Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Where is thy brother Bassianus?

SATURNINUS

Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound.

Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.

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 Saturnine 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

Which overshades the mouth of that same pit

Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.

Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.’

O Tamora, was ever heard the like!

This is the pit, and this the elder tree.

Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out

That should have murdered Bassianus here.

AARON

My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.

SATURNINUS (to Titus)

Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody kind,

Have here bereft my brother of his life.

Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison.

There let them bide until we have devised

Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.

TAMORA

What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!

How easily murder is discovered!

Attendants drag Quintus, Martius, and Bassianus’

body from the pit

TITUS (kneeling)

High Emperor, upon my feeble knee

I beg this boon with tears not lightly shed:

That this fell fault of my accursed sons—

Accursed if the fault be proved in them—

SATURNINUS

If it be proved? You see it is apparent.

Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?

TAMORA

Andronicus himself did take it up.

TITUS

I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail,

For by my father’s reverend tomb I vow

They shall be ready at your highness’ will

To answer their suspicion with their lives.

SATURNINUS

Thou shalt not bail them. See thou follow me.

Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers.

Let them not speak a word—the guilt is plain;

For by my soul, were there worse end than death

That end upon them should be executed. ⌈Exit⌉

TAMORA

Andronicus, I will entreat the King.

Fear not thy sons, they shall do well enough.

TITUS ⌈rising⌉

Come, Lucius, come, stay not to talk with them.

Exeunt

2.4 Enter the Empress’ sons, Chiron and Demetrius, with Lavinia, her hands cut off and her tongue cut out, and ravished

DEMETRIUS

So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,

Who ‘twas that cut thy tongue and ravished thee.

CHIRON

Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,

An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.

DEMETRIUS

See how with signs and tokens she can scrawl.

CHIRON (to Lavinia)

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 cause I should go hang myself.

DEMETRIUS

If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.

Exeunt Chiron and Demetrius

⌈Wind horns.⌉ Enter Marcus from hunting to Lavinia

MARCUS

Who is this—my niece that flies away so fast?

Cousin, a word. Where is your husband?

If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me.

If I do wake, some planet strike me down

That I may slumber an eternal sleep.

Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands

Hath lopped and hewed and made thy body bare

Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments

Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,

And might not gain so great a happiness

As half thy love. Why dost not speak to me?

Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,

Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,

Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,

Coming and going with thy honey breath.

But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee

And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.

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,

Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face

Blushing to be encountered with a cloud.

Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say ’tis so?

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 stopped,

Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.

Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue

And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind.

But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.

A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,

And he hath cut those pretty fingers off

That could have better sewed than Philomel.

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 touched them for his life.

Or had he heard the heavenly harmony

Which that sweet tongue hath made,

He would have dropped his knife and fell asleep,

As Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s feet.

Come, let us go and make thy father blind,

For such a sight will blind a father’s eye.

One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads:

What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes?

Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee.

O, could our mourning ease thy misery! Exeunt

3.1 Enter the Judges, Tribunes, and Senators with Titus’ two sons, Martius and Quintus, bound, passing ⌈over⌉ the stage to the place of execution, and Titus going before, pleading

TITUS

Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay.

For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent

In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;

For all my blood in Rome’s great quarrel shed;

For all the frosty nights that I have watched,

And for these bitter tears which now you see

Filling the agèd wrinkles in my cheeks,

Be pitiful to my condemned sons,

Whose souls is not corrupted as ’tis thought.

For two-and-twenty sons I never wept,

Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.

Andronicus lieth down, and the Judges pass by him

For these two, Tribunes, in the dust I write

My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears.

Let my tears stanch the earth’s dry appetite;

My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush.

⌈Exeunt all but Titus⌉

O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain

That shall distil from these two ancient ruins

Than youthful April shall with all his showers.

In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee still.

In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snow

And keep eternal springtime on thy face,

So thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.

Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn

Oreverend Tribunes, O gentle, aged men,

Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,

And let me say, that never wept before,

My tears are now prevailing orators!

LUCIUS

O noble father, you lament in vain.

The Tribunes hear you not. No man is by,

And you recount your sorrows to a stone.

TITUS

Ah Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.

Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you—

LUCIUS

My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.

TITUS

Why, ‘tis no matter, man. If they did hear,

They would not mark me; if they did mark,

They would not pity me; yet plead I must.

Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones,

Who, though they cannot answer my distress,

Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes

For that they will not intercept my tale.

When I do weep they humbly at my feet

Receive my tears and seem to weep with me,

And were they but attired in grave weeds

Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.

A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than stones.

A stone is silent and offendeth not,

And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.

But wherefore stand’st thou with thy weapon drawn?

LUCIUS

To rescue my two brothers from their death,

For which attempt the Judges have pronounced

My everlasting doom of banishment.

TITUS ⌈rising⌉

O happy man, they have befriended thee!

Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive

That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?

Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey

But me and mine. How happy art thou then

From these devourers to be banished!

But who comes with our brother Marcus here?

Enter Marcus with Lavinia

MARCUS

Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,

Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.

I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.

TITUS

Will it consume me? Let me see it then.

MARCUS

This was thy daughter.

TITUS

Why, Marcus, so she is.

LUCIUS (falling on his knees)

Ay me, this object kills me.

TITUS

Faint-hearted boy, arise and look upon her.

⌈Lucius rises⌉

Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand

Hath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?

What fool hath added water to the sea,

Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?

My grief was at the height before thou cam‘st,

And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.

Give me a sword, I’ll chop off my hands too,

For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;

And they have nursed this woe in feeding life;

In bootless prayer have they been held up,

And they have served me to effectless use.

Now all the service I require of them

Is that the one will help to cut the other.

’Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands,

For hands to do Rome service is but vain.

LUCIUS

Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyred thee.

MARCUS

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,

That blabbed them with such pleasing eloquence,

Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage

Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung

Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear.

LUCIUS

O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?

MARCUS

O, thus I found her, straying in the park,

Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer

That hath received some unrecuring wound.

TITUS

It was my dear, and he that wounded her

Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead;

For now I stand as one upon a rock

Environed with a wilderness of sea,

Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,

Expecting ever when some envious surge

Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.

This way to death my wretched sons are gone.

Here stands my other son, a banished man,

And here my brother, weeping at my woes.

But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn

Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.

Had I but seen thy picture in this plight

It would have madded me. What shall I do

Now I behold thy lively body so?

Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,

Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyred thee.

Thy husband he is dead, and for his death

Thy brothers are condemned and dead by this.

Look, Marcus, ah, son Lucius, look on her!

When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears

Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew

Upon a gathered lily almost withered.

MARCUS

Perchance she weeps because they killed her

husband;

Perchance because she knows them innocent.

TITUS

If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,

Because the law hath ta’en revenge on them.

No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;

Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.

Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips;

Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.

Shall thy good uncle, and thy brother Lucius,

And thou, and I, sit round about some fountain,

Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks

How they are stained, like meadows yet not dry

With miry slime left on them by a flood?

And in the fountain shall we gaze so long

Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,

And made a brine pit with our bitter tears?

Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?

Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows

Pass the remainder of our hateful days?

What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues

Plot some device of further misery,

To make us wondered at in time to come.

LUCIUS

Sweet father, cease your tears, for at your grief

See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.

MARCUS

Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.

TITUS

Ah, Marcus, Marcus, brother, well I wot

Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,

For thou, poor man, hast drowned it with thine own.

LUCIUS

Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.

TITUS

Mark, Marcus, mark. I understand her signs.

Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say

That to her brother which I said to thee.

His napkin with his true tears all bewet

Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.

O, what a sympathy of woe is this—

As far from help as limbo is from bliss.

Enter Aaron the Moor, alone

AARON

Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor

Sends thee this word: that, if thou love thy sons,

Let Marcus, Lucius or thyself, old Titus,

Or any one of you, chop off your hand

And send it to the King. He for the same

Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,

And that shall be the ransom for their fault.

TITUS

O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron,

Did ever raven sing so like a lark

That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?

With all my heart I’ll send the Emperor my hand.

Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?

LUCIUS

Stay, father, for that noble hand of thine,

That hath thrown down so many enemies,

Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn.

My youth can better spare my blood than you,

And therefore mine shall save my brothers’ lives.

MARCUS

Which of your hands hath not defended Rome

And reared aloft the bloody battleaxe,

Writing destruction on the enemy’s castle?

O, none of both but are of high desert.

My hand hath been but idle; let it serve

To ransom my two nephews from their death,

Then have I kept it to a worthy end.

AARON

Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,

For fear they die before their pardon come.

MARCUS

My hand shall go.

LUCIUS

By heaven it shall not go.

TITUS

Sirs, strive no more. Such withered herbs as these

Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.

LUCIUS

Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,

Let me redeem my brothers both from death.

MARCUS

And for our father’s sake and mother’s care,

Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.

TITUS

Agree between you. I will spare my hand.

LUCIUS

Then I’ll go fetch an axe.

MARCUS

But I will use the axe.

Exeunt Lucius and Marcus

TITUS

Come hither, Aaron. I’ll deceive them both.

Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.

AARON (aside)

If that be called deceit, I will be honest

And never whilst I live deceive men so.

But I’ll deceive you in another sort,

And that you’ll say ere half an hour pass.

He cuts off Titus’ hand.

Enter Lucius and Marcus again

TITUS

Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatched.

Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand.

Tell him it was a hand that warded him

From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.

More hath it merited; that let it have.

As for my sons, say I account of them

As jewels purchased at an easy price,

And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.

AARON

I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand

Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.

(Aside) Their heads, I mean. O, how this villainy

Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!

Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:

Aaron will have his soul black like his face. Exit

TITUS

O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven

And bow this feeble ruin to the earth.

He kneels

If any power pities wretched tears,

To that I call. (To Lavinia, who kneels) What, wouldst

thou kneel with me?

Do then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,

Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim

And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds

When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

MARCUS

O brother, speak with possibility,

And do not break into these deep extremes.

TITUS

Is not my sorrows deep, having no bottom?

Then be my passions bottomless with them.

MARCUS

But yet let reason govern thy lament.

TITUS

If there were reason for these miseries,

Then into limits could I bind my woes.

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth

o‘erflow?

If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,

Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face?

And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?

I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow.

She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.

Then must my sea be moved with her sighs,

Then must my earth with her continual tears

Become a deluge overflowed and drowned,

Forwhy my bowels cannot hide her woes,

But like a drunkard must I vomit them.

Then give me leave, for losers will have leave

To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand

MESSENGER

Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid

For that good hand thou sent’st the Emperor.

Here are the heads of thy two noble sons,

And here’s thy hand in scorn to thee sent back—

Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mocked,

That woe is me to think upon thy woes

More than remembrance of my father’s death.

⌈He sets down the heads and hand. Exit⌉

MARCUS

Now let hot Etna cool in Sicily,

And be my heart an ever-burning hell.

These miseries are more than may be borne.

To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,

But sorrow flouted at is double death.

LUCIUS

Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound

And yet detested life not shrink thereat—

That ever death should let life bear his name

Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!

Lavinia kisses Titus

MARCUS

Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless

As frozen water to a starved snake.

TITUS

When will this fearful slumber have an end?

MARCUS

Now farewell, flatt’ry; die, Andronicus.

Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads,

Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here,

Thy other banished son with this dear sight

Struck pale and bloodless, and thy brother, I,

Even like a stony image, cold and numb.

Ah, now no more will I control thy griefs.

Rend off thy silver hair, thy other hand

Gnawing with thy teeth, and be this dismal sight

The closing up of our most wretched eyes.

Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still?

TITUS

Ha, ha, ha!

MARCUS

Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.

TITUS

Why, I have not another tear to shed.

Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,

And would usurp upon my wat’ry eyes

And make them blind with tributary tears.

Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?—

For these two heads do seem to speak to me

And threat me I shall never come to bliss

Till all these mischiefs be returned again

Even in their throats that hath committed them.

Come, let me see what task I have to do.

⌈He and Lavinia rise⌉

You heavy people, circle me about,

That I may turn me to each one of you

And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.

Marcus, Lucius, and Lavinia circle Titus. He

pledges them

The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,

And in this hand the other will I bear.

And Lavinia, thou shalt be employed.

Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thine arms.

As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight.

Thou art an exile and thou must not stay.

Hie to the Goths, and raise an army there,

And if ye love me, as I think you do,

Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.

They kiss. Exeunt all but Lucius

LUCIUS

Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,

The woefull‘st man that ever lived in Rome.

Farewell, proud Rome, till Lucius come again;

He loves his pledges dearer than his life.

Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister:

O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!

But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives

But in oblivion and hateful griefs.

If Lucius live he will requite your wrongs

And make proud Saturnine and his empress

Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.

Now will I to the Goths and raise a power,

To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine. Exit

3.2 A banquet. Enter Titus Andronicus, Marcus, Lavinia, and the boy (young Lucius)

TITUS

So, so, now sit, and look you eat no more

Than will preserve just so much strength in us

As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.

⌈They sit⌉

Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot.

Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,

And cannot passionate our tenfold grief

With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine

Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,

Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,

Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,

Then thus I thump it down.

He beats his breast

(To Lavinia) Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in

signs,

When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating

Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still!

Wound it with sighing, girl; kill it with groans,

Or get some little knife between thy teeth

And just against thy heart make thou a hole,

That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall

May run into that sink and, soaking in,

Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.

MARCUS

Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay

Such violent hands upon her tender life.

TITUS

How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?

Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.

What violent hands can she lay on her life?

Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands

To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er

How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?

O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,

Lest we remember still that we have none.

Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,

As if we should forget we had no hands

If Marcus did not name the word of hands!

Come, let’s fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this.

Here is no drink! Hark, Marcus, what she says.

I can interpret all her martyred signs.

She says she drinks no other drink but tears,

Brewed with her sorrow, mashed upon her cheeks.

Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought.

In thy dumb action will I be as perfect

As begging hermits in their holy prayers.

Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,

Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,

But I of these will wrest an alphabet,

And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.

YOUNG LUCIUS

Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments.

Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARCUS

Alas, the tender boy in passion moved

Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.

TITUS

Peace, tender sapling, thou art made of tears,

And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

Marcus strikes the dish with a knife

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

MARCUS

At that that I have killed, my lord—a fly.

TITUS

Out on thee, murderer! Thou kill’st my heart.

Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny.

A deed of death done on the innocent

Becomes not Titus’ brother. Get thee gone.

I see thou art not for my company.

MARCUS

Alas, my lord, I have but killed a fly.

TITUS

‘But’? How if that fly had a father, brother?

How would he hang his slender gilded wings

And buzz lamenting dirges in the air!

Poor harmless fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody

Came here to make us merry—and thou hast killed him!

MARCUS

Pardon me, sir, it was a black ill-favoured fly,

Like to the Empress’ Moor. Therefore I killed him.

TITUS O, O, O!

Then pardon me for reprehending thee,

For thou hast done a charitable deed.

Give me thy knife. I will insult on him,

Flattering myself as if it were the Moor

Come hither purposely to poison me.

He takes a knife and strikes

There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora. Ah, sirrah!

Yet I think we are not brought so low

But that between us we can kill a fly

That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.

MARCUS

Alas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on him

He takes false shadows for true substances.

TITUS

Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me.

I’ll to thy closet and go read with thee

Sad stories chanced in the times of old.

Come, boy, and go with me. Thy sight is young,

And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.

Exeunt