William Shakespeare - Sämtliche Werke von Shakespeare in einem Band - Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Englisch)

Lest we remember still that we have none.—

Fie, fie, how frantically 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 martyr’d signs;—

She says she drinks no other drink but tears,

Brew’d with her sorrow, mesh’d 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.

BOY.

Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments:

Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARCUS.

Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov’d,

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 kill’d, my lord,—a fly.

TITUS.

Out on thee, murderer! thou kill’st my heart;

Mine eyes are cloy’d 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 kill’d a fly.

TITUS.

But how if that fly had a father and mother?

How would he hang his slender gilded wings

And buzz lamenting doings in the air!

Poor harmless fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody

Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill’d him.

MARCUS.

Pardon me, sir; ‘twas a black ill-favour’d fly,

Like to the empress’ Moor; therefore I kill’d 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.—

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 coalblack 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.]

German

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Rome. Before TITUS’S House.

[Enter TITUS and MARCUS. Then enter YOUNG LUCIUS running, with books under his arm, and LAVINIA running after him.]

YOUNG LUCIUS.

Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia

Follows me everywhere, I know not why.—

Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!

Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.

MARCUS.

Stand by me, Lucius: do not fear thine aunt.

TITUS.

She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.

YOUNG LUCIUS

Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.

MARCUS.

What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?

TITUS.

Fear her not, Lucius: somewhat doth she mean:—

See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee:

Somewhither would she have thee go with her.

Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care

Read to her sons than she hath read to thee

Sweet poetry and Tully’s Orator.

MARCUS.

Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?

YOUNG LUCIUS.

My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,

Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her:

For I have heard my grandsire say full oft

Extremity of griefs would make men mad;

And I have read that Hecuba of Troy

Ran mad for sorrow: that made me to fear;

Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt

Loves me as dear as e’er my mother did,

And would not, but in fury, fright my youth:

Which made me down to throw my books, and fly,—

Causeless, perhaps: but pardon me, sweet aunt:

And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,

I will most willingly attend your ladyship.

MARCUS.

Lucius, I will.

[LAVINIA turns over with her stumps the books which Lucius has let fall.]

TITUS.

How now, Lavinia!—Marcus, what means this?

Some book there is that she desires to see.

Which is it, girl, of these?—Open them, boy.—

But thou art deeper read and better skill’d:

Come and take choice of all my library,

And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens

Reveal the damn’d contriver of this deed.—

Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?

MARCUS.

I think she means that there were more than one

Confederate in the fact;—ay, more there was,

Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.

TITUS.

Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?

YOUNG LUCIUS.

Grandsire, ‘tis Ovid’s Metamorphosis;

My mother gave it me.

MARCUS.

For love of her that’s gone,

Perhaps she cull’d it from among the rest.

TITUS.

Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her:

What would she find?—Lavinia, shall I read?

This is the tragic tale of Philomel,

And treats of Tereus’ treason and his rape;

And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.

MARCUS.

See, brother, see; note how she quotes the leaves.

TITUS.

Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris’d, sweet girl,

Ravish’d, and wrong’d, as Philomela was,

Forc’d in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?—

See, see!—

Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt.—

O, had we never, never hunted there!—

Pattern’d by that the poet here describes,

By nature made for murders and for rapes.

MARCUS.

O, why should nature build so foul a den,

Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

TITUS.

Give signs, sweet girl,—for here are none but friends,—

What Roman lord it was durst do the deed:

Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,

That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’ bed?

MARCUS.

Sit down, sweet niece:—brother, sit down by me.—

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,

Inspire me, that I may this treason find!—

My lord, look here:—look here, Lavinia:

This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,

This after me, when I have writ my name

Without the help of any hand at all.

[He writes his name with his staff, guiding it with feet and mouth.]

Curs’d be that heart that forc’d us to this shift!—

Write thou, good niece; and here display at last

What God will have discover’d for revenge:

Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,

That we may know the traitors and the truth!

[She takes the staff in her mouth, guides it with her stumps, and writes.]

TITUS.

O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?

‘Stuprum—Chiron—Demetrius.’

MARCUS.

What, what!—the lustful sons of Tamora

Performers of this heinous bloody deed?

TITUS.

Magni Dominator poli,

Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?

MARCUS.

O, calm thee, gentle lord; although I know