in The Rape of Lucrece (see page I-205), and is Shakespeare's favorite symbol of chastity. (The Rape of Lucrece was written at just about the time Titus Andronicus was. Might it be that this line set Shakespeare to thinking of the poem, or was it that the poem was running on in his mind and inspired this line?)

There are other ways than persuasion to win Lavinia, however. Coolly, Aaron points out that in the course of the next day's hunt, they might ambush her and rape her in turn. The two Gothic princes agree enthusiastically.

 
Saturn is dominator…
 

Time moves on and the hunt starts. During its course, Aaron finds a spot in the forest where he may hide a bag of gold for a nefarious purpose that is still in the future.

Tamora comes upon him and urges him on to dalliance such as

 
The wandering prince and Dido once enjoyed,
 

—Act II, scene iii, line 22

This is another reference to Dido and Aeneas (see page I-20), a favorite mythical standby of Shakespeare's.

Aaron, however, has more important business at hand. He says:

 
Madam, though Venus govern your desires,
Saturn is dominator over mine:
 

—Act II, scene iii, lines 30-31

Astrologically speaking, each person is born under the domination of a particular planet which determines the major component of his or her personality. The nature of the influence of Venus is obvious.

Saturn is, of all the planets visible to the unaided eye, the farthest from Earth and therefore the most slowly moving among the stars. To be born under Saturn then is to be as heavy, grave, and gloomy as that slow-moving planet; to be "saturnine," in short.

 
His Philomel. ..
 

Aaron goes on to explain why he is so grave and gloomy. Dire thoughts of revenge are in his mind and he refers to:

 
My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls
Even as an adder when she doth unroll
To do some fatal execution?
 

—Act II, scene iii, lines 34-36

Mention of his "fleece of woolly hair" shows clearly that Shakespeare has in mind a black African and not the swarthy but non-black Moors of north Africa.

Aaron goes on to specifics, indicating that he has set in motion a horrible fate for Lavinia. He says:

 
This is the day of doom for Bassianus:
His Philomel must lose her tongue today,
 

—Act II, scene iii, lines 42-43

One of the more gruesome Greek myths deals with two sisters: Philomela and Procne, who were the daughters of a king of Athens. The latter was given in marriage to Tereus, the King of Thrace. Tereus, however, fell in love with Philomela, his sister-in-law, and, luring her to his court, raped her. Then, in order to prevent her from telling his crime, he cut her tongue out and hid her among his slaves.

The phrase "lose her tongue" can therefore be a metaphoric reference to rape. It turns out to be a literal forecast in this play.

 
… as was Actaeon's…
 

Aaron gives Tamora a letter to be used later in the development of his plan and leaves.

At this point, Bassianus and Lavinia enter. All are at the hunt, of course, and Tamora, in her hunting costume, is sardonically likened to Diana, the goddess of the hunt, by Bassianus. Tamora is offended at what she considers to be their spying and says:

 
Had I the power that some say Dion had
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Actaeon's, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
 

—Act II, scene iii, lines 61-64

Actaeon was a hunter in the Greek myths, who, in the course of a hunt, came inadvertently upon Diana bathing. Admiring, he stopped to watch. When he was caught at his peeping by Diana's nymphs, the indignant goddess turned him into a stag so that his own hounds ran him down and killed him.

The reference to the horns on Bassianus' head undoubtedly has the secondary purpose of referring to the planned rape of his wife.

 
.. your swart Cimmerian
 

Bassianus and Lavinia strike back by implying that Tamora has been surprised at something far less innocent than bathing and speak openly of her liaison with Aaron. Bassianus says:

 
Believe me, Queen, your swart Cimmerian
Doth make your honor of his body's hue,
 

—Act II, scene iii, lines 72-73

The Scythians, who lived north of the Black Sea (see page I-397), ar-rived there only in 700 b.c. Before that, the land was populated by those whom Homer named the Cimmerians. (Crimea, the peninsula jutting into he northern rim of the Black Sea, is thought to derive its name from hem.)

The Cimmerian regions were mistily distant to the Greeks of Homer's time and strange legends arose concerning them. They were supposed to live in a land of eternal mist and gloom where the sun never shone. (One wonders if explorers brought back tales of the polar regions.)

As a result, one speaks of "Cimmerian darkness" as expressing the ultimate in darkness. Aaron is a "Cimmerian" not because he comes from the Far North, but because his skin is so dark.