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I’ll send the emperor my hand.
    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?
    LUCIUS     Stay, father, for that noble hand of thine
    That hath thrown down so many enemies
    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn:
    My youth can better spare my blood than you,
    And therefore mine shall save my brothers’ lives.
    MARCUS     Which of your hands hath not defended Rome,
    And reared aloft the bloody battle-axe,
    Writing destruction on the enemy’s castle? 169
    O, none of both 170 but are of high desert.
    My hand hath been but idle: let it serve
    To ransom my two nephews from their death,
    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.
    AARON     Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,
    For fear they die before their pardon come.
    MARCUS     My hand shall go.
    LUCIUS     By heaven, it shall not go!
    TITUS     Sirs, strive no more: such withered herbs as these
    Are meet 179 for plucking up, and therefore mine.
    LUCIUS     Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,
    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.
    MARCUS     And for our father’s sake and mother’s care,
    Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.
    TITUS     Agree between you: I will spare 184 my hand.
    LUCIUS     Then I’ll go fetch an axe.
    MARCUS     But I will use the axe.
    Exeunt
[
Lucius and Marcus
]
    TITUS     Come hither, Aaron, I’ll deceive them both:
    Lend me thy hand and I will give thee mine.
    Aside
    AARON     If that be called deceit, I will be honest
    And never whilst I live deceive men so.
    But I’ll deceive you in another sort,
    And that you’ll say 192 , ere half an hour pass.
    He cuts off Titus’ hand
    Enter Lucius and Marcus again
    TITUS     Now stay your strife 193 : what shall be is dispatched.
    Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand:
    Tell him it was a hand that warded 195 him
    From thousand dangers: bid him bury it:
    More hath it merited: that 197 let it have.
    As for my sons, say I account of 198 them
    As jewels purchased at an easy price,
    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own. 200
    AARON     I go, Andronicus, and for thy hand
    Look 202 by and by to have thy sons with thee.—
    Aside
    Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy
    Doth fat 204 me with the very thoughts of it!
    Let fools do good and fair 205 men call for grace.
    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.
    Exit
    TITUS     O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven
    Kneels
    And bow this feeble ruin 208 to the earth.
    If any power pities wretched tears,
    Lavinia kneels
    To that I call!— What, wilt thou kneel with me?
    Do then, dear heart, for heaven shall hear our prayers,
    Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin 212 dim,
    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.
    MARCUS     O brother, speak with possibilities, 215
    And do not break into these deep extremes.
    TITUS     Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?
    Then be my passions 218 bottomless with them.
    MARCUS     But yet let reason govern thy lament.
    TITUS     If there were reason for these miseries,
    Then into limits could I bind my woes:
    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow? 222
    If the winds rage doth not the sea wax mad,
    Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face?
    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil? 225
    I am the sea. Hark how her 226 sighs do blow!
    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth:
    Then must my sea be movèd 228 with her sighs,
    Then must my earth with her continual tears
    Become a deluge overflowed and drowned,
    For why my bowels 231 cannot hide her woes,
    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
    Then give me leave, for losers will have leave
    To ease their stomachs 234 with their bitter tongues.
    Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand
    Titus and Lavinia may rise here
    MESSENGER     Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
    For that good hand