Monday, February 4, 2013

Titus Andronicus Act 3 – “… and tears will quickly melt thy life away…”


“She says she drinks no other drink but tears,
Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks…
Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,
And tears will quickly melt thy life away…”

This is powerful drama and classic Shakespeare. Anyone who doubts Shakespeare wrote all or most of ‘Titus Andronicus’ needs to re-read Act 3 of the play and let the golden hues of Shakespeare’s verse, heart wrenching characters and staging wash over them.
Titus, the warrior, on his knees, pleading for his (falsely accused) sons’ lives to be spared. The pillars of Rome are cracked and falling. The “map of woe” extended to New Worlds. The humiliation and sorrow escalate when Lavinia, ravished and mutilated in hands and tongue, is brought back to him. On top of this, Titus has his own hand chopped off to secure the release of his sons, only to have his hand returned along with the heads of his two sons. He realizes that “tears will quickly melt a life away” and that the tongue of revenge should “plot some deuce of further misery”. We see Titus in an almost absurdly melodramatic scene, feeding his daughter Lavinia with the one hand he has left. The warrior has once again become nourisher. The pivot for the revenge to come, is Lavinia, mute and suckled by her father.
Tamora 5
Titus 1

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