Act 5, Scene 1

Plains near Rome.

[Enter LUCIUS with GOTHS, with drum and colours.]
Lucius
1968 Approved warriors and my faithful friends,
1969 I have received letters from great Rome,
1970 Which signifies what hate they bear their emperor,
1971 And how desirous of our sight they are.
1972 Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,
1973 Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;
1974 And wherein Rome hath done you any scath
1975 Let him make treble satisfaction.
First Goth
1976 Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,
1977 Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort;
1978 Whose high exploits and honourable deeds
1979 Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,
1980 Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,—
1981 Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,
1982 Led by their master to the flowered fields,—
1983 And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.
Goths
1984 And as he saith, so say we all with him.
Lucius
1985 I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.
1986 But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?
[Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms.]
Second Goth
1987 Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd
1988 To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;
1989 And as I earnestly did fix mine eye
1990 Upon the wasted building, suddenly
1991 I heard a child cry underneath a wall.
1992 I made unto the noise; when soon I heard
1993 The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:—
1994 'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!
1995 Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,
1996 Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,
1997 Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor:
1998 But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,
1999 They never do beget a coal-black calf.
2000 Peace, villain, peace!'—even thus he rates the babe,—
2001 'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth;
2002 Who, when he knows thou art the empress' babe,
2003 Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'
2004 With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,
2005 Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither,
2006 To use as you think needful of the man.
Lucius
2007 O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil
2008 That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;
2009 This is the pearl that pleas'd your empress' eye;
2010 And here's the base fruit of his burning lust.—
2011 Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey
2012 This growing image of thy fiend-like face?
2013 Why dost not speak? what, deaf? No; not a word?—
2014 A halter, soldiers; hang him on this tree,
2015 And by his side his fruit of bastardy.
Aaron
2016 Touch not the boy,—he is of royal blood.
Lucius
2017 Too like the sire for ever being good.—
2018 First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl,—
2019 A sight to vex the father's soul withal.
2020 Get me a ladder.
[A ladder brought, which AARON is obliged to ascend.]
Aaron
2021 Lucius, save the child,
2022 And bear it from me to the empress.
2023 If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things
2024 That highly may advantage thee to hear:
2025 If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,
2026 I'll speak no more,—but vengeance rot you all!
Lucius
2027 Say on: an if it please me which thou speak'st,
2028 Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.
Aaron
2029 An if it please thee! why, assure thee, Lucius,
2030 'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;
2031 For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,
2032 Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
2033 Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,
2034 Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd:
2035 And this shall all be buried in my death,
2036 Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.
Lucius
2037 Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.
Aaron
2038 Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.
Lucius
2039 Who should I swear by? thou believ'st no god;:
2040 That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?
Aaron
2041 What if I do not? as indeed I do not;
2042 Yet, for I know thou art religious,
2043 And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
2044 With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies
2045 Which I have seen thee careful to observe,
2046 Therefore I urge thy oath;—for that I know
2047 An idiot holds his bauble for a god,
2048 And keeps the oath which by that god he swears;
2049 To that I'll urge him:—therefore thou shalt vow
2050 By that same god,—what god soe'er it be
2051 That thou ador'st and hast in reverence,—
2052 To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;
2053 Or else I will discover naught to thee.
Lucius
2054 Even by my god I swear to thee I will.
Aaron
2055 First know thou, I begot him on the empress.
Lucius
2056 O most insatiate and luxurious woman!
Aaron
2057 Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
2058 To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
2059 'Twas her two sons that murder'd Bassianus;
2060 They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,
2061 And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou saw'st.
Lucius
2062 O detestable villain! call'st thou that trimming?
Aaron
2063 Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd; and 'twas
2064 Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.
Lucius
2065 O barbarous, beastly villains, like thyself!
Aaron
2066 Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them:
2067 That codding spirit had they from their mother,
2068 As sure a card as ever won the set;
2069 That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,
2070 As true a dog as ever fought at head.
2071 Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
2072 I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole
2073 Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay:
2074 I wrote the letter that thy father found,
2075 And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,
2076 Confederate with the queen and her two sons:
2077 And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,
2078 Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in't?
2079 I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand;
2080 And, when I had it, drew myself apart,
2081 And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter:
2082 I pry'd me through the crevice of a wall
2083 When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;
2084 Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily
2085 That both mine eyes were rainy like to his:
2086 And when I told the empress of this sport,
2087 She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,
2088 And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.
A Goth
2089 What, canst thou say all this and never blush?
Aaron
2090 Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
Lucius
2091 Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
Aaron
2092 Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
2093 Even now I curse the day,—and yet, I think,
2094 Few come within the compass of my curse,—
2095 Wherein I did not some notorious ill:
2096 As, kill a man, or else devise his death;
2097 Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
2098 Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
2099 Set deadly enmity between two friends;
2100 Make poor men's cattle stray and break their necks;
2101 Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
2102 And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
2103 Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
2104 And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
2105 Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
2106 And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
2107 Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
2108 'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
2109 Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
2110 As willingly as one would kill a fly;
2111 And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
2112 But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
Lucius
2113 Bring down the devil; for he must not die
2114 So sweet a death as hanging presently.
Aaron
2115 If there be devils, would I were a devil,
2116 To live and burn in everlasting fire,
2117 So I might have your company in hell
2118 But to torment you with my bitter tongue!
Lucius
2119 Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.
[Enter a GOTH.}]
Third Goth
2120 My lord, there is a messenger from Rome
2121 Desires to be admitted to your presence.
Lucius
2122 Let him come near.
[Enter AEMILIUS.]
Lucius
2123 Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?
Aemilius
2124 Lord Lucius, and you princes of the Goths,
2125 The Roman emperor greets you all by me;
2126 And, for he understands you are in arms,
2127 He craves a parley at your father's house,
2128 Willing you to demand your hostages,
2129 And they shall be immediately deliver'd.
First Goth
2130 What says our general?
Lucius
2131 Aemilius, let the emperor give his pledges
2132 Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.
2133 And we will come.—March away.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1974archaic vocab
“wherein Rome hath done you any scath”
'Scath' means harm or injury. Lucius is urging the Goth lords to demand triple payment for every wrong Rome has done them. The word is an archaic borrowing from Old Norse (skathi), still current in Shakespeare's day but now obsolete.
TLN 1976archaic vocab
“Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus”
'Slip' here means a young shoot or scion cut from a plant and planted to grow into a new one — so 'brave slip' means 'noble offspring.' The First Goth is saluting Lucius as a worthy branch sprung from the great Titus Andronicus. The horticultural metaphor for lineage was standard in Shakespeare's English.
TLN 1981rhetorical device
“Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day, Led by their master”
The First Goth compares the Goth army to a swarm of bees led by their keeper to the fields — a simile for disciplined soldiers ready to sting on command. The comparison is a classical epic convention: Homer uses bee-similes for armies in the Iliad, and Virgil does the same in the Aeneid. It flatters the Goths by casting them as fierce but orderly — deadly when unleashed, loyal to their leader.
TLN 1994cultural context
“Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam”
Aaron is speaking to his own infant son, whom the Goth is quoting. 'Tawny' meant dark-skinned — a contemptuous term in Elizabethan usage. 'Dam' is the word used for an animal's mother. Aaron's soliloquy acknowledges that the child's mixed parentage (his Moorish father, Tamora the white empress) is obvious from the baby's complexion: 'where the bull and cow are both milk-white, / They never do beget a coal-black calf.' The racist abuse is the play's characters' language, not its own endorsement; the scene actually reveals Aaron's fierce protectiveness toward the child.
historical The 'Moor' on the Elizabethan stage
TLN 2007stage direction note
“this is the incarnate devil That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand”
Lucius identifies Aaron for the audience as the Moor who tricked Titus into cutting off his own right hand, promising — falsely — that it would buy his sons' release from execution. This is a recap of Act 3: Aaron told Titus the emperor would pardon his condemned sons if Titus sent his hand as ransom; the sons' severed heads were returned alongside it. 'Incarnate devil' reflects the Elizabethan association of Aaron's black skin with the demonic — an attitude the play voices through its Roman characters.
historical The 'Moor' on the Elizabethan stage
TLN 2044historical topical
“twenty popish tricks and ceremonies Which I have seen thee careful to observe”
Aaron, who says he believes in no god himself, calls Lucius's religious practice 'popish tricks and ceremonies' — a Protestant Englishman's phrase for Catholic ritual. The play is set in ancient Rome, but 'popish' is an Elizabethan Protestant term (the Pope being the Bishop of Rome), here projected anachronistically onto the Roman Lucius. Aaron is not mocking paganism; he is using the most contemptuous vocabulary his audience would reach for when describing elaborate religious observance.
TLN 2047archaic vocab
“an idiot holds his bauble for a god, And keeps the oath which by that god he swears”
A 'bauble' was the fool's stick or sceptre — the mock-sceptre carried by the court jester, often topped with a carved head. An idiot who worships his bauble as a god is Aaron's contemptuous way of saying that even the most ignorant person will keep an oath sworn to whatever he reveres, no matter how ridiculous that object is. Aaron is not mocking Lucius's faith specifically; he is saying that any sincere oath-taker is predictable, and therefore useful.
TLN 2056archaic vocab
“O most insatiate and luxurious woman”
'Luxurious' in Shakespeare's English means lascivious or lecherous — sexually dissolute — not 'expensive' or 'opulent.' Lucius is reacting to the news that Tamora has slept with Aaron and borne his child; he calls her insatiably lustful. The word's modern meaning (lavish, costly) is a later development; for Shakespeare and his audience it was straightforwardly about sexual excess.
TLN 2079archaic vocab
“I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand”
'Cheater' here means an escheator — an officer of the crown who handled property that reverted (escheated) to the state, often associated with sharp practice and fraud. Aaron is saying he acted as a swindler to obtain Titus's hand, playing on the word's double sense: the officer who 'escheats' (seizes) property, and the common deceiver who cheats someone out of what is theirs. He tricked Titus into believing the hand would save his sons.
TLN 2093historical topical
“Even now I curse the day,—and yet, I think, Few come within the compass of my curse”
Aaron delivers a twenty-line catalogue of the evils he has committed in his life — murder, rape, false accusation, arson, grave-robbing, leaving carved taunts on the dead. The speech is a deliberate theatrical set-piece: the exultant villain's boast, a form inherited from the Senecan stage and the morality-play Vice. Aaron makes no apology and feels no regret; his only sorrow is that he could not do ten thousand more. This cheerful confession of pure evil is the play's most explicit staging of the Machiavellian villain-as-entertainer.
historical Seneca and the revenge tragedyhistorical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 2113wordplay
“he must not die So sweet a death as hanging presently”
Lucius says Aaron must not die 'so sweet a death as hanging' — a grim irony, since hanging was a painful and dishonourable death, not a sweet one. In Roman law and on the Elizabethan stage, hanging was reserved for common criminals; a soldier or nobleman would be beheaded, which was considered cleaner and more dignified. By calling hanging 'sweet,' Lucius is setting up the implication that he intends something far worse for Aaron.