Complete Plays, The Read Online Free PDF Page B

strings delight to kiss them,He would not then have touch’d them for his life!Or, had he heard the heavenly harmonyWhich that sweet tongue hath made,He would have dropp’d his knife, and fell asleepAs Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s feet.Come, let us go, and make thy father blind;For such a sight will blind a father’s eye:One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads;What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes?Do not draw back, for we will mourn with theeO, could our mourning ease thy misery!
    Exeunt

A CT III

S CENE I. R OME . A STREET .
    Enter Judges, Senators and Tribunes, with Martius and Quintus, bound, passing on to the place of execution; Titus going before, pleading
    Titus Andronicus
    Hear me, grave fathers! noble tribunes, stay!For pity of mine age, whose youth was spentIn dangerous wars, whilst you securely slept;For all my blood in Rome’s great quarrel shed;For all the frosty nights that I have watch’d;And for these bitter tears, which now you seeFilling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks;Be pitiful to my condemned sons,Whose souls are not corrupted as ’tis thought.For two and twenty sons I never wept,Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.
    Lieth down; the Judges, & c., pass by him, and Exeunt
    For these, these, tribunes, in the dust I writeMy heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears:Let my tears stanch the earth’s dry appetite;My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush.O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain,That shall distil from these two ancient urns,Than youthful April shall with all his showers:In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee still;In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snowAnd keep eternal spring-time on thy face,So thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.
    Enter Lucius, with his sword drawn
    O reverend tribunes! O gentle, aged men!Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death;And let me say, that never wept before,My tears are now prevailing orators.
    Lucius
    O noble father, you lament in vain:The tribunes hear you not; no man is by;And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
    Titus Andronicus
    Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you,—
    Lucius
    My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
    Titus Andronicus
    Why, tis no matter, man; if they did hear,They would not mark me, or if they did mark,They would not pity me, yet plead I must;Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;Who, though they cannot answer my distress,Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,For that they will not intercept my tale:When I do weep, they humbly at my feetReceive my tears and seem to weep with me;And, were they but attired in grave weeds,Rome could afford no tribune like to these.A stone is soft as wax,— tribunes more hard than stones;A stone is silent, and offendeth not,And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
    Rises
    But wherefore stand’st thou with thy weapon drawn?
    Lucius
    To rescue my two brothers from their death:For which attempt the judges have pronouncedMy everlasting doom of banishment.
    Titus Andronicus
    O happy man! they have befriended thee.Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceiveThat Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no preyBut me and mine: how happy art thou, then,From these devourers to be banished!But who comes with our brother Marcus here?
    Enter Marcus and Lavinia
    Marcus Andronicus
    Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep;Or, if not so, thy noble heart to break:I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
    Titus Andronicus
    Will it consume me? let me see it, then.
    Marcus Andronicus
    This was thy daughter.
    Titus Andronicus
    Why, Marcus, so she is.
    Lucius
    Ay me, this object kills me!
    Titus Andronicus
    Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.Speak, Lavinia, what accursed handHath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?What fool hath added water to the sea,Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?My grief was at the height before thou