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Titus Andronicus (Quarto 1, 1594)

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed
The most Lamentable Tragedie
1365Then be my passions bottomlesse with them.
Marcus. But yet let reason gouerne thy lament.
Titus. If there were reason for these miseries,
Then into limits could I binde my woes:
VVhen heauen doth weepe, doth not the earth oreflow?
1370If the winds rage, doth not the sea waxe mad,
Threatning the welkin with his bigswolne face?
And wilt thou haue a reason for this coile?
I am the sea. Harke how her sighs doth flow:
Shee is the weeping welkin, I the earth:
1375Then must my sea be mooued with her sighs,
Then must my earth with her continuall teares,
Become a deluge: ouerflowed and drownd:
For why, my bowels cannot hide her woes,
But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
1380Then giue me leaue, for loosers will haue leaue,
To ease their stomacks with their bitter tongues.

Enter a messenger with two heads and a hand.

Messenger. VVorthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid,
For that good hand thou sentst the Emperour:
1385Here are the heads of thy two Noble sonnes,
And heres thy hand in scorne to thee sent backe:
Thy griefe, their sports: Thy resolution mockt:
That woe is me to thinke vpon thy woes,
More than remembrance of my fathers death.
1390Marcus. Now let hote Ætna coole in Cycilie,
And be my hart an euerburning hell:
These miseries are more than may be borne.
To weepe with them that weepe doth ease some deale,
But sorrow flowted at, is double death.
1395Lucius. Ah that this sight should make so deepe a wound
And yet detested life not shrinke thereat:
That euer death should let life beare his name,
VVhere