Key Quotations
Act 3,Scene 2 – Titus in his house
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,
Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
Then thus I thump it down.
To Lavinia.
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
May run into that sink, and soaking in,
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
Language use
Shakespeare use A form of personification in titus’s speech about his heart. The meaning of this is that Titus feels as if his heart is trapped inside his body further meaning that he wishes for his heart to stop and him to die as it would be much better than to die than to live in a hollow life.
Act 3,Scene 2
Marc
Pardon me, sir, it was a black ill-favor’d fly,
Like to the Empress’ Moor, therefore I kill’d him.
TIT.
O, O, O,
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
For thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,
Flattering myself as if it were the Moor
Come hither purposely to poison me.—
There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora.
Ah, sirrah!
Yet I think we are not brought so low,
But that between us we can kill a fly
That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
Language use
This shows Titus and Marcus’s realisation that Aaron is the cause for all their sorrow, also showing their hatred for him and all his affiliations. Similes are used to describe Aaron and his love Tamora, he is described as ill favoured flies.
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