SCENE II.
Rome.
Before TITUS's house.
5.2.1
“Is it your trick to make me open the door, that so my sad decrees may fly away, and all my study be to no effect?”
Titus asked. He remembered his wife of then; naughty one who likes to run off in the dark to the garden or forest
with him trailing in lust. He will do her bid to avenged her son.
“You are deceived: for what I mean to do see here in bloody lines I have set down; and what is written shall be
executed.” Titus promised to himself the oath of revenge.
“Titus, I am come to talk with thee.” Tamara whispered out while she crouched before the nearby tombstones. With
her milky shades and ground hugging movements, she looked so much exotic and yet scary when the darkness
bathed her that night.
“No, not a word; how can I grace my talk,” Titus stepped back. Despite his madness, he was taken aback by the
ghastly sight which by then was joined by two more equally bad looking figures. They moved like the serpents and
yet their slitter upwards instead of across.
“Wanting a hand to give it action?” Titus spoke out. “Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.”
Titus turned to walk back but Tamara beckons him.
“If thou didst know me, thou wouldest talk with me.” Tamara whisper out,
Titus stopped in his stride. He was confused on what he had seen was real or imaginative. The others have said he
was mad, but in actual knowledge, he was depressed and in his depression, he had resorted to nonsensical acts. It
was his avenue of sanity from the pain inside him. With his departure from the others incessant caring, he had found
his privacy to think and planned his vengeance. Or so he think then of himself.
“I am not mad; I know thee well enough.” Titus had sobered up within his mind. He had recognized the figure
before him.
Or was it Marthe who told him. He looked to the tombstones. They all seemed to witness to him on the trio standing
there.
“Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines.” Titus called out as he greets his ancestors and the fallen
sons. “Witness these trenches made by grief and care, witness the tiring day and heavy night, witness all sorrow, that
I know thee well for our proud Queen, mighty Tamara.”
Tamara shuddered at the older man calling of the ones there. Was it truly madness that overcome the man? She was
to retreat when she saw him approaching them. Titus approached the trio and extended his left hand before he
replied to them.
“Is not thy coming for my other hand?” Titus smiled at them.
“Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamara.” Tamara felt herself cornered and then she collected her wits to addressed
the man. “She is thy enemy, and I thy friend.”
“I am Revenge: sent from the infernal kingdom.” Tamara stood up and spread her limbs as if she was on the bedding
of her lover. She hoped to invoked in him that sight of a Goddess. “To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind, by
working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.”
“Come down, and welcome me to this world's light;” Tamara motioned to Titus to seat himself by her. “Confer with
me of murder and of death: there's not a hollow cave or lurking-place, no vast obscurity or misty vale, where bloody
murder or detested rape can couch for fear, but I will find them out; and in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.”
“Art thou Revenge? And art thou sent to me, to be a torment to mine enemies?” Titus asked back in disbelief.
“I am; therefore come down, and welcome me.” Tamara nod and then crouched herself down. She did that so that
whoever was in the Mansion may not see her.
“Do me some service, here I come to thee.” Titus stepped closer to the trio but he maintained a safe distance before
he spoke again. “Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands; now give me some insurance that thou art
Revenge.”
Titus pointed to the two men beside the so-named Revenge. He had recognized the duo despite their ghastly face
mask and horrendous camouflage of dressing. Tamara taken aback by Titus calling her sons by those nicknames but
she was more shocked when he spoke on.
“Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot-wheels and then I'll come and be thy waggoner, and whirl along with thee
about the globe.” Titus mimicked the action of a person seated on a wagon, or was it Apollo on the chariot.
“Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet to hale thy vengeful wagon swift away, and find out murderers in
their guilty caves.” Titus showed the action of searching the hidden lairs around the burial ground. He popped his
head from behind the tombstone.
“And when thy car is loaden with their heads, I will dismount.” Titus piled on the pebbles and stones on the
tombstone. “And by the waggon-wheel trot, like a servile footman, all day long, even from Hyperion's rising in the
east until his very downfall in the sea.”
Titus ran round the tomb as if he was a man servant following the Lord’s carriage.
“And day by day I'll do this heavy task.” Titus stopped in his stride. He then pointed his only useful hand at the two
standing behind the Queen.
“So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.” Titus moved his hand across his neck line as if he was removing his
own life. The Queen searched her mind to reply and then decided to play by the madness words that Titus had said.
‘Titus was truly mad’. With that enforced in her mind, Tamara prepared her reply.
“These are my ministers, and come with me.” Tamara replied with a smile towards Titus. “You have not met them
before.”
“Are these thy ministers? What are they call'd?” Titus leaned forward to look at the two men. He lowered his head
and stare above at the two taller men. He examined them as if he would of a precious item.
“Rapine and Murder; therefore called so”, Tamara replied. “Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.”
“Good Lord!’ Titus reeled back from the trio. “How like the Queen' sons they are! And you, the Queen!
Coincidence does prevailed in life. I have witnessed it now.”
Titus reached out to touch the Queen’s face before he commented further. He pat her right cheek and later withdrew
his hand.
“We worldly men have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes. O sweet Revenge.” Titus looked away as if he was the fool
in the error of his vision. “Now do I come to thee; and, if one arm's embracement will content thee, I will embrace
thee in it by and by. Aye, I am not dressed to meet thee.”
Titus then rushed off back to his mansion leaving the Queen baffled.
“This closing with him fits his lunacy. Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits.” Tamara laughed. “Do you uphold
and maintain in your speeches, for now he firmly takes me for Revenge; and, being credulous in this mad thought,
I'll make him send for Lucas his son; and, whilst I at a banquet hold him sure.”
“I'll find some cunning practice out of hand to scatter and disperse the giddy Goths, or, at the least, make them his
enemies. See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.” Tamara thought of the other threat in the form of Lucas
who had rounded up her previous army.
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