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The Deep Pit
In act 2, during the hunt in the forest, Aaron concocts a plot to kill Bassianus, bury him in a deep pit, and, with the help of a forged letter, frame two of Titus’s sons for his murder. On a basic story level, the deep pit is the first major component of the revenge plot against the Andronicus family. As the central element in the trap set by Aaron, then, it represents the way the act of plotting becomes a significant feature of the play’s own plot. In true Shakespearean fashion, a chief element of playwriting becomes a key metaphor on the stage, thereby drawing attention to the theatricality of it all. The trapdoor located at the center of the conventional Elizabethan stage would likely have served as the pit, directly linking a dramatic element of the play to a technical mechanism of the stage. On a more symbolic level, it’s striking that the pit is variously called an “abhorrèd pit” (2.3.98), a “subtle hole” (2.3.199), a “gaping hollow” (2.3.250), and “a detested, dark, blood-drinking pit” (2.3.225). The language describing this pit presents it as a monstrous symbol of female genitalia—a “bloostainèd hole” (2.3.211) that is both womb and tomb. In consuming men, it gives birth to revenge.
“Revenge’s Cave”
In act 3, as Titus succumbs to grief, his brother Marcus attempts to rouse his fury and declares: “Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still?” (3.1.268). Titus responds with a question of his own: “Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?” (3.1.275). In this context, Titus’s phrase symbolizes his disorientation. He wishes to pursue vengeance for the wrongs done to him, but as yet it isn’t clear who the perpetrators are. Thus, he doesn’t know the way to “Revenge’s cave.” Yet within the broader context of the play, Titus’s words take on a greater significance, particularly once he learns who’s behind his grief and embarks on his revenge plot. The ultimate target of his fury is Tamora, and when she later shows up at his house disguised as an abstraction of Revenge, it’s clear that Titus has indeed made his way to “Revenge’s cave.” But here the specific designation of the “cave” becomes important. Just as the deep pit of act 2 is described as a monstrous vagina, the metaphor of revenge as a cave conjures a feminized, vaginal space of darkness and violence. This is all the more true, since the cave is connected to Tamora—the very archetype of the sexually monstrous feminine.
Black Fly
In the brief, unassuming scene that closes act 3, Titus, Marcus, Lavinia, and Young Lucius sit around the dinner table eating a banquet and recovering from the traumas that have befallen them. The mood is somber at first, as Titus waxes poetic about his woe. But a sudden change in tone descends when Marcus stabs at a dish with his knife. Breaking from his eloquent misery, Titus inquires: “What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife” (3.2.52). Marcus replies: “At that that I have killed, my lord, a fly” (3.2.53). Titus immediately rages, denouncing Marcus as a murderer. For Titus, the fly symbolizes an innocent victim of pointless cruelty. Marcus, by contrast, sees Titus’s response as an overreaction and attempts to correct course: “Pardon me, sir. It was a black, ill-favored fly, / Like to the Empress’ Moor. Therefore I killed him” (3.2.67–68). Instantly, the mood becomes darkly humorous, as Titus amplifies the joke, calling the act a “charitable deed” (3.2.71) and joining gleefully in the stabbing. Simply by linking the fly metaphorically to blackness and hence to the reprobate Moor, the violence becomes justified. In this way, the fly becomes a symbol of the easy temptation of revenge.
