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Young Lucius runs onstage chased by Lavinia. He drops his books in panic. He tells Marcus and Titus that his aunt Lavinia is chasing him everywhere; he doesn’t know why. They tell him to be patient: Lavinia loves him, and her gestures must mean something. Titus recalls how she used to read to Young Lucius. Young Lucius explains he was afraid that her grief had driven her mad, but he will stay with her so long as Marcus stays too.
Lavinia turns over the books. She gestures with both arms: Marcus realizes she means there was more than one perpetrator. She extracts a particular book: Ovid’s Metamorphosis. She turns the pages to the story of Philomel, who was raped in woodland. They realize that she was raped in the woods while they hunted and express their regret for this. Titus suspects Saturninus. Marcus takes a stick and holds it in his mouth to write his name in the dirt. He bids Lavinia reveal her attackers the same way. She writes the names of Chiron and Demetrius. They all vow revenge.
Titus points out that Tamora will protect them fiercely; she has Saturninus’s protection but will also act behind his back. Young Lucius swears that were he older, she could not protect them from him. Titus says he will send Young Lucius to Chiron and Demetrius with presents from his armory; Young Lucius takes this to mean he should kill them, but Titus says he plans another course. Everyone else leaves Marcus alone onstage. He laments Titus’s woes and hopes that the heavens avenge him.
Young Lucius presents Demetrius and Chiron with weapons as a gift from Titus, privately recalling their deeds and his hatred of them. After he leaves, Demetrius and Chiron are pleased with the gifts. They are wrapped in papers on which a verse of Horace is written. Aaron, watching, realizes that the verses communicate that Titus has uncovered their guilt. He observes that Tamora would notice, were she present, but she is in labor. Aaron doesn’t let on to Demetrius and Chiron. Instead, he encourages their smug acceptance of their new status in Rome. Chiron and Demetrius wish they could rape a thousand other Roman women; they all agree Tamora would bless this idea if she were present. They decide to go and pray for Tamora.
Trumpets sound; they wonder if the Emperor has a son. A nurse enters with a baby, looking for Aaron. She is in distress: The baby is multiracial, revealing that Aaron is the father, not Saturninus. She tells Aaron that Tamora requests he kill the child, which she dehumanizes. Aaron refuses, asserting that the baby is beautiful. Demetrius and Chiron are horrified; they decide to kill the baby. Aaron takes the baby and draws his sword. He says he will protect his son above all else, including Tamora. Demetrius and Chiron fear Tamora will be killed for this.
Aaron kills the nurse to keep her silent and then instructs Demetrius and Chiron. They must dispose of her body, and then go to a nearby couple Aaron knows, who also had a baby last night, which had pale skin. They will give them money and tell them of the great destiny that awaits the child, and then substitute that baby as Saturninus’s son. They approve and leave for their tasks. Aaron plans to take the baby to the Goths and raise him as a warrior.
Titus rants about the search for justice and absent gods, instructing his companions to dig, and cast nets in the sea. Marcus and his son Publius humor him, hoping that Lucius will return with the Goths to wreak vengeance. Titus gives arrows to them, Young Lucius, and two other companions, which have letters on the end of them addressed to various gods. On his command, they shoot them toward the court.
A Clown enters with two pigeons. Titus thinks he brings the gods’ reply to his messages, but the Clown says he’s on his way to the court to resolve a dispute. Titus asks him to bear a message to the Emperor. He writes a letter and wraps it around a knife. He says the Clown must pay respects and offer his pigeons, then present the letter, then return and let them know Saturninus’s response.
Saturninus enters with Tamora, her sons, and her attendants. He is aggravated by Titus’s arrows with their messages to the gods. He says they libel the senate by suggesting injustice when his execution of Titus’s sons was lawful. He vows that Titus’s apparent “madness” won’t protect him. Tamora beseeches him to pity rather than punish Titus, privately gloating at the pain she has caused him.
The Clown enters and presents Saturninus with Titus’s letter and his pigeons. He asks how much money he’ll get for this service, but Saturninus has him taken away and hanged. Saturninus rages against Titus’s claims that his sons were killed unlawfully, vowing to punish him. He believes Titus only helped him ascend because he wanted to govern Rome through him.
Emillius, a messenger, enters. He tells them to arm: The Goths are marching on Rome under Lucius’s leadership. Saturninus is cowed, because Lucius is martially skilled but also popular in Rome, with many believing his banishment unjust. Tamora encourages him to have faith in his greatness as emperor of Rome. She assures him that she can win over Titus to side with them and call off Lucius. She sends Emillius to arrange a parley with Lucius at Titus’s house.
In this Act, Shakespeare continues his exploration of The Paradigm of “Civilized” Rome against “Barbarian” Other by expanding beyond this binary to consider other societal groupings and prejudices. He shows a fear of the “other” through Young Lucius’s flight from his aunt Lavinia. Unable to talk, and gesturing with her handless arms, she is now frightening to him. He fears she may have a mental health condition: Outward appearance was often associated with inner state in the Early Modern period, and both physical disability and mental health conditions could lead to ostracization, as they were poorly understood. However, Titus and Marcus remind him that she is the same aunt who used to read him stories, humanizing her despite her changed state.
Aaron’s baby is also treated as fundamentally “other” in this Act. The Nurse describes him as “loathsome as a toad” (4.2.69), and Demetrius continues this imagery, saying he will spear the “tadpole.” They all refer to the child as “it.” This dehumanization is complex, relating to skin color in a number of ways. The idea of race as a fixed or determinative entity was not an Early Modern concept, but there were prejudices around skin color and ideas about its significance, as well as distrust of cultural differences. This partly relates to the literary association of blackness and darkness with wickedness or the devil, something the Nurse refers to in her description of the child. In this instance, skin color also relates more practically and pertinently to the baby’s parentage, as it reveals Tamora’s betrayal of the emperor in her relationship with Aaron—both a personal and a state matter. The Nurse, Chiron, and Demetrius all look to Aaron for leadership to deal with this situation: Their prejudice around skin color is flexible depending on how it serves their aims.
Aaron himself adopts the other characters’ racially-charged language around himself and his child, but he embraces the idea that the child is the devil, just as he consciously plays the role of villain. However, he also humanizes the baby, emphasizing that he is Chiron and Demetrius’s brother and pointing out his smile. He both internalizes and to a degree subverts this language, noting, “Look how the black slave smiles upon the father / As who should say ‘Old lad, I am thine own'” (4.2.122-123), asserting his and his child’s humanity through their affection, within a derogatory framework. He counters the other characters’ ideas about skin color, arguing that pale skin is inferior: It is a blank canvas that takes on other colors, revealing Chiron and Demetrius’s distress when they blush, or the baby’s heritage. Shakespeare both expresses the prejudiced views of his age and offers an awareness of them, as Aaron consciously interacts with these ideas.
This also engages with the theme of The Value of a Human: Though society does not value the life of Aaron’s baby, Aaron places him above all else, immediately imbuing the child with a non-negotiable personhood, in contrast to Titus’s relationships to his children. This valuing of the baby also contrasts with the dehumanizing of the minor characters in this Act: The Clown and the Nurse are treated as completely disposable by everybody, including those whom they are obediently helping. Shakespeare communicates their shock at their deaths, as Aaron mocks the Nurse’s squealing when he stabs her, and the Clown’s expectation of payment is subverted when Saturninus instead orders his death. Each death is abrupt and moved on from immediately, communicating that they are unimportant in the wider context and treated as mere side casualties. This suggests that the chaos of the state and its key players means no one is safe—in the battle of Order Versus Chaos, chaos remains supreme.
The Act also continues the play’s exploration of The Complications of Female Expression. The Act uses irony: This is the first time anyone has been interested in what Lavinia has to say, and she can’t speak. It is also the first time she has anything outside of the generic script of female chastity to communicate. She becomes creative in her expression, using her body, books, and the earth itself, revealing that she has a strong drive to communicate. Tamora meanwhile continues to play the role of the temperate wife as she beseeches Saturninus to pity rather than punish Titus whilst privately gloating at the pain she has caused him. She is aware of the power her eloquence affords her, calling herself “High-witted Tamora” in an aside. Her expression is her tool of asserting agency; however, her fatal flaw is that she overestimates her power of manipulation: It works on Saturninus, and initially on Titus, but after the immutable facts of his sons’ death and Lavinia’s suffering, she cannot win Titus over. Her confidence in herself and belief in his “madness” sets the scene for the next Act as she creates the circumstances that will enable the bloody denouement to unfold.
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By William Shakespeare