Without the help of any hand at all.
Cursed be that heart that forced us to this shift!
Write thou, good niece, and here display at last
What God will have discovered for revenge.
Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,
That we may know the traitors and the truth!
[She takes the staff in her mouth, and guides it with her stumps and writes.]
O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?
TITUS.
“Stuprum. Chiron. Demetrius.”
MARCUS.
What, what! The lustful sons of Tamora
Performers of this heinous bloody deed?
TITUS.
Magni Dominator poli,
Tam lentus audis scelera, tam lentus vides?
MARCUS.
O, calm thee, gentle lord, although I know
There is enough written upon this earth
To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts
And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.
My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;
And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector’s hope;
And swear with me, as, with the woeful fere
And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,
Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece’ rape,
That we will prosecute, by good advice
Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
And see their blood, or die with this reproach.
TITUS.
’Tis sure enough, an you knew how.
But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware;
The dam will wake, and if she wind you once.
She’s with the lion deeply still in league,
And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,
And when he sleeps will she do what she list.
You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;
And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,
And with a gad of steel will write these words,
And lay it by. The angry northern wind
Will blow these sands like Sibyl’s leaves abroad,
And where’s our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?
YOUNG LUCIUS.
I say, my lord, that if I were a man,
Their mother’s bedchamber should not be safe
For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.
MARCUS.
Ay, that’s my boy! Thy father hath full oft
For his ungrateful country done the like.