THE TRAGEDY

OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Saturninus, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards emperor BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus

TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman

MARCUS ANDRONICUS, tribune of the people, and brother to Titus
LUCIUS,

ALARBUS,

DEMETRIUS,

CHIRON,

sons to Tamora

AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora

A Captain, Tribune, Messenger, and Clown; Romans and Goths

TAMORA, Queen of the Goths

LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus

A Nurse, and a black Child

Kinsmen of Titus, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and

Attendants

SCENE: Rome, and the country near it

SYNOPSIS

By J. ELLIS BURDICK

ACT I

Titus Andronicus, a Roman noble and general, returns to Rome after a successful campaign in Gaul and just when the imperial succession is in dispute. Some of the people wish to make him emperor but he throws his influence on the side of Saturninus, the eldest son of the late emperor. He also promises his daughter Lavinia to Saturninus, but Bassianus, a younger brother of the new emperor, carries her off by force. Titus slays with his own hand one of his sons wh who had aided Bassianus; but in spite of this evidence of his loyalty Saturninus grows cool towards Titus and plans for his downfall. In these schemes he is ably seconded by Tamora, a Gothic queen, whom Titus had brought captive to Rome and who had been liberated by the emperor, and now made his empress in place of Lavinią. Tamora hates Titus because he allowed her first-born son to be offered as a sacrifice to his dead

sons.

ACT II

Aaron, a Moor beloved by Tamora, takes advantage of a hunt which Titus has planned for the royal amusement, to meet Tamora. He encourages Tamora's two sons to kill Bassianus, to ravish Lavinia, to tear out her tongue, and to cut off her hands, so that she cannot accuse them either by speech or in writing. Aaron directs suspicion for the murder of Bassianus against two sons of Titus.

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ACT III

The two young men are condemned to death and led to execution. Aaron tells Titus that if he will chop off his hand and send it to the emperor their lives will be spared. Titus does so and sends the hand by Aaron, but soon a messenger brings it back accompanied by the heads of his sons. Titus swears to right their wrongs. Lucius, his one remaining son, goes to Gaul, there to raise an army.

ACT IV

With a staff held in her teeth and guided by her stumps, Lavinia writes on the sands the names of her ravishers, and Titus, pretending insanity, sends strange messages to them. Tamora is delivered of a blackamoor child, the result of her intimacy with Aaron. Aaron flees out of the city with the child. Lucius returns to Rome with his Gothic army and Tamora sends word to him that she will meet him at his father's house.

ACT V

Some of the Goths come upon Aaron and the child and bring them to Lucius. Upon promising to preserve the child's life, Lucius learns the story of Aaron's plots against the Andronici. Tamora and her two sons go disguised to Titus's house to make arrangements for the parley. Titus continues to feign madness and after the empress's departure he kills her sons and bakes their bodies in a pie to be served at the feast he has prepared for the meeting. When all the guests are seated Titus slays his own daughter Lavinia and when the emperor presses him for his reason for doing so, he tells him how she had been ravished by Tamora's sons, and then he kills Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus, and Lucius kills the emperor. Lucius tells the Roman people the story of the wrongs done his family and they proclaim him emperor. Aaron, the Moor, is sentenced to be set breast-deep in earth and to die of starvation.

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THE TRAGEDY OF

TITUS ANDRONICUS

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

Rome. Before the Capitol. The Tomb of the Andronici appearing.

Flourish. Enter the Tribunes and Senators aloft. And then enter below, Saturninus and his Followers from one side, and Bassianus and his Followers from the other side, with drum and colors.

Sat. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,
Defend the justice of my cause with arms;
And, countrymen, my loving followers,
Plead my successive title with your swords:
I am his first-born son, that was the last
That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;

5-6. “I am his first-born son, that was the last That ware"; so Qq.; Ff. 1, 2, 3 read "I was the first-born son, that was the last That wore”; F. 4, “I was the first-born Son of him that last Wore”; Pope, "I am the firstborn son of him that last Wore"; Collier, "I am his That wore"; Collier MS., "I am the first borne Sonne, of him the last That wore."-I. G.