Shakespeare 2020 Project
Shakespeare's first tragedy and what a blood fest it is! Revenge plays were the thing in the 16th Century, but Shakespeare being Shakespeare had to kick it up and make it a DUAL revenge play.
Per Roman custom, since 2 of Titus' sons died in war (he already lost 21 sons in the previous 10 years of war), Titus orders the sacrificial killing (by dismembering, disemboweling and tossing in a fire) of the eldest son of the captured Queen of the Goths (Tamora). SHE vows revenge!
When Titus learns that Tamora's 2 sons raped and disfigured his daughter Lavinia (cut out her tongue and cut off both her hands) HE vows revenge!
Though, it is the villainous Moor, Aaron who puts so much of the action in motion. Aaron was the one who convinced Demetrius and Chiron (Tamora's sons) to rape Lavinia when he hears them fighting over her.
"For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar...
That will not suffer you to square yourselves,
But to your wishes' height advance you both."
It was Aaron who tricked Titus' 2 sons to the pit where the Emperor's brother's (Bassianus) slain body was (slain by Demetrius and Chiron) and caused them to be blamed and sentenced to death.
It was Aaron who convinced Titus to chop off his hand in a falsely promised exchange for his sons' lives only to have the Emperor's messenger return with Titus' hand and the heads of his 2 sons.
When Aaron is captured and facing his own death:
Lucius: "Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?"
Aaron: "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more...
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly;
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more."
Speaking of flies...one of my laugh out loud moments in all this carnage is when Titus freaks out over his brother Marcus killing a fly:
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."
Though it is Titus who gets the ultimate revenge in the end! When Tamora and her sons disguise themselves in attempt to trick Titus (whom they believe has gone mad) into hosting a peace treaty dinner between his sole remaining son (Lucius) and the Emperor, Titus agrees and asks that Tamora's sons keep him company while she returns to get the Emperor. He reveals to Demetrius and Chiron that he is not mad (um, that may be questionable) and that he knew who they were despite their disguises. He proceeds to slit their throats, grind their bones to dust, use their blood to make a paste for a pie crust and bake them into a pie!! At the dinner Tamora's husband the Emperor (Saturninus) asks Titus to bring the sons out to their mother:
Titus" Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred."
After which every stabs someone else and Lucius becomes the Emperor.
I found myself enjoying this play, kinda like a train wreck you just can't look away from. And it gave me a line I can't wait to use the next time someone interrupts my reading:
"Who doth molest my contemplation?"
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