O sacred receptacle of my joys,¹
Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
How many sons of mine hast thou in store,
That thou wilt never render to me more! (1. 1. 97-100)

Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother’s tears in passion for her son:
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me! (Lines 110-113)

........Titus replies that “die he must, / To appease their groaning shadows that are gone” (1. 1. 130-131). Lucius and attendants seize Alarbus and remove him to his place of execution. There, they hew his limbs and “feed the sacrificing fire” (1. 1. 150). The death of Alarbus triggers a series of gruesome murders and mutilations occurring throughout the play. Lavinia, the gentle daughter of Titus, then comes forth to greet her father, shedding tears of grief for her dead brothers and tears of joy at the sight of Titus.

I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold,
To wait upon this new-made empress.
To wait, said I? to wanton with this queen,
This goddess, this Semiramis,² this nymph,
This siren, that will charm Rome’s Saturnine,
And see his ship wrack³ and his commonweal’s. (2. 1. 21-26)

Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred. (5. 3. 64-66)

.

O gentle Aaron! 
Did ever raven sing so like a lark, 
That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise? 
With all my heart, I’ll send the emperor My hand: 
Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off? (3. 1. 163-167) 

Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand: 
Tell him it was a hand that warded him 
From thousand dangers; bid him bury it. (3. 1. 201-203) 

    had you not by wondrous fortune come,
This vengeance on me had they executed.
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children. (2. 3. 118-121)

I go, Andronicus: and for thy hand 
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee. 
[Aside] 
Their heads, I mean. O, how this villainy 
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it! (3. 1. 208-11)

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. (5. 1. 145-148)

Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’⁴ top, 
Safe out of fortune’s shot; and sits aloft, 
Secure of thunder’s crack or lightning flash; 
Advanc’d above pale envy’s threatening reach. 
As when the golden sun salutes the morn, 
And, having gilt the ocean with his beams, 
Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,⁵
And overlooks the highest-peering hills; 
So Tamora. 
Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait, 
And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown. (2. 1. 3-11) 

My lovely Aaron, wherefore look’st thou sad, 
When every thing doth make a gleeful boast? 
The birds chant melody on every bush, 
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun, 
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind 
And make a chequer’d shadow on the ground: 
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, 
And, whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, 
Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns, 
As if a double hunt were heard at once, 
Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise; 
And, after conflict such as was supposed 
The wandering prince and Dido⁶ once enjoy’d,
When with a happy storm they were surprised 
And curtain’d with a counsel-keeping cave, 
We may, each wreathed in the other’s arms, 
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber; 
Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds 
Be unto us as is a nurse’s song 
Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep. (2. 3. 13-32) 

The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax⁷
That slew himself; and wise Laertes’⁸ son 
Did graciously plead for his funerals. (1. 1. 393-395) 

TITUS ANDRONICUS   Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends, 
What Roman lord it was durst do the deed: 
Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst, 
That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’ bed?⁹
MARCUS ANDRONICUS   Sit down, sweet niece: brother, sit down by me. 
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,¹⁰
Inspire me, that I may this treason find! 
My lord, look here: look here, Lavinia: 
This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst 
This after me, when I have writ my name 
Without the help of any hand at all. (4. 1.64-74) 

And now he writes to heaven for his redress: 
See, here’s to Jove, and this to Mercury; 
This to Apollo; this to the god of war;¹¹
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome! (4. 4. 15-18) 

Ironically, Shakespeare sometimes wraps repulsive images in pleasing ones or tucks them into rhythmically pleasing lines. Lucius reports in Act I that 

Alarbus’ limbs are lopp’d, 
And entrails feed the sacrificing fire, 
Whose smoke, like incense, doth perfume the sky. (1. 1. 149-151) 

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear 
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole, 
Which, like a taper in some monument, 
Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthy cheeks, 
And shows the ragged entrails of the pit: 
So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus¹² 
When he by night lay bath’d in maiden blood. (2. 3. 238) 

Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands 
Have lopp’d and hew’d and made thy body bare 
Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments, 
Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in. (2. 4. 19-22) .

Special Effects

Before performing a bloody play such as Titus Andronicus, actors in Shakespeare's day filled vessels such as pigs' bladders with blood and concealed them beneath their costumes. Onstage, they had only to pound a fist against a bladder to release the blood and simulate a gruesome death.

Study Questions and Essay Topics
 
1. Which character in the play is the most despicable? Explain your answer. 
2. Are there any admirable characters in the play? Explain your answer.
3. Write an essay that analyzes the main character, Titus Andronicus. There is plenty of evidence in the play to draw conclusions about ....him. For example, he recommends Saturninus as the new emperor. But after Saturninus accedes to the throne, he betrays Titus. Does ....this turn of events suggest that Titus is a poor judge of character? Also, in a fit of anger, Titus kills his own son, Mucius. Does this ....action suggest that he cannot control his emotions? 
4. Tamora ostensibly seeks revenge against Titus because he ordered the execution of her son, Alarbus. Are there other motives that fire ....her with vengeance? 
5. Titus kills Lavinia to put her out of her misery. Was he right to do so? 
6. Aaron has no admirable qualities except his love for his child. Is his love merely instinctual or genuine and heartfelt?

1.   Sacred . . . joys: Titus refers to the tomb (sacred receptacle) of his sons (joys).
2.   Semiramis: Beautiful Assyrian queen of the Ninth Century BC After her husband, King Ninus, died, she ruled for many years and built ......the fabled city of Babylon.
3.   Ship wrack: Shipwreck.
4.   Olympus: Mountain abode of the Greek gods.
5.   Golden sun . . . glistering coach: Allusion to Apollo, the sun god. Acting as the sun, Apollo drove a glittering (glistering) golden chariot ......across the sky. 
6.   Wandering prince: Aeneas, a Trojan warrior and the main character of Vergil’s great epic poem, The Aeneid. After the Greeks conquer ......Troy, Aeneas sails to Italy and founds Rome, according to mythological accounts. 
7.   Dido: Queen of Carthage. She falls desperately in love with The Aeneid’s main character, Aeneas (see previous entry), after he stops ......in.Carthage on his way from Troy to Italy. After he abandons her, she kills herself by falling on a sword. At sea on his ship, Aeneas ......can see Carthage glowing with the flames of Dido’s funeral pyre. 
8.   Ajax: Ajax the Great, the Roman name for a gigantic warrior who helped the Greeks win the Trojan War. His Greek name was Aias. ......He was second only in strength and courage to Achilles. After the war, the Greeks awarded the armor of Achilles, slain by a poisoned ......arrow, to Ulysses (Greek name: Odysseus) rather than Ajax. Their decision so humiliated and so enraged Ajax that he killed ......himself. 
9.   Laertes’ son: Oedipus, the central character of the great Sophocles play Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King). 
10. Tarquin . . . Lucrece’ bed: Tarquin (or Sextus Tarquinius) was the son of the king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, who reigned ......from 534 to 509 BC. Tarquin brutally raped the beautiful and virtuous Lucrece (or Lucretia), the wife of a Roman officer, Collatinus. ......Afterward, Lucrece stabbed herself. Her death enraged the Romans, and they overthrew Tarquinius Superbus and his son.
11. Apollo . . .  Mercury: Apollo, god of the sun; Pallas, alternate name for Minerva, the Roman name of the Greek goddess of wisdom ......and war, Athena; Jove, the Roman name (along with Jupiter) of the Greek king of the gods, Zeus; Mercury, the Roman name of the ......Greek messenger god, Hermes.
12. God of war: Mars, the Roman name for the Greek war god, Areas. 
13. Pyramus: The lover of Thisbe. These Babylonians were the subject of a story by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) in his long poem ......Metamorphoses. When Pyramus thinks a lion has killed Thisbe, he kills himself. Thisbe is still a live, however. But when she ......discovers the body of Pyramus, she also kills herself.