Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

She leaves and Aaron enters, guiding Quintus and Martius, two of Andronicus' three remaining sons. Martius slips into the pit in which Bassianus' body is hidden and while Quintus leans over anxiously to find out if he is hurt, Aaron slips away.

Martius discovers the body of Bassianus and is horrified. He says:

—Act II, scene iii, lines 231-36

Pyramus was an ill-fated lover in the ancient tale, who died by moonlight (see page I-23). Cocytus is one of the five rivers of the underworld and its name means "wailing." It is meant to symbolize the sorrow of death.

The horrors continue. Aaron brings the Emperor Saturninus on the scene and Quintus and Martius are found with Bassianus' body. The forged letter, prepared by Aaron, is produced to make it seem that the two had bribed a huntsman to kill Bassianus. The bribe in the shape of the bag of gold Aaron had planted on the scene is also produced.

Titus' sons, having been effectively framed, are dragged off to imprisonment at once.

All leave and Tamora's sons now emerge. They have raped Lavinia and have cut out her tongue to prevent her telling. They have, however, gone the old Greek myth one better, for they have cut off her hands as well. Chiron says, with sadistic humor:

—Act II, scene iv, lines 3-4

The princes leave, and Marcus, the brother of Titus Andronicus, comes upon the scene and discovers Lavinia. He grasps the meaning of the sight at once and says:

—Act II, scene iv, lines 38-43

In the Greek myth, Philomela had had her tongue cut out and been placed in the slaves' quarters. She could use her hands to reveal her secret, however, for she prepared a tapestry in which she wove the legend, "Philomela is among the slaves." This was delivered to her sister, Procne, who took instant action, liberating Philomela and preparing revenge.

By cutting off Lavinia's hands, the villainous princes had deprived her of Philomela's chance.

Marcus Andronicus finds it hard to believe anyone could have mangled so fair a person as Lavinia. Concerning the malefactor, Marcus says that

—Act II, scene iv, lines 48-51

Orpheus, the sweet-singing minstrel from Thrace ("the Thracian poet"), descended into the underworld in order to win back his dead love, Eurydice (see page I-47). On approaching Cerberus (see page I-101), the three-headed hellhound who guarded the entrance, he sang so soft and sweet a lullaby that even that horrible creature fell asleep and let him pass unharmed.

Unimaginable miseries now heap themselves on Titus Andronicus. His two sons, Quintus and Martius, are being led to execution and no one will hear his pleas on their behalf. His one remaining son, Lucius, has tried to rescue his brothers by force, has failed, and is sentenced to exile. Marcus then brings him the mutilated Lavinia and Titus breaks into fresh woe.

All is interrupted by Aaron, who brings the news that if one of the Andronici, Titus, Marcus, or Lucius, will sacrifice a hand, that hand would be accepted as an exchange for the lives of Titus' two sons, who would then be returned free. After an argument over which Andronicus should make the sacrifice, Titus wins out and his hand is struck off.

This is but to add to the sorrows of Titus, however, for his stricken hand is soon returned and with it the heads of his two sons, who had been executed anyway. Of all Titus' children, there now remain only Lucius and the mutilated Lavinia.

Tamora has had ample revenge for the loss of her son and now it is Titus who begins to plan revenge. So does Lucius, still under sentence of exile. Alone on the stage, he plans to go abroad and raise an army against Rome, saying to his absent father, in soliloquy:

// Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs, And make proud Saturnine and his empress Beg at the gates, like Tarquin and his queen.

—Act III, scene i, lines 296-98

Tarquin was the last king of ancient Rome, who was expelled from Rome in 509 b.c. (see page I-211). He had occasion to stand at the gates of Rome in an attempt to get the throne back, and failed. To be sure, he didn't beg in the usual sense of the word. He had an army at his back.

The idea of revenge by means of an outside army fits in just a little with the time of Belisarius and Narses. Belisarius himself never attempted revenge against the ungrateful Emperor Justinian, even though legend has him reduced, toward the end of his life, to begging in the streets. (The legend has no basis in truth, however.)

Belisarius' successor, Narses, is a different matter. He ruled Italy into extreme old age, and after Justinian's death, when Narses was more than ninety years old, the aged general was ordered home. According to the legend (probably not true) his recall was accompanied by an insulting message. He was told that since he was a eunuch, he should return and confine himself to spinning wool with the palace maidens.

The insulted Narses said, "I will spin them such a skein as they will not easily unravel" and invited the barbarous Lombards to invade Italy-which they did most effectively.

The play now shifts to the Andronicus house. For the first time, a grandson of Titus appears. He is a son of Lucius and is also named Lucius.

Young Lucius enters, carrying books and running. Mute Lavinia is running after him. The boy is frightened but Titus and Marcus catch and comfort him, assuring him that Lavinia means him no harm, and loves him. Titus says:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 12-14

The Cornelia referred to was a daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the Roman general who finally defeated Hannibal in 202 b.c. Cornelia was considered the model of the virtuous Roman matron, chaste, honorable, and loving-and utterly devoted to her two sons.

These two sons received the finest education available at the time. So proud was she of them that when another Roman matron, on a visit, displayed her jewelry and asked to see Cornelia's, the latter merely pointed to her sons. "These are my jewels," she said.

As for Tully, that is a name by which the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (see page I-268) is sometimes known in English. One of his famous works was De Oratore (Concerning the Orator), and it is to this that Titus refers.

But Lavinia stirs the books that young Lucius has let fall, concentrating on one, which the boy identifies for his grandfather:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 42-43