For Shakespeare's 450th birthday, two excerpts from one of his earliest plays: Titus Andronicus. After an early burst of popularity when it premiered, this play's reputation sank lower and lower until many wished to deny that this horror show was associated in any way with the man who had become the national poet of all English-speaking countries. I have to say I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it, and feel a bit smug that it's come into its own again in our time, though its relentless and sometimes grotesque violence probably reminds us less of the works by Ovid and Seneca that Shakespeare was trying to match or even surpass than of the works of Quentin Tarantino. You can actually see the play live on stage these days, which is more than anyone in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries could say. There's also an excellent film directed by Julie Taymor, called simply Titus, with Anthony Hopkins as Titus and Jessica Lange as his nemesis, Tamora Queen of the Goths. (I do have to disagree with Taymor's bizarre notion that when the other main villain, Aaron the Moor, has a child, it humanizes him; he does love his son, but that's one of those complicating touches that Shakespeare loves, blurring our view of even his most unrepentantly evil creations; as the play proceeds Aaron actually grows increasingly vicious, until he ends almost as a demonic force, finding strange delight in stranger cruelty.)
Far from being a crude apprentice work, Titus Andronicus actually shows us a playwright already in masterly control of a very complex revenge plot, dealing with ambitious themes and astute characterizations. Far from being an anomaly in Shakespeare's works, it deals with themes he returned to again in other works, particularly Hamlet and King Lear: the moral complexities of revenge, the man of power who is overly confident of his own strength and integrity and therefore makes foolish choices, the savagery underneath a fragile civilization, the terror of insanity (these themes are found not just in the tragedies, but even in such comedies as Twelfth Night). Shakespeare may have used horrifying and even grotesque violence to subtler effect later in his career (think of the blinding of Gloucester), but he never actually turned away from it, and if Titus presents a universe of such relentless all-consuming violence that it almost turns into absurdity (and not just in the twentieth-century theatrical sense), maybe that is a deliberate part of the point. And if Titus suffers by comparison with Hamlet and Lear, well, what wouldn't?
To give a brief and bare summary of the action up to this point: Titus, the great Roman general, has defeated the Goths and led their Queen Tamora in triumph back to Rome. There he refused the throne and threw his support behind the late emperor's eldest son, the dangerously unstable Saturninus, who suddenly decides to marry Tamora. She and her lover Aaron are laying traps for Titus, who conquered her country and refused mercy when she begged for the life of one of her sons, who had been condemned to death. During a hunting party in the woods her two remaining sons have waylaid Titus's daughter Lavinia, raped her and then cut out her tongue and off her hands (in this Shakespeare is topping Ovid's story of Philomela, who was raped and had her tongue cut out by her brother-in-law Tereus, but retained the hands which enabled her to weave her story). They have also had her husband killed and framed her brothers for the crime. Marcus, the brother of Titus, and Titus's last remaining son, the boy Lucius, come across the mutilated Lavinia and bring her to her father. This is the turning point for him, when he realizes his authority no longer counts for anything, and he begins to move towards revenge and madness.
Marcus: O thus I found her, straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer
That hath received some unrecuring wound.
Titus: It was my dear, and he that wounded her
Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead:
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environed with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
This way to death my wretched sons are gone,
Here stands my other son, a banished man,
And here my brother weeping at my woes:
But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn
Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,
It would have madded me: what shall I do
Now I behold thy lively body so?
Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,
Nor tongue to tell me who hath mart'red thee.
Thy husband he is dead, and for his death
Thy brothers are condemned, and dead by this.
Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!
When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.
*******
Marcus: But yet let reason govern thy lament.
Titus: If there were reason for these miseries,
Then into limits could I bind my woes:
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swoll'n face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea: hark, how her sighs doth flow!
She is the weeping welkin, I the earth:
Then must my sea be movèd with her sighs,
Then must my earth with her continual tears
Become a deluge, overflowed and drowned,
For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,
But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
Then give me leave, for losers will have leave
To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.
Titus Andronicus, Act III, scene 1, ll 88 - 113 and 218 - 233
The Elizabethans loved word-play, and even (or especially) in moments of great emotional stress, their suffering victims would quibble on meanings, wringing every pathetic twist out of slippery words: hence Titus takes Marcus's deer and changes it to dear. Titus then compares himself to one stranded on a single outcropping of rock as the sea surges higher and higher, threatening to pull him in, where he will be lost in this threatening, malevolent, uncontrolled world of nature (think of Lear exposed to the elements during the night of terrifying storms). Titus enumerates what his family has gone through – we see a formerly confident, even arrogant man starting to break under the weight of relentless anguish (Shakespeare also astutely uses this speech to separate and reinforce in the audience's minds the previous events of the plot, which might start to blur together in their confusing and dizzying profusion).
In the second excerpt (between the two, there's been more violence, mutilation, and mocking cruelty inflicted upon Titus) we once again open with Titus playing upon Marcus's sober advice. Seeing his brother losing control, Marcus counsels him to submit his emotions to the conscious control of reason (stoic advice suited to an imperial Roman). Titus again plays upon his brother's words, taking reason not as the mind's understanding judgments but as a cause, an explanation, a justification – and he can find none, except the basic indifferent malevolence of the universe, for such pointless and even absurd pain. But see what he does to his earlier metaphor, in which he stood upon a rock threatened by the surging sea: the solid ground of the rock has disappeared and he now declares that he is himself the vast and moving sea. His daughter is his sky, and her sighs and tears will affect him as a stormy sky does the ocean. The "brinish bowels" he mentioned earlier (the bowels were thought to be the seat of compassion; a footnote in my Signet Classic edition compares this usage to the modern use of heart; the bowels are also a hidden, elemental part of our bodies), which threatened to swallow him, are now part of him, and his "bowels cannot hide her woes" – even the endless deep cannot contain his daughter's tragedy. Under the strain of his sorrows, he has moved from feeling threatened by the world of suffering around him to feeling that he is himself this element of suffering.
This shift in metaphor, from the sea is a dangerous element threatening me to I am identical to that dangerous element, marks a decisive change in Titus (developing this metaphor, complete with its attendant bowels, over the course of the scene shows a subtlety of verse and characterization for which this play is not usually given credit). By the end of the speech, this proud man of habitual victories, this sternly reasoning Roman, is reduced to comparing himself with a weak undisciplined drunkard losing control of his body and puking. This emphasis on bodies – mutilated, violated, disorderly, suffering – will take terrible form at the climax of the play when Titus serves her two sons up, baked in a pie, to Tamora (again, Shakespeare out-tops Ovid's story of Philomena, whose sister Procne served her husband Tereus only one son). This terrifying image of devouring one's offspring or family or oneself as a form of annihilation will recur in Shakespeare, particularly in the story of Lear and his three daughters.
Now go have some cake (or pie) for Shakespeare's birthday! Happy birthday, O immeasurable Bard of Stratford-on-Avon!
9 comments:
Mmmm...meat pie. Never having seen "Titus Andronicus," I always wondered where that scene in the Vincent Price movie "Theatre of Blood" came from, although in the film the "children" were two poodles and Queen Tamora became Robert Morley as an epicene theatre critic who is served his darlings for lunch.
I saw that movie when I was in college and really enjoyed it -- I should see it again. It's fun for the Shakespeare fans to identify where each murder comes from -- I think someone is drowned in a barrel of wine (a "butt of malmsey") like the Duke of Clarence in Richard III, though Clarence in the play is actually stabbed first. Classic stuff!
Here's my Titus Andronicus story (because you had to know I would have one. I grew up in San Diego, where of course we have the excellent Old Globe Theater, home of a quite excellent annual Shakespeare Festival. The Artistic Director throughout my years in the South, Craig Noel, had a policy of "any play but Titus." One of the other excellent local theater companies decided to put on Titus because, hey, that way we getta do Shakepeare, but do not have to compete against the Globe. A dear, dear actor friend of mine, knowing he'd never have another chance to do this particular play, was cast. My severely peanut-allergic best friend and I (Lit majors both, also sure we would never have another chance to see Titus performed) went to the show. Unfortunately, Titus is a very, very bloody show, and even more unfortunately, the production used peanut butter in its stage blood formula. My friend went into anaphylaxic shock before the curtain fell. Luckily, she had an epi-pen in her purse, so Titus did not claim another victim. From what I did see, I have to say that the scene where tongue-less, handless Lavinia uses a staff to write the names of her attackers in the dirt is nearly unplayable. Also, Theater of Blood is right up there with the Abominable Dr. Phibes as my favorite Vincent Price film (yes, over Laura).
That is an awesome story, and though I'm glad your friend survived, that is most definitely an Elizabethan/Jacobean theater way to go. "Any play but Titus" is an interesting policy -- Timon of Athens would be much more difficult to stage, I think, because it's incomplete as it stands (possibly never finished); Pericles is rambling and the first part is generally held to be by someone else; the Henry VI trilogy needs to be seen together to make sense -- my point here is that Titus is actually more coherent and easier to stage than some of the other plays. I did see it at the Shakespeare theater in Washington DC several years ago; it was an excellent production, fairly indebted (it seemed to me) to Taymor's film, and I have to say I don't remember how they staged the scene with Lavinia and the staff (though I think they did have her walk off with Titus's severed hand in her mouth, as the text says; in any case they didn't try to pretty up what was there). But, indeed, to modern sensibilities (and maybe even to Elizabethan ones) that scene with Lavinia pushes the bloodshed into grotesquerie which can lead to what we'll call inappropriate laughter.
By the way my Shakespeare professor at Cal, the late Janet Adelman, had a policy of "any play but the Merry Wives of Windsor"; I took her 2-quarter survey course, in which we read all the plays except that one, which she, as a fan of the Henry IV Falstaff, could not stand. She told us we could read it over winter break if we wanted.
I've never seen The Abominable Dr Phibes. I guess I should?
The Abominable Dr. Phibes was actually the precursor to Theatre of Blood, where the murders were all cleverly revised versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt. My favorite Vincent Price movie is probably the 1953 "House of Wax" and I found a wonderful quote from him on IMDB: "[on "The House of Wax" and director Andre De Toth] It's almost my favorite Hollywood story. Where else in the world would you hire a man with one eye to direct a picture in 3-D?"
I know, wouldn't death by stage blood be totally Aphra Ben? Timon was the second play I saw at the Globe, the summer I was 11. I remember nothing. The first I saw, that same summer, was Much Ado, which remains my favorite. I remember a summer in the 80's when the Globe did the two Henry iv's in rotation with, if memory serves, Loves's Labour, and Lear, but I do not recall a summer with all the Henry vi's. My best friend was the house manager for many years; I ushered for *everything*. Dr. Phibes is some serious camp: Phibes/Price avenges his wrongs on a theme, much like Theater of Blood. The sequel is lesser, but easier to find to rent. Hold out for The Abominable. If you are a fan of camp horror, I can give you this visual: Jeffrey Combs, of the Reanimator movies, was a stalwart at the Globe in the 80's, an excellent comedian, whom I remember best as one of the Dromios. (Also, you can imagine my embarrassment for that unclosed paren in the earlier post. I will claim needing to attend to dinner before it burned.)
Maybe we have a special fondness for the first Shakespeare we saw or read; for me, it's Twelfth Night (first both seen and read). I have never seen Timon of Athens. I think it's even rarer than Titus is (or used to be).
I wouldn't really say I'm a fan of camp horror, though I do like Vincent Price, though I haven't seen many of his films.
I will just assume that any unclosed parens are there as an artistic touch, implying a thought that can never be closed off. Though also, indeed, sometimes you need to tend to dinner.
OK, I might as well contribute a Titus experience as well: As a college student in England, I saw Deborah Warner's production at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon, with Brian Cox in the title role. It was astonishing. They performed it on a bare stage. A ladder, a bucket & ropes were about the only other props. Lavinia was played by Sonia Ritter, who had the physique of a 13 year old girl. The scene where Lavinia writes the names of her attackers was not unplayable but it was nearly unwatchable, as was the recognition scene you quoted above. I actually saw audience members avert their eyes. Stage blood absolutely went flying in the final scene, & if you were seated near the stage, you were likely to get splattered (I saw no allergic reactions, though).
You are right that it is a classic revenge play. I think it also fits in with Shakespeare's other Roman plays as an outlet for displays of classical rhetoric.
Thanks. I love that people actually have Titus Andronicus experiences and are sharing them. (And yes, absolutely, about the links with the other Roman plays.)
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