53
whose leaves are drops of new-shed
blood / ...A very fatal place it
seems to me” (2.3.198–200, 202). In
this way, the play anticipates the
literal feeding that the female
mouth will perform at the end.
Roman values
A mother figure is absent among
the Andronici clan. The mother of
Titus’s 26 children is dead, and
there is no mention of a wife for
Lucius. Nevertheless, disturbing
parallels emerge between father
and mother, Roman and Goth,
which complicate the roles of both
Titus and Tamora. Titus has buried
20 sons before the play begins, all
killed in wars, and his first action
in the play is to place a coffin in the
family tomb. In the original staging,
the trapdoor would probably have
been used to signify the tomb,
and also the pit in Act 2—thereby
creating a sinister likeness
between these spaces. At the start
of the play we discover that Titus is
“surnamèd Pius” (1.1.23). This was
a title associated with Aeneas, one
of the founders of Rome. It signified
the best Roman values of honor,
piety, and familial loyalty.
By contrast, Tamora is described
as all that is un-Roman: promiscuous,
treacherous, and bestial. And yet,
Titus himself shapes what Tamora
becomes by making her first-born
son, Alarbus, a sacrifice. Tamora’s
accusation, “O cruel, irreligious
piety!” (1.1.130), is hard to argue
with. Titus and Tamora are both
driven to violence through their
sense of shame: Titus kills his son,
Mutius, in a rage at being defied in
front of the Emperor; Tamora vows
revenge against Andronicus for
making a queen kneel to him. Both
characters represent a challenge
to the core Roman values Titus
is supposed to embody, implying
that there are dangerous tensions
between them, not least between
personal honor and family loyalty.
Rome itself fulfils its reputation
for ingratitude when it banishes
one of Titus’s sons and condemns
two others to death, ignoring his
pleas for mercy. By making Tamora
devour her sons, Titus could be
seen as forcing her to act like
the ungrateful city. But although
Tamora’s body may be cast beyond
the walls at the end, the anxieties
and tensions she represents will
remain at the very heart of Rome. ■THE FREELANCE WRITER
Hark, villains, I will grind
your bones to dust,
And with your blood and
it I’ll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin
I will rear,
And make two pasties of
your shameful heads,
Titus Andronicus
Act 5, Scene 2Aaron
Aaron is an early villain in
Shakespeare, the forefather of
Don John in Much Ado About
Nothing (pp.154–61), and Iago
in Othello (pp.240–49).
The monstrous glee he
shows at his own villainy
links him to the comic Vice
of the medieval morality play,
but he has become a much
more troubling figure in
modern times because of the
connection that he makes
between his evil and his
ethnicity. In particular, his
wish to “have his soul black
like his face” (3.1.204) might
seem to justify long-held
associations of blackness
with devil-worship, treachery,
and lust. The ease with which
Aaron assimilates himself into
Rome suggests that he can
convincingly assume Roman
values—he can read Latin
texts better than Chiron and
Demetrius, and he is more
paternal than Titus. But he
remains a difficult figure for
modern productions. Julie
Taymor’s 1999 film Titus was
accused by critics of simply
updating its racial stereotypes
by identifying Aaron with the
contemporary “supercool
hipster,” “sexual athlete,”
and “nihilistic gangster.”A nobler man, a braver warrior,
Lives not this day within
the city walls.
Marcus Andronicus
Act 1, Scene 1