Tit.
So, so; now sit: and look you eat no more
Than will preserve just so much strength in us
As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:
Thy niece and ^note I, poor creatures, want our hands,
And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;
Who ^note, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
Then thus I thump it down. [To Lavinia ^note]
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous ^note beating,
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still. ^note

Wound it with sighing ^note, girl, kill it with groans;
Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
And just against thy heart make thou a hole;
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
May run into that sink, and soaking in
Drown the lamenting fool ^note in sea-salt ^note tears.

Marc.
Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay
Such violent hands upon her tender life.

Tit.
How now! has sorrow made thee dote already?
Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
What violent hands can she lay on her life?
Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands;
To bid Æneas tell the tale twice o'er,
How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
O, handle not the theme, to talk ^note 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! ^note
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 ^note with her sorrow ^note, mesh'd upon her cheeks:
Speechless complainer, I ^note will learn thy thought;
In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
As begging hermits ^note 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 ^note an alphabet,
And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.

Boy.
Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments:
Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

Marc.
Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved,
Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.

Tit.
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 ^note knife?

Marc.
At that that I have kill'd, my lord,—a fly ^note.

Tit.
Out on thee, ^note murderer! thou kill'st my heart;
Mine eyes are ^note cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother: get thee gone;
I see thou art not for my company.

Marc.
Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.

Tit.
‘But!’ How, if ^note that fly had a father and mother? ^note
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings ^{note note} in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill'd him. ^note

Marc.
Pardon me, sir; it was ^note a black ill-favour'd fly, ^note
Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.

Tit.
O, O, O, ^note
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
For thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him;
Flattering myself ^note, as if it were the Moor

Come hither purposely to poison me.
There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
Ah, sirrah! ^note
Yet, I think ^note, we are not brought so low,
But that between us we can kill a fly
That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor ^note.

Marc.
Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,
He takes false shadows for true substances.

Tit.
Come, take away. ^note Lavinia, go with me:
I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee
Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young,
And thou shalt read when mine begin ^note to dazzle. [Exeunt.

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