TITUS.
Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren whom your Goths beheld
Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain
Religiously they ask a sacrifice.
To this your son is marked, and die he must,
T’ appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
LUCIUS.
Away with him, and make a fire straight,
And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
Let’s hew his limbs till they be clean consumed.
[Exeunt Titus’ sons with Alarbus.]
TAMORA.
O cruel, irreligious piety!
CHIRON.
Was never Scythia half so barbarous!
DEMETRIUS.
Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive
To tremble under Titus’ threat’ning look.
Then, madam, stand resolved, but hope withal
The self-same gods that armed the Queen of Troy
With opportunity of sharp revenge
Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent
May favour Tamora, the queen of Goths,
(When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen)
To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.
Enter the sons of Andronicus again with bloody swords.
LUCIUS.
See, lord and father, how we have performed
Our Roman rites. Alarbus’ limbs are lopped,
And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,
Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.
Remaineth naught but to inter our brethren,
And with loud ’larums welcome them to Rome.
TITUS.
Let it be so; and let Andronicus
Make this his latest farewell to their souls.
[Sound trumpets, and lay the coffin in the tomb.]