Act 2, Scenes 1–4 Summary
Act 2, Scene 1
In front of the palace in Rome, Aaron the Moor, Tamora’s lover, is musing on his mistress’s new status as empress. He decides that it will make no difference to their relationship and that, between them, they will ruin both Saturninus and Rome.
Chiron and Demetrius enter, squabbling about which of them would make the better lover for Lavinia. As they draw their swords, Aaron comes between them, pointing out the folly of quarreling over a woman who is married to the emperor’s brother, Bassianus. Demetrius says that better men than Bassianus have been cuckolded, but Aaron responds that Lavinia is as chaste as Lucretia was, and they will have to rape her instead of seducing her. He suggests that they use the royal hunt, when the ladies of the court will be walking through the forest, as an opportunity for this attack.
Act 2, Scene 2
In a forest near Rome, Titus Andronicus and his sons and brother sound their hunting horns and meet the royal hunting party. They all go off together on the hunt, except Chiron and Demetrius, who, as the latter remarks, have a different sort of pursuit in mind.
Act 2, Scene 3
In a lonely part of the forest, Aaron the Moor hides a bag of gold under a tree. Tamora enters and tries to persuade him to make love, but Aaron tells her he has vengeance on his mind rather than pleasure. He says that this is a day of doom for Bassianus and Lavinia, and gives Tamora a letter for Saturninus, saying that it is part of his plan. Bassianus then enters with Lavinia. in time to see Aaron depart. They accuse Tamora of arranging an assignation with Aaron, and Bassianus vows to tell Saturninus of his wife’s infidelity.
Chiron and Demetrius enter. Tamora immediately accuses Bassianus and Lavinia of plotting to murder her and demands that her sons take revenge on them. The brothers both stab Bassianus, and he dies. Tamora is about to kill Lavinia as well, but her sons say they want to rape Lavinia first. Tamora agrees but asks them to ensure that they kill Lavinia afterward so she will not be able to tell anyone what happened. Lavinia begs Tamora not for mercy, but for a quick death. Tamora says that to kill Lavinia now would be to rob her sons of their pleasure. The brothers sling the body of Bassianus into a pit, then drag Lavinia off to rape her.
Aaron enters with Quintus and Martius, Titus’s sons. Martius falls into the pit that contains the body of Bassianus, and Quintus also falls in as he attempts to pull Martius out. Saturninus arrives to hear that his brother is dead, and Tamora then enters and gives him the letter she received from Aaron at the beginning of the scene. This implicates Martius and Quintus in the murder of Bassianus, referring to the hidden gold, which Aaron conveniently finds under the tree. Saturninus is persuaded by the evidence and sentences Martius and Quintus to death for his brother’s murder.
Act 2, Scene 4
In another part of the forest, Chiron and Demetrius have raped Lavinia, then cut out her tongue and chopped off her hands so that she can neither speak nor write of what has happened to her. They leave her, and Marcus Andronicus enters. He laments the outrage done to Lavinia in a long speech and takes her with him to find Titus.
Analysis
A notable feature in this section of the play is a continual dichotomy between speech and action...
(This entire section contains 961 words.)
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or reality. Chiron claims to “love Lavinia more than all the world,” which sounds like a declaration of romantic passion, but when Aaron tells him that the only way to have her is by rape, while his brother looks on and waits his turn, both he and Demetrius find this perfectly acceptable. Nor does either of them object to mutilating her afterward—indeed, they sneer at her over the loss of her hands and tongue.
Equally strange is the speech made by Marcus Andronicus at the end of the act. Having found his niece raped and mutilated, he chooses to deliver a monologue full of poetic images and classical allusions before informing his brother.
Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind:
But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee;
A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,
That could have better sewed than Philomel.
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like aspen-leaves, upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
He would not then have touch'd them for his life!
Or, had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropped his knife, and fell asleep
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
This speech has been the subject of much critical discussion and is often cut in performance, as it seems such an incongruous response to what has happened. In the section above, Marcus compares Lavinia to the legendary Philomela, an Athenian princess who was raped and mutilated by her brother-in-law, Tereus. The comparison is an obvious one. The legend of Philomela often appears in Elizabethan literature and clearly served as an inspiration for the various stories used by Shakespeare as sources for Titus Andronicus. To dwell on the legend in this way, however, while attempting to beautify the grisly scene with sentimental language and poetic imagery, seems as dramatically clumsy as it is psychologically bizarre. Once again, one of the more satisfactory explanations is Harold Bloom’s idea that this is a parody of the violent melodrama favored by the University Wits.