TAMORA, with CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, come

disguised as Revenge, Rapine, and Murder, to TITUS ANDRONICUS.

66 Tam. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
I will encounter with Andronicus ;
And say, I am Revenge, sent from below
To join with him, and right his heinous wrongs. (Knocks.)

TITUS appears above.
Tit. Who doth molest my contemplation ?

Tam. I am Revenge, sent from the infernal kingdom
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind,
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.

Tit. Art thou Revenge?

Tam... Send for Lucius, thy thrice valiant son, Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths, And bid him come and banquet at thy house. Tit. (Aside.) I know them all, though they suppose

me mad; And will o’erreach them in their own devices; A pair of cursed hell-hounds, and their dam.”

CHIRON and DEMETRIUS having been left, under

the names of Rapine and Murder, TITUS orders them to be bound.

“ Chi. Villains, forbear! we are the empress' sons.

Pub. And therefore do we what we are commanded. Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word. Enter TITUS, with LAVINIA; she bearing a basin,

and he a knife. Tit. O villains, Chiron and Demetrius ! Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud; This goodly summer with your winter mix’d. You killd her husband; and for that vile fault Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death, My hand cut off, and made a merry jest. You know your mother means to feast with me, And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.Hark, villains; I will grind your bones to dust, And with your blood and it I 'll make a paste; And of the paste a coffin I will rear, And make too pasties of your shameful heads; And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam, Like to the earth, swallow her own increase. This is the feast that I have bid her to, And this the banquet she shall surfeit on; For worse than Philomel you used my daughter, And worse than Progne I will be revenged.”

Act V. S. 2.

XII.

The Banquet.

TITUS, as a cook, waits upon SATURNINUS and

TAMORA.

“ Tit. My lord, the emperor, resolve me this:
Was it well done of rash Virginius,
To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
Because she was enforced, stain'd, and deflower'd?

Sat. It was, Andronicus.
Tit.

Your reason, mighty lord. Sat. Because the girl should not survive her shame. Tit. Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee.

(He kills LAVINIA.) Tam. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?

Tit. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius : They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue, And they, 'twas they that did her all this wrong.

Sat. Go, fetch them hither presently.

Tit. Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
'Tis true, 'tis true; witness my knife's sharp point.

(Killing TAMORA.) SAT. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed.

(Killing TITUS.) Luc. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed ? There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.”

(Kills SATURNINUS.)

“ Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him; There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food : If any one relieves or pities him, For the offence he dies.

AAR. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb ? I am no baby, I, that with base prayers I should repent the evils I have done ; Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform, if I might have my will; If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul."

Act V. S. 3.