How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to the Riverside edition.
Quote #7
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Come, go with me into mine armoury;
Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal, my boy,
Shalt carry from me to the empress' sons
Presents that I intend to send them both:
Come, come; thou'lt do thy message, wilt thou not?
Young LUCIUS
Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course. (4.1.10)
We saw above that Young Lucius seems ready to join in the cycle of bloody violence. Here Grandpa Titus promises to teach him a more subtle way to get revenge.
Quote #8
O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,
I will embrace thee in it by and by. (5.2.7)
When Tamora visits Titus (whom she thinks has gone mad) dressed as the physical embodiment of "Revenge," Titus plays along and embraces her. There's a whole lot to say about this dramatic moment. We particularly like literary critic Alexander Leggatt's point of view. Leggatt writes that "When Titus welcomes her [Tamora] with a one-armed embrace, the moment has a double significance: Titus is embracing Revenge but he is also embracing Tamora – and the act conveys, more than Titus realizes, how much he and his victim have in common" ("Titus Andronicus: A Modern Perspective").
Quote #9
You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:
Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust
And with your blood and it I'll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on; (5.2.18)
As Titus prepares to slit Chiron and Demetrius's throats and bake them into a meat pie, he declares that he'll serve the dish to Tamora at a banquet. This puts a whole new spin on the concept that "revenge is a dish best served cold," wouldn't you say? Titus also makes a grisly pun when he says he's going to "rear" a "coffin." "Coffin" is another word for piecrust, which is what Titus intends to whip up out of the boys' blood and ground-up bones. Of course, a coffin is also what dead bodies are placed in for burial, so there's some dark humor at work here.