So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,
Who ’twas that cut thy tongue and ravished thee.
Go ahead, speak out, if you still can speak. Tell everyone who cut out your tongue and destroyed your life.
So tell us—if you can still talk somehow— who did this to you. Who hurt you like this.
tell us who did this if u can speak
Marcus's 47-line speech over the mutilated Lavinia is the most contested passage in Titus Andronicus — and possibly in all of Shakespeare. Critics have been divided for centuries between two interpretations.
The first: it is a failure. Shakespeare in 1593-94 was a young playwright showing off his Ovidian learning and his command of extended metaphor, but he misjudged. No real person finding a brutally attacked relative would deliver a forty-seven-line poem about rivers and lutes and Philomela. The speech is tone-deaf; it aestheticizes suffering in ways that are morally troubling.
The second: it is deliberate. The speech shows us what happens to human language when it encounters something that exceeds its capacity. Marcus's elaborate, beautiful metaphors are his mind's attempt to not look directly at what he is seeing — to hold the horror at one classical remove. 'Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped, doth burn the heart to cinders' is his own self-diagnosis: he is speaking at length precisely because he cannot afford to stop, cannot afford to feel what would happen if the speech ended.
Modern productions often cut the speech, or have Marcus barely hold it together during it. Others lean into its strangeness — letting it be wrong in exactly the way it is. Julie Taymor's 1999 film has Anthony Hopkins as Titus standing completely still while the speech continues, as if the words themselves are happening to him.
There is no right answer. But noticing the problem is the beginning of understanding what the play is doing.
Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.
Write it down so you can show what you mean, if your stumps will let you hold a pen and write.
Write it down if you can—use your hands to show us what you're trying to say.
write it down if u can
See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.
Look how she can make her meaning clear using signs and gestures, scrawling messages with whatever she has.
Look at her trying to communicate with signs and scratches.
she's trying to communicate with signs
Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.
Go home and call for clean water and wash your hands.
Go home, get some water, and clean yourself up.
go home clean urself
Chiron and Demetrius leave this scene with some of the most chilling exit lines in the play — not because they're frightening, but because they're not. They're making bad puns.
'Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.' / 'She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash.' The casual wordplay about her missing tongue and hands turns atrocity into wit. These are not men overwhelmed by what they've done. They're amused.
The dramatic tradition for villains usually gives them some level of self-awareness, some theatrical relish that signals to the audience: we are watching evil, and it knows itself as evil. Aaron has this quality — his soliloquies celebrate his own wickedness with conscious pleasure. Chiron and Demetrius have no such self-consciousness. They perform cruelty the way a teenager performs contempt — casually, without weight, as if the object of the cruelty barely registers as a person.
This is what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, though she coined the phrase sixty years after this play was written. Demetrius and Chiron are not monsters from mythology; they're bored young men who did something monstrous and are already thinking about the next thing. That's what makes them worse than Aaron.
She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;
And so let’s leave her to her silent walks.
She has no tongue to call with, no hands to wash; so let's leave her to her silent wandering.
She can't call for anything or clean herself. Let's just leave her alone.
she can't do anything let her be
An ’twere my cause, I should go hang myself.
If I were in her situation, I'd hang myself.
If I were her, I'd kill myself.
i'd kill myself
If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.
If you had hands to tie the rope.
If you could actually hold a rope.
if u had hands
Marcus names the myth immediately: Tereus, Philomela, the cut tongue. Shakespeare expected his audience to know the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VI — and the comparison is so central to the play that it structures the entire second half.
Philomela was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, who cut out her tongue to prevent her from naming him. She communicated her story by weaving it into a tapestry and sending it to her sister Procne. Procne killed her own son Itys in revenge, cooked him, and served him to Tereus at a feast.
The structural rhyme with Titus Andronicus is almost point-for-point: tongue cut, rape, a woman who can't speak, a family that takes terrible revenge. But Shakespeare's Lavinia is worse off than Philomela — her attackers, as Marcus notes, were 'craftier than Tereus': they took her hands too, so she cannot weave. This one-upmanship on Ovid — our story goes further than yours — sets the play's entire tone.
The Philomela connection will be made explicit in 4-1, when Marcus's Ovid book becomes the key to the mystery. Everything Marcus says here in 2-4 turns out to have been setting up that scene. Pay attention to what he says about the sampler.
Who is this? My niece, that flies away so fast?
Cousin, a word; where is your husband?
If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
That I may slumber an eternal sleep!
Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands
Hath lopped and hewed and made thy body bare
Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments
Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,
And might not gain so great a happiness
As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?
Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,
Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,
Coming and going with thy honey breath.
But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,
And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.
Ah, now thou turn’st away thy face for shame,
And notwithstanding all this loss of blood,
As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,
Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face
Blushing to be encountered with a cloud.
Shall I speak for thee, shall I say ’tis so?
O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind.
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped,
Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
Fair Philomela, why she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind;
But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee;
A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off
That could have better sewed than Philomel.
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
He would not then have touched them for his life.
Or had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropped his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s feet.
Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,
For such a sight will blind a father’s eye.
One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads;
What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes?
Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee.
O, could our mourning ease thy misery!
Who is this? My niece, hurrying away so fast? Cousin, wait a moment; where is your husband? If I'm dreaming, I hope all my wealth would wake me from it. If I'm awake, may some disaster strike me down so I can sleep forever! Speak to me, dear niece, what cruel hands have cut off your arms - those beautiful limbs that kings wanted to rest near? Why don't you speak to me? I can see blood flowing from your mouth like a fountain, bubbling and rising with your breathing. Surely some monster like the one who attacked Philomela did this to you, and he cut out your tongue to keep you silent. Look how you turn away in shame. And yet with all this loss of blood, your cheeks are still red like the sun blushing behind a cloud. Should I speak for you? Should I tell people what happened? Hidden sorrow burns the heart like a sealed oven. Poor Philomela only lost her tongue and sewed her thoughts in needlework, but you, lovely niece, have lost that possibility too. You met an even more cruel monster, cousin, and he cut off those pretty fingers that could have done needlework better than Philomela. If that monster had seen those delicate hands tremble on a lute like aspen leaves, making the strings sing, he would never have touched them. Or if he had heard the beautiful music your voice could make, he would have dropped his knife and fallen asleep like the guard dog of Hell at a poet's feet. Come, let's go tell your father what happened, for such a sight will blind a father's eyes. One hour of rain will drown the fields; how many months of your father's tears will destroy him? Don't pull back - we will grieve with you. If only our grief could ease your suffering!
Who is this? My niece, running away so fast? Hold on a second - where's your husband? If I'm dreaming, I hope I wake up from this. If this is real, I want to die and never see daylight again. Talk to me, sweetheart, what kind of monster did this to you? Those beautiful arms that men dreamed of - they're gone. Why won't you speak to me? I can see blood pouring from your mouth like a fountain, pulsing with every breath. Some creature like the one who attacked that girl in the old stories did this to you and cut out your tongue to shut you up. And now you're too ashamed to even look at me. But even with all that blood, your face is still flushed red like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. Should I tell people what happened? Keeping sorrow locked up inside just burns your heart away. That girl from the old story only lost her tongue and had to show people what happened with needlework, but you've lost your hands too - those beautiful hands that could have done better needlework than her. You met an even worse monster than she did, and he cut everything off from you. If that monster had seen your hands trembling on a lute like leaves in the wind, making the strings come alive, he wouldn't have dared touch them. And if he'd heard how beautifully you could sing, he would have just fallen asleep like he was hypnotized. Come on, let's go find your father. Seeing you like this will break him. One day of rain can flood the meadows - how much will your father's tears destroy him? Don't hold back. We're here to grieve with you. If only our crying could actually help you.
who is this running so fast where's ur husband what monster did this those beautiful arms why wont u speak blood pouring like a fountain they cut ur tongue out they took ur hands u met something worse than any monster in the stories come lets go tell ur father he'll be destroyed when he sees u we're here to cry with u
The Reckoning
This scene exists at the exact border between devastation and the aesthetically difficult. Demetrius and Chiron leave with vicious puns about Lavinia's missing hands and tongue; then Marcus finds her and speaks forty-seven lines of elaborate, beautiful verse about her wounds. The play leaves us disoriented: we feel the horror, but something about Marcus's response — its formal beauty, its length, its mythology — is also troubling in ways that critics have been debating for four centuries. What lingers is not resolution but an unease that the scene never quite explains.
If this happened today…
Two men assault someone and laugh their way out of the building, making wordplay about what they've done. Then a bystander finds the victim and, instead of calling emergency services immediately, delivers a five-minute speech about how beautiful she looks, comparing her wounds to rivers and her face to the dawn. It would be bizarre. That's the scene. Whether the bizarreness is a flaw in Shakespeare's craft or a deliberate choice about how humans respond to the unspeakable is one of the most interesting questions the play poses.