1    Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
2    I will encounter with Andronicus,
3    And say I am Revenge, sent from below
4    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
5    Knock at his study, where, they say, he keeps,
6    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
7    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,
8    And work confusion on his enemies.

9    Who doth molest my contemplation?
10   Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
11   That so my sad decrees may fly away,
12   And all my study be to no effect?
13   You are deceived: for what I mean to do
14   See here in bloody lines I have set down;
15   And what is written shall be executed.

16   Titus, I am come to talk with thee.

17   No, not a word; how can I grace my talk,
18   Wanting a hand to give it action?
19   Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.

20   If thou didst know me, thou wouldest talk with me.

21   I am not mad; I know thee well enough:
22   Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;
23   Witness these trenches made by grief and care,
24   Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
25   Witness all sorrow, that I know thee well
26   For our proud empress, mighty Tamora:
27   Is not thy coming for my other hand?

28   Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora;
29   She is thy enemy, and I thy friend:
30   I am Revenge: sent from the infernal kingdom,
31   To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind,
32   By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
33   Come down, and welcome me to this world's light;
34   Confer with me of murder and of death:
35   There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
36   No vast obscurity or misty vale,
37   Where bloody murder or detested rape
38   Can couch for fear, but I will find them out;
39   And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
40   Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.

41   Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me,
42   To be a torment to mine enemies?

43   I am; therefore come down, and welcome me.

44   Do me some service, ere I come to thee.
45   Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
46   Now give me some surance that thou art Revenge,
47   Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot-wheels;
48   And then I'll come and be thy waggoner,
49   And whirl along with thee about the globe.
50   Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
51   To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
52   And find out murderers in their guilty caves:
53   And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
54   I will dismount, and by the waggon-wheel
55   Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,
56   Even from Hyperion's rising in the east
57   Until his very downfall in the sea:
58   And day by day I'll do this heavy task,
59   So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.

60   These are my ministers, and come with me.

61   Are these thy ministers? what are they call'd?

62   Rapine and Murder; therefore called so,
63   Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.

64   Good Lord, how like the empress' sons they are!
65   And you, the empress! but we worldly men
66   Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
67   O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
68   And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,
69   I will embrace thee in it by and by.

70   This closing with him fits his lunacy
71   Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits,
72   Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
73   For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;
74   And, being credulous in this mad thought,
75   I'll make him send for Lucius his son;
76   And, whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
77   I'll find some cunning practise out of hand,
78   To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,
79   Or, at the least, make them his enemies.
80   See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.

81   Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee:
82   Welcome, dread Fury, to my woful house:
83   Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
84   How like the empress and her sons you are!
85   Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor:
86   Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
87   For well I wot the empress never wags
88   But in her company there is a Moor;
89   And, would you represent our queen aright,
90   It were convenient you had such a devil:
91   But welcome, as you are. What shall we do?

92   What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?

93   Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.

94   Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
95   And I am sent to be revenged on him.

96   Show me a thousand that have done thee wrong,
97   And I will be revenged on them all.

98   Look round about the wicked streets of Rome;
99   And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself.
100  Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.
101  Go thou with him; and when it is thy hap
102  To find another that is like to thee,
103  Good Rapine, stab him; he's a ravisher.
104  Go thou with them; and in the emperor's court
105  There is a queen, attended by a Moor;
106  Well mayst thou know her by thy own proportion,
107  for up and down she doth resemble thee:
108  I pray thee, do on them some violent death;
109  They have been violent to me and mine.

110  Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.
111  But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
112  To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
113  Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
114  And bid him come and banquet at thy house;
115  When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
116  I will bring in the empress and her sons,
117  The emperor himself and all thy foes;
118  And at thy mercy shalt they stoop and kneel,
119  And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
120  What says Andronicus to this device?

121  Marcus, my brother! 'tis sad Titus calls.
Enter MARCUS
122  Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
123  Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths:
124  Bid him repair to me, and bring with him
125  Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;
126  Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are:
127  Tell him the emperor and the empress too
128  Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.
129  This do thou for my love; and so let him,
130  As he regards his aged father's life.

131  This will I do, and soon return again.

132  Now will I hence about thy business,
133  And take my ministers along with me.

134  Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me;
135  Or else I'll call my brother back again,
136  And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.

Aside to her sons
137   What say you, boys? will you
138  bide with him,
139  Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor
140  How I have govern'd our determined jest?
141  Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,
142  And tarry with him till I turn again.

Aside
143   I know them all, though they suppose me mad,
144  And will o'erreach them in their own devices:
145  A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam!

146  Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.

147  Farewell, Andronicus: Revenge now goes
148  To lay a complot to betray thy foes.

149  I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.

150  Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?

151  Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
152  Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine!

153  What is your will?

154  Know you these two?

155  The empress' sons, I take them, Chiron and Demetrius.

156  Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceived;
157  The one is Murder, Rape is the other's name;
158  And therefore bind them, gentle Publius.
159  Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
160  Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,
161  And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,
162  And stop their mouths, if they begin to cry.

163  Villains, forbear! we are the empress' sons.

164  And therefore do we what we are commanded.
165  Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.
166  Is he sure bound? look that you bind them fast.

167  Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
168  Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;
169  But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
170  O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
171  Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud,
172  This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.
173  You kill'd her husband, and for that vile fault
174  Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,
175  My hand cut off and made a merry jest;
176  Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
177  Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
178  Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forced.
179  What would you say, if I should let you speak?
180  Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.
181  Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.
182  This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
183  Whilst that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
184  The basin that receives your guilty blood.
185  You know your mother means to feast with me,
186  And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:
187  Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust
188  And with your blood and it I'll make a paste,
189  And of the paste a coffin I will rear
190  And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
191  And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,
192  Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
193  This is the feast that I have bid her to,
194  And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
195  For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
196  And worse than Progne I will be revenged:
197  And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,
He cuts their throats
198  Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,
199  Let me go grind their bones to powder small
200  And with this hateful liquor temper it;
201  And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.
202  Come, come, be every one officious
203  To make this banquet; which I wish may prove
204  More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.
205  So, now bring them in, for I'll play the cook,
206  And see them ready 'gainst their mother comes.