SOURCE: Giddens, E. Eugene. “The Genesis of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.” Literature and Theology: An International Journal of Religion, Theory and Culture 12, no. 4 (December 1998): 341-49.

[In the following essay, Giddens traces Old Testament biblical allusions in Titus Andronicus and draws parallels between the numerous primitive, ritualistic episodes in Shakespeare's drama and the mythic ritual paradigms of Genesis.]

From its first human sacrifice, Alarbus, to its last, Lavinia, Titus Andronicus's action is explicitly pagan. Non-Christian, over-determined rituals have subjected the play to centuries of critical denigration. Recently, however, less-condemnatory critical inquiry focuses on them.¹ Some critics even suggest specific origins for the rituals of Titus. William W. E. Slights puts forward René Girard's theory of sacrificial purification.² Also from an Girardian perspective, Stephen X. Mead sees in Titus ‘a crisis of community-binding ritual.’³ William H. Desmonde argues for a ritual origin in ‘the ancient Greek myths of Pelops and the Rape of Persephone,’ and ‘ultimately from tribal puberty rites.’⁴ Francis Barker notes that ‘Judging from the early incidence of human sacrifice or from the prominence that it gives to an act of cannibalism, it could be argued that Titus Andronicus represents Rome as a primitive society.’⁵ Taking Barker's analyses of the primitivism of Titus Andronicus further, I will suggest that the play's rituals may reflect the early post-lapsarian world of Genesis. This interpretation links ‘the primitive’ in Titus to a mythology of early man that we know Shakespeare consulted.

The main contender for the source of Titus Andronicus is the History of Titus Andronicus. This prose narrative survives in an eighteenth-century version, whose links to the sixteenth-century are unverifiable. Although I am unwilling to nullify its place as a possible source, the arguments of several critics demonstrate its tenuous position. Titus's most recent editor, Jonathan Bate, suggests:

I believe that the play was wholly by Shakespeare and furthermore that it was not based on the chapbook; rather, it was one of the dramatist's most inventive plays, a complex and self-conscious improvisation upon classical sources, most notably the Metamorphoses of Ovid.’⁶

Its status is disputed, but the History can by no means be called the ‘source’ of Titus Andronicus.

Some rituals in Titus Andronicus have a mythic hold on the Western imagination (the rape and silencing of young women); some seem to have no origin at all (not even appearing in the History). I will primarily discuss the latter, thus preventing a complete reliance on the claim that the History of Titus Andronicus is not a source. It is more than coincidental to find most of Titus's ‘original’ events in a small part of Genesis, a text familiar to Shakespeare. I believe that the number of unusual events and themes occurring both in Titus and Genesis demonstrates a link, whether conscious or not on the author's part, between them.

I. ‘WHAT'S IN A NAME?’

Two central names in Titus Andronicus may derive from Genesis and early Exodus. As Dorothea Kehler recently argues:

The chapbook Attava (Bullough 6:38) is reborn as Tamora, possibly an allusion to the biblical Tamar in Genesis 38:6-30, a widow who, disguised as a prostitute, had incestuous relations with her father-in-law Judah and bore twin sons. Or Shakespeare might have been thinking of 2 Samuel 3:1-39, which narrates the incestuous rape of Tammar by her brother Amnon, avenged by her brother Absalom.⁷

The former option, with the inclusion of two sons, seems to befit Shakespeare's character better, as Tammar (dramatised in George Peele's c.1591 David and Bethsabe) is an innocent victim. Tamora is also called ‘Semiramus’ in Titus Andronicus (2.1.22). Semiramus was thought to be the Queen who desired the Tower of Babel (built and destroyed in Genesis 11: 1-9),⁸ and, as Sara Hanna argues, has mythical qualities somewhat matching those of Tamora.⁹

Aaron, of course, is first presented in Exodus, as the brother of Moses.¹⁰ As R. M. Sargent notes, ‘The name ‘Aaron’ would appear to be Shakespeare's own appellation for his villain.’¹¹ Although the Biblical Aaron has little of the Moor's evil, he does have a central trait of Shakespeare's character: ‘he can speak well,’ which is the first thing we learn about him in the Bible (Exodus 4:14). The ritual of naming Tamora and Aaron was performed by Shakespeare, as neither appellation appears in the possible sources. That both names come from the early books of Moses suggests that we should look more closely at them for other influences upon Titus.

II. ‘AD MANES FRATRUM’

Dorothea Kehler has noted of the sacrifice of Alarbus: ‘the plot hinges on human sacrifice, suggesting Jehovah's intervention when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac.’¹² In Genesis 22:2, God says to Abraham: ‘Take now thine onely sonne Izhak whom thou louest, and get thee vnto the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering vpon one of the mountains, which I will shew thee.’ In Titus, Lucius demands Alarbus's death ‘Ad manes fratrum’, and Titus says, ‘Religiously they ask sacrifice.’¹³ Along with the motive, the method of killing is similar in the works. Genesis 22:9 indicates that Abraham will kill Isaac with a knife before burning him. The Andronici also use this slash-and-burn method of sacrifice. Lucius tells us that ‘Alarbus' limbs are lopped, / And entrails feed the sacrificing fire, / Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky’ (1.1.143-45). As J. C. Maxwell notes, ‘The sacrifice of Alarbus is an addition’; it appears in none of the possible sources.¹⁴ Although some critics have suggested Seneca's Troades as the inspiration for this scene,¹⁵ I believe that the near sacrifice of Isaac is a more likely parallel.

III. ‘OUR EMPEROR'S ELDEST SON’

Titus makes a poor choice between Saturninus and Bassianus for emperor, choosing the vicious Saturninus, ostensibly because he is the elder brother: ‘our emperor's eldest son’ (1.1.224). Similarly, Genesis repeatedly refutes primogeniture as the grounds for leadership. God tells Rebecca: ‘Two nations are in thy wombe, and two maner of people shall be deuided out of thy bowels, and the one people shall be mightier then the other, and the elder shall serue the yonger’ (Genesis 25:23). God's prediction is fulfilled when Jacob receives Isaac's blessing over his older brother, Esau (Genesis 27:29). Jacob's son Joseph is similarly exalted above his older brothers (Genesis 37:8ff), and Joseph's younger son has the same fate (Genesis 48:19). Primogeniture as a means of choosing the best leader is repeatedly undercut in Genesis, revealing a possible source for Shakespeare's inclusion of this theme. If the contention of Bassianus and Saturninus is based on the historical Roman royal dispute between Bassianus and Geta (from Herodian), Shakespeare reinforces an undercutting of primogeniture by making Bassianus virtuous in Titus, as he is evil in Herodian.¹⁶

IV. ‘THEY CALLED ME FOUL ADULTERESS’

In Act 2 Scene 3, Tamora falsely accuses Lavinia and Bassianus of attempting to ‘… bind me here / Unto the body of a dismal yew, / And leave me to this miserable death’ (106-8) and calling her ‘… foul adulteress, / Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms / That ever ear did hear to such effect’ (109-11). Tamora makes these accusations because Bassianus threatens to tell her husband about her infidelity (line 85). A similar false accusation to hide adultery is made in Genesis, when Joseph refuses the wife of Potiphar's advances:

… she caught him by his garment, saying, Sleepe with mee: but he left his garment in her hand and fled, and got him out. Now when shee sawe that hee had left his garment in her hand, and was fled out, She called vnto the men of her house, and tolde them, saying, Behold, he hath brought in an Ebrewe vnto vs to mocke vs: who came in to mee for to haue slept with mee: but I cryed with a loude voyce.

(Genesis 39:12-14)

In the chapter immediately following the story of Tamar (Tamora's possible namesake), Potiphar's wife, like Tamora, turns being caught attempting adultery into a means for revenge by using false accusations. Once again, this scene in Titus is absent from the History.

V. ‘THIS UNHALLOWED AND BLOODSTAINèD HOLE’

During the rape of Lavinia, Aaron leads Quintus and Martius into a pit, and frames them for Bassianus's murder. Joseph's brothers also use a pit to entrap him:

… they conspired against him for to slay him. For they saide one to another, Behold this dreamer commeth. Come now therefore, and let vs slay him, and cast him into some pitte, and wee will say, A wicked beast hath deuoured him: then wee shall see, what will come of his dreames.

(Genesis 37:18-20)

They do not slay Joseph, however, casting him in the pit alive instead (Genesis 37:22). Just as Quintus tries to help Marcus out of the pit in Titus, Reuben attempts to aid Joseph (Genesis 37:29), but Joseph has already been removed from the pit and sold to slavery. The use of a pit to entrap and get rid of a supposed friend is common to both plots.¹⁷

Other common features link these episodes. Both entrapments employ a woodland setting (Genesis 37:22) and repeatedly refer to wild beasts. Joseph's brothers will tell Jacob that ‘A wicked beast hath deuoured him’ (Genesis 37:20). Aaron leads Quintus and Martius to the pit to see ‘the panther fast asleep’ (2.3.194), and Martius calls the pit a ‘den’ (line 215). A further connection between the plots is the common reaction of Titus and Jacob, both of whom weep extensively (3.1.41-42; Genesis 37:35). The devouring appetite of the earth is suggested in Genesis when God demands of Cain: ‘What hast thou done? The voyce of thy brothers blood crieth vnto mee, from the earth. Now therefore thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receiue thy brothers blood from thine hand’ (Genesis 4:10-11). Naseeb Shaheen points out that this passage verbally parallels Titus's lament at 3.1.16-22: ‘O earth … thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.’¹⁸ These common features suggest that the play's use of an entrapping pit in Titus may have its source in the mistreatment of Joseph.

VI. ‘LEND ME THY HAND, AND I WILL GIVE THEE MINE’

After the arrest of Quintus and Martius, Aaron tells Titus that his children may be redeemed if one of the Andronici lops off his hand (3.1.150-56). Aaron's ransom is a ruse, however, as a messenger soon reveals:

Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.
Here are the heads of thy two noble sons,
And here's thy hand in scorn to thee sent back.

(3.1.233-36)

A similar false bargain entailing the lopping of body parts is made by the vengeful family of Dinah. In Genesis 34, Shechem rapes Dinah, and then asks to marry her. Her brothers tell him:

We cannot do this thing, to giue our sister to an vncircumcised man: for that were a reproofe vnto vs. But in this we will consent vnto you, if ye will be as we are, that euery man-child among you be circumcised. Then will we giue our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to vs, and will dwel with you, and be one people.

(Genesis 34:14-16)

The men agree (Genesis 34:24), but while they are still sore from the circumcision, Dinah's brothers kill them and their fellow citizens (Genesis 34:25).¹⁹ Thus, in both works a deceitful bargain is made to maim an enemy.²⁰

VII. ‘HANGED, BY' LADY!’

The Clown's undeserved death in Act 4 Scene 4 of Titus Andronicus seems slightly odd. The Clown delivers a message to the emperor from Titus, along with his own gift, a basket of pigeons. Yet for his effort, the emperor has him ushered from the stage and hanged (4.4.39-48). No justification for the execution is given: ‘The emperor's action in ordering the Clown's death is inexplicable’ (Barker 168). Joseph's interpretation of two prisoners' dreams in Genesis 40 picks up several components of this odd interlude. Joseph promises happiness for the imprisoned butler, but the baker's dream bodes the opposite in fortune:

And when the chiefe baker sawe that the interpretation [of the butler's dream] was good, hee said vnto Ioseph, Also me thought in my dreame that I had three white baskets on mine head. And in the vppermost basket: there vvas of all maner baken meates for Pharaoh: and y^e birdes did eate them out of the basket vpon mine head. Then Ioseph answered, and sayd: This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three dayes: Within three dayes shall Pharaoh take thine head from thee, and shall hang thee on a tree and the birdes shall eate thy flesh from off thee.

(Genesis 40:16-19)

Joseph's interpretation proves true.

Many aspects of this story match the clown scene in Titus. The delivery of a gift in a basket to the emperors, the arbitrariness of the emperors ordering death, the centrality of birds to both stories, and that both deaths involve hanging are strong links. Because so much of the clown's fate fits that of the baker's, and because this scene has no other obvious source, perhaps Shakespeare drew his seemingly extraneous tale from Joseph's divination in Genesis.

VIII. ‘SAVE THE CHILD’

Aaron's desire to protect his son is the sole redeeming feature of his character. Aaron's lover, Tamora, wants the child, as evidence of her adultery, dead (4.2.69-70). Aaron decides to send him elsewhere, to be raised in the wilderness, or ‘cabin in a cave, and [be brought] up / To be a warrior, and command a camp’ (4.2.179). The story of Aaron and the unwanted child is mimicked when Sarah, wife of Abraham, wants to banish Abraham's child by her maidservant, Hagar:

… she said vnto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her sonne: for the sonne of this bondwoman shall not be heire with my sonne Izhak. And this thing was very grieuous in Abrahams sight, because of his sonne. But God said vnto Abraham, Let it not be griuous in thy sight for the childe, and for thy bondwoman: in all that Sarah shall say vnto thee, heare her voyce: for in Izhak shall thy seede be called. As for the sonne of the bondwoman, I will make him a nation also, because he is thy seed. So Abraham arose vp early in the morning and tooke bread, and a bottell of water, and gaue it vnto Hagar putting it on her shoulder, and the childe also, and sent her away: who departing, wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

(Genesis 21:9-14)

‘So God was with the child, and he grew and dwelt in the wildernesse, and was an archer’ (Genesis 21:20). A mistreated female servant is common to both pieces, as Aaron kills the nurse of Tamora (4.2.145.sd) and Hagar is ‘cast out’. In both, a mother desires to rid a potentially threatening child, and the father protects him by sending him into the wilderness.

IX. ‘LAVINIA WILL I MAKE MY EMPRESS’

Lavinia is betrothed to Saturninus shortly after he becomes emperor (1.1.238-44), but some members of her family object to this betrothal. Similarly, in Genesis, Jacob makes a marriage agreement with Laban for the hand of Rachel: ‘And Iaakob loued Rahel, and said, I wil serue thee seuen yeeres for Rahel thy yonger daughter’ (Genesis 29:18). Laban later reneges on his bargain, however, and gives Jacob his elder daughter instead: ‘And Laban ansered, It is not the maner of this place, to giue the yonger before the elder’ (Genesis 29.26). Like Laban, Lavinia's guardians in Titus use custom to break an engagement by refusing to betroth Lavinia because she ‘… is another's lawful promised love’ (1.1.298).

X. ‘UNWORTHY SONS!’

Titus shockingly kills his son, Mutius, for opposing the marriage of Lavinia (1.1.291.sd). This seemingly excessive punishment for minor filial disloyalty is matched in Genesis, when Noah punishes Ham for seeing him naked:

Noah also began to be an husbandman, and planted a vineyard. And hee drunke of the wine, and was drunken, and was vncouered in the middes of his tent. And when Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, hee tolde his two brethren without. Then tooke Shem and Iapheth a garment, and put it vpon both their shoulders, and went backeward and couered the nakedness of their father with their faces backward: so they sawe not their fathers nakedness. Then Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his yonger sonne had done vnto him. And saide, Cursed be Canaan: a seruant of seruants shall he be vnto his brethren.

(Genesis 9:20-25)

Cursing and killing may differ in degree, but the presentation of minor child mutiny and a harsh parental response, a theme repeated in King Lear, appears with shocking excess in both Titus and Genesis.

Given the similarity between much of the ritualised action in Titus Andronicus and Genesis, it is no surprise that they reciprocate in other ways. For instance, both texts are concerned with burial in the proper tomb. In Titus, the Anrdronici tomb is a central feature, and even Saturninus has ‘burial in his father's grave’ (5.3.191). In Genesis, Jacob insists on being buried in his father's tomb (47:30). Both works also contain a powerful avowal of man's place in God's revenge: ‘Who so sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God hath he made man’ (Genesis 9:6). In Titus, Marcus says to Lavinia: ‘Write thou, good niece, and here display at last / What God will have discovered for revenge’ (4.1.72-73).²¹ In Genesis, God charges man with cruelty, which He punishes with the flood:

The earth also was corrupt before God: for the earth was filled with cruelty. Then God looked vpon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt: for all flesh had corrupted this way vpon the earth. And God sayd vnto Noah, An end of all flesh is come before me: for the earth is filled with crueltie through them: and hehold [sic], I will destroy them with the earth.

(Genesis 6:11-13)

Tamora's charge, ‘O cruel, irrelgious piety’ (1.1.130), suggests this famous example of God's vengeance against cruelty on earth. The aforementioned revenge for the rape of Dinah (of course, an archetypal theme) also links the texts.

Shakespeare's use of Genesis in Titus Andronicus is certainly more paradigma than imitatio. Some of the parallels given above may be tenuous on their own (the revenge ethic is presented elsewhere in the Old Testament, cruelty is often a part of revenge plays, and rapes abound in mythology). The number of plot devices concentrated into a single Biblical book, however, suggests that Genesis has strong intertexual links with Titus Andronicus. I am not suggesting that Shakespeare sat down with Genesis in front of him to compose Titus Andronicus. It does seem likely, however, that in imaging a primitive world, Shakespeare, inadvertently or otherwise, returned to the horrors of his society's founding narrative, a narrative he knew very well.

Notes

1. A. C. Hamilton argues, ‘To keep his violence sweet, Shakespeare ritualizes the language and action of the play,’ in ‘Titus Andronicus: The Form of Shakespearian Tragedy,’ Shakespeare Quarterly 14 (1963) pp. 208. D. J. Palmer believes that, ‘… throughout the play, the response to the intolerable is ritualised, in language and action, because ritual is the ultimate means by which man seeks to order and control his precarious and unstable world,’ in ‘The Unspeakable Pursuit of the Uneatable: Language and Action in Titus Andronicus,’ Critical Quarterly 14 (1972) p. 322. Henry Jacobs suggests that the perverted banquet in the play serves as a ‘… subversion and virtual obliteration of the ideological “text” normally reflected in a royal fête’ in ‘The Banquet of Blood and the masque of Death: Social Ritual and Ideology in English Revenge Tragedy,’ Renaissance Papers 1985 (1985) p. 45. Naomi Conn Liebler argues that the play distorts and confuses rituals that usually function to protect society in Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy: The ritual foundations of genre (Routledge: London and New York, 1995) p. 142.

2. William W. E. Slights, ‘The Sacrificial Crisis in Titus Andronicus,’ University of Toronto Quarterly 49 (1979/80) pp. 18-32.

3. Stephen X. Mead, ‘The Crisis of Ritual in Titus Andronicus,’ Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1994) p. 463.

4. William H. Desmonde, ‘The Ritual Origin of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus,’ International Journal of Psychoanalysis 36 (1955) pp. 62 and 61.

5. Francis Barker, The Culture of Violence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) p. 143.

6. Jonathan Bate, ‘Introduction,’ Titus Andronicus, (London and New York: Routledge, 1995) p. 3. G. K. Hunter notes, in ‘Sources and Meanings in Titus Andronicus,’ Mirror Up to Shakespeare, ed. J. C. Gray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984) p. 171, that ‘The play has no indisputable source …’ MacDonald P. Jackson argues: ‘The earliest extant documents preserving the three accounts of Titus's woes are: (1) the 1594 Quarto of the play, (2) the manuscript of the ballad that was probably transcribed into the Shirburn collection within the period 1600-3, and (3) the chapbook History printed some time between 1736 and 1764. So far as I can see, nobody has yet given sufficient reason for supposing that this was not also their order of composition’ in ‘Titus Andronicus: Play, Ballad, and Prose History,’ Notes & Queries 234 (1989) p. 317. R. M. Sargent suggests, in ‘The Source of Titus Andronicus,’ Studies in Philology 46 (1949) p. 169, ‘that story cannot be definitely settled as the actual source of The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus.’

7. Dorothea Kehler, “That Ravenous Tiger Tamora’: Titus Andronicus's Lusty Widow, Wife, and M/other,’ Titus Andronicus: Critical Essays, ed. Philip C. Kolin (New York and London: Garland, 1995) p. 321. Kehler cites Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 8 vols. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957-1975).

8. All Biblical references cite The Geneva Bible: A facsimile of the 1599 edition with undated Sternhold & Hopkins Psalms, 1990 (Pleasant Hope, Missouri: 1993). Long ‘s’ has been modernised throughout.

9. Sara Hanna, ‘Tamora's Rome: Raising Babel and Inferno in Titus Andronicus,’ Shakespeare Yearbook 3 (1992) pp. 13-19.

10. This connection is also noted by Dorothea Kehler, ‘Titus Andronicus: From Limbo to Bliss,’ Shakespeare Jahrbuch 128 [East] (1992) p. 130.

11. ‘The Source of Titus Andronicus,’ Studies in Philology 46 (1949) p. 173.

12. Kehler (1992) p. 130.

13. Titus Andronicus, ed. Eugene M. Waith (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) lines 1.1.98 and 124. All references to the play cite this edition.

14. J. C. Maxwell, ‘Introduction,’ Titus Andronicus (1953; London: Methuen, 1968) p. xxxii. Sargent makes the same point, p. 175.

15. A. L. and M. K. Kistner, ‘The Senecan Background of Despair in The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus,’ Shakespeare Studies 7 (1974) p. 6; and R. Law, ‘The Roman Background of Titus Andronicus,’ Studies in Philology 40 (1943) p. 149.

16. See Naomi Conn Liebler, ‘Getting It All Right: Titus Andronicus and Roman History,’ Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994) pp. 263-78, for the assertion that Shakespeare was familiar with the historical account of Bassianus and his brother through The history of Herodian.

17. Ann Haaker notices Christian imagery in the pit scene: ‘The imagery is rich with Christian symbols. The blood on the crown of thorns, the elder tree from which the cross of Christ was made …, the taper in the monument, the slaughtered lamb of God—all form a bizarre mélange of the grotesque and the sacred …’ in ‘Non sine causa: The Use of Emblematic Method and Iconology in the Thematic Structure of Titus Andronicus,’ Research Opportunities in Renaiassance Drama 13-14 (1970-71) p. 158.

18. Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in Shakespeare's Tragedies (London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1987) p. 68.

19. The Moor of ‘A Lamentable Ballad’ also tricks his master to cut off a body part, his nose, in order to restore his wife, who is held hostage. Like Dinah's brothers, however, Aaron is more cunning, going to Titus in dissembled good will, instead of forcing the mutilation as a kidnapping bargain. See Bullough, vol. 6, pp. 71-76.

20. Peter Sacks' suggestion extends my parallel. He proposes that Titus's amputation is a symbolic castration, ‘Where Words Prevail Not: Grief, Revenge, and Language in Kyd and Shakespeare,’ English Literary History 49 (1982) p. 591.

21. Maurice Hunt points out that the Christian God seems to be mentioned here in ‘Compelling Art in Titus Andronicus,’ Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 28 (1988) p. 201.