Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

I've always loved the stage direction from A Winter's Tale,"Exit, pursued by a bear," even though the character exiting under duress does get eaten by his pursuer. But one of the many grisly entrances and exits in Titus Andronicus has become my new favorite: Enter carrying two heads and a hand.

I asked Wilhelm what he knew about Titus Andronicus and all he could think of was, "Seldom performed." I can see why. The bloodshed is almost unending and includes the cutting off of both hands and cutting out the tongue of Titus' daughter. Not to mention all the deaths.

Titus is not a historical character. He is a fictitious general who arrives back in Rome after a 10-year war and a great victory in which 21 of his sons were killed, leaving I think three alive. He brings, as conquering heroes did in those days, the captive Gothic queen, Tamora, and her son, Alarbus. Also her lover, Aaron, though I don't suppose that is as traditional.

The Roman emperor has died. We don't know which one and since this is all fiction it doesn't matter. But what does matter is who will succeed him. The crowd wants Titus but the old man says no and asks them instead to let him choose the next ruler. He chooses the bad guy, the elder son, Saturninus (he should have known better just by the guy's name.) The new emperor asks Titus for his daughter, Lavinia, in marriage and Titus says yes, not realizing she is already engaged to be married to the brother of Saturninus, Bassianus, the one he should have chosen to rule Rome (except that if he had there would be no play.)

Titus' remaining sons help her fiance run off with her and the new emperor gets mad and marries the Gothic queen instead. And then the fun begins.

Here's an casualty list:

1. the dead bodyof one of Tisus' sons,
2. the sacrifice of Tamora's son,
3. the stabbing of Mutius by his father, Titus
4. the stabbing of Bassianus by Tamor's sons
5. the rape and mutilation of Lavinia
6. the mutilation of Titus
7. the execution of Martius and
8. Quintus,
9. the stabbling of a nurse
10. the hanging of a clown
11. the throat-cutting of Chiron and
12. Demetrius
13. the unwitting cannivalism of Tamora
14. the stabbing of Lavinia
15. the stabbing of Tamora
16. the stabbing of Titus
17. the stabbing of Saturninus, and finally
18. the projected death by slow starvation of Aaron. 

I can't recommend this play to anyone except perhaps a student of Senecan tragedy, of which it is a parody I think. I've been under the mistaken assumption that I had read all of Shakespeare but I had not read this and now I know why.

2012  No 66