Belisarius' successor, Narses, is a different matter. He ruled Italy into extreme old age, and after Justinian's death, when Narses was more than ninety years old, the aged general was ordered home. According to the legend (probably not true) his recall was accompanied by an insulting message. He was told that since he was a eunuch, he should return and confine himself to spinning wool with the palace maidens.
The insulted Narses said, "I will spin them such a skein as they will not easily unravel" and invited the barbarous Lombards to invade Italy-which they did most effectively.
The play now shifts to the Andronicus house. For the first time, a grandson of Titus appears. He is a son of Lucius and is also named Lucius.
Young Lucius enters, carrying books and running. Mute Lavinia is running after him. The boy is frightened but Titus and Marcus catch and comfort him, assuring him that Lavinia means him no harm, and loves him. Titus says:
—Act IV, scene i, lines 12-14
The Cornelia referred to was a daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the Roman general who finally defeated Hannibal in 202 b.c. Cornelia was considered the model of the virtuous Roman matron, chaste, honorable, and loving-and utterly devoted to her two sons.
These two sons received the finest education available at the time. So proud was she of them that when another Roman matron, on a visit, displayed her jewelry and asked to see Cornelia's, the latter merely pointed to her sons. "These are my jewels," she said.
As for Tully, that is a name by which the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (see page I-268) is sometimes known in English. One of his famous works was De Oratore (Concerning the Orator), and it is to this that Titus refers.
But Lavinia stirs the books that young Lucius has let fall, concentrating on one, which the boy identifies for his grandfather:
—Act IV, scene i, lines 42-43
One of the myths contained in Metamorphoses (see page I-8), which deals with tales of transformations of human beings into other forms, is that of Philomela and Procne, for in the end, Philomela is turned into a nightingale and Procne into a swallow. Lavinia wants to find that tale in order to have Titus and Marcus understand that her mutilation was the result of a rape.
Clearly, this shows haste on Shakespeare's part. After all, Marcus has guessed as much when he first encountered Lavinia after the mutilation. He then said:
—Act II, scene iv, lines 26-27
It now occurs to Marcus that a person can write with a stick in the sand by holding that stick in his mouth and guiding it with his wrists. Hands are not required at all. Lavinia uses this method to reveal that Chiron and Demetrius are the guilty ones. Now Titus is certain against whom he must plan revenge.
Apparently considerable time has elapsed since the beginning of the play, for Tamora is about to have a baby and it is to be presumed that the Emperor Saturninus is the father. However, events have miscarried. It is Aaron, not Saturninus who is the father, and this is shown all too plainly in that the baby is a black infant.
Naturally, this fact must be hidden, or Tamora's infidelity will be plain even to Saturninus and she will be destroyed. The Nurse who attended Tamora brings the baby to Aaron, with instructions from Tamora to kill it and destroy the evidence.
But Aaron, in this one respect, departs from the line of flat villainy. He becomes a proud father and in words that strangely fore-echo the pride of the black activists of the 1960s, cries out to the Nurse, who is expressing disgust at the child:
—Act IV, scene ii, lines 71-72
When Chiron and Demetrius, who are also present, offer to kill their baby half brother to secure their mother's safety, Aaron draws his sword fiercely, saying:
—Act IV, scene ii, lines 93-96
Enceladus was one of a brood of tremendous giants (with serpents for legs) which were brought forth by Mother Earth, who was annoyed to see Jupiter (Zeus) and his fellow gods destroy the Titans, for the Titans had been her children.
The giants, under Enceladus' leadership, fought the gods in a battle which, in the versions that reach us, seem to be described as a burlesque of Homer-almost a comic retelling of a myth, with grotesque exaggerations. For instance, Enceladus is killed by Athena, who throws a huge mountain at him; a mountain that flattens him and becomes the island of Sicily.
Aaron's remark makes it seem that Enceladus and the other giants are the offspring of Typhon, but this is not so. Typhon was born after the defeat of the giants and was the greatest and most fearful monster of all. Typhon engaged Jupiter in a great duel and was almost victor, for he cut out and hid the sinews of Jupiter's hands and feet and paralyzed the great god. It wasn't till Mercury (Hermes), the god of thieves, stole back the sinews and restored Jupiter's powers of movement that Typhon was finally killed by the lightning bolts of the king of the gods.
After the mention of Enceladus and Typhon, to go on to Alcides (Hercules) and the god of war (Mars) seems distinct anticlimax.
The Gothic princes wilt before Aaron's fury and ask him what he means to do. His first act is to kill the Nurse, thus reducing, by one, the number of those who know the secret. He then prepares to change the baby for a white one who will be made heir to the throne while Aaron will secretly raise his own black baby to become a warrior.
In preparing his revenge, Titus feigns madness, meanwhile, in order to throw Saturninus and Tamora off the scent and lull them into a false security. Titus' madness (and surely he has suffered enough to make the onset of madness plausible) consists of a wild search for justice through Heaven and Hell. He cries out: