Complete Plays, The by William Shakespeare Read Free Book Online

hands;To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er,How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,Lest we remember still that we have none.Fie, fie, how franticly 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 perfectAs 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 alphabetAnd by still practise learn to know thy meaning.
    Young Lucius
    Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments:Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
    Marcus Andronicus
    Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved,Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.
    Titus Andronicus
    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 Andronicus
    At that that I have kill’d, my lord; a fly.
    Titus Andronicus
    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 innocentBecomes not Titus’ brother: get thee gone:I see thou art not for my company.
    Marcus Andronicus
    Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly.
    Titus Andronicus
    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 Andronicus
    Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favor’d fly,Like to the empress’ Moor; therefore I kill’d him.
    Titus Andronicus
    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 MoorCome 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 flyThat comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
    Marcus Andronicus
    Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,He takes false shadows for true substances.
    Titus Andronicus
    Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me:I’ll to thy closet; and go read with theeSad 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

A CT IV

S CENE I. R OME . T ITUS ’ S GARDEN .
    Enter young Lucius, and Lavinia running after him, and the boy flies from her, with books under his arm. Then enter Titus and Marcus
    Young Lucius
    Help, grandsire, help! my aunt LaviniaFollows me every where, I know not why:Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes.Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
    Marcus Andronicus
    Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
    Titus Andronicus
    She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
    Young Lucius
    Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.
    Marcus Andronicus
    What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?
    Titus Andronicus
    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 careRead to her sons than she hath read to theeSweet poetry and Tully’s Orator.
    Marcus Andronicus
    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 TroyRan mad through sorrow: that made me to fear;Although, my lord, I know my noble auntLoves me as dear as