payment page
Summary
Lucius speaks to Marcus at his father’s house and asks him to take custody of Aaron so they can get testimony of Tamora’s crimes. Saturninus enters with his empress and is heartily welcomed by Titus, who is dressed like a cook. Titus asks Saturninus if Virginius (a heroic Centurion) should have slain his daughter because she had been raped. Saturninus responds that a girl should not survive her shame. At this, Titus kills Lavinia. The emperor is horrified, but Titus claims that her real killers are Chiron and Demetrius. When Saturninus calls for them to be brought out, Titus replies that they are already present: in the very pie that Tamora has already eaten. With this revelation, he stabs the empress. The emperor then kills Titus, and Lucius kills the emperor.
Marcus and another nobleman (possibly Aemilius, depending on the edition of the play) are grieved by the state to which Rome has fallen. Lucius speaks up to defend his actions by citing all the crimes that have been committed against the Andronici. Marcus asks the judgment of the Roman people, saying that he and Lucius will give up their lives if they are judged to be in the wrong. At this, Aemilius calls for Lucius to be emperor, a call taken up by Marcus. Lucius accepts, after which he, Marcus, and Young Lucius pay tribute to Titus’s corpse. Lucius orders that Aaron be buried up to his chest and left to starve to death, but Aaron is still unrepentant. Lucius’s closing words are for Tamora’s corpse to be thrown to wild beasts, since she acted beastly while alive.
Analysis
The final scene of act 5 echoes the closing of act 1, where Saturninus, calling for the end of all tensions, announced a feast and declared “a love-day” (1.1.501). Just as before, a feast has been prepared with the ostensible goal being to broker peace. And here again, the goal is a sham. What results is a bloody finale filled with a shocking number of corpses. And yet, every one of the deaths here is arguably necessary to clear the way for a new Rome. With both Titus and Tamora dead, the cycle of revenge has played itself out to the bitter end. And now that Lucius has found allies in the Goths, the drawn-out war between Rome and Scythia seems to have ceased. But however resolved the play’s personal and political tensions may be, it ends with Rome still profoundly battered and bruised. Echoing the persistent motif of the empire as a metaphorical body, Marcus remarks on the wounded flesh of the state: “O, let me teach you how to knit again / . . . These broken limbs again into one body” (5.3.71–73).
In the play’s final moments, Shakespeare leaves the audience in an ambiguous place. With so much blood having been shed, is it truly possible for Lucius to heal Rome and lead it into a more peaceful era? Lucius has indeed proven himself to be a thoroughly upstanding man. He’s expressed filial piety toward his father, and he’s shown his adherence to Roman law by willingly accepting his sentence of exile. He’s a good son and a good citizen. Furthermore, he’s the first person we’ve seen in power who seems to have a proper understanding of justice. He suggests as much when, after killing Saturninus, he declares: “There’s meed for meed, death for a deadly deed” (5.3.66). He’s also careful to wait to execute Aaron until he’s devised a truly appropriate punishment. Finally, he’s managed to accomplish what no other Roman has done: making peace with the Goths. If anyone is poised to guide Rome toward a better future, it’s Lucius.
Even so, looking out over a stage riddled with corpses, the audience might still wonder if it’s already too late for Rome. Presiding over the carnage, Lucius transforms into a politician before our very eyes and presents himself as something of a martyr: “myself unkindly banished, / The gates shut on me, and turned weeping out / To beg relief among Rome’s enemies” (5.3.105–107). He then expresses a simultaneous sense of pride and humility, the careful balance of which may seem calculated: “Alas, you know I am no vaunter, I” (5.3.114). We have no concrete reason to doubt him, and yet we may still feel like he’s manipulating his fellow Romans’ sympathies. We may also be suspicious that his final words, the last of the play, are filled with bitter sentiments of vengeance toward “that ravenous tiger, Tamora” (5.3.197). Meanwhile, recalling that Marcus has long been entrenched in Roman politics, it’s hard to know if he’ll be able to effect meaningful change. As for Young Lucius, he has witnessed nearly every crime against his family, and he participated actively in the Andronicus revenge counterplot. These final notes all give us pause, leading us to question just how cathartic the play’s ending truly is.
