Throughout the play, there is a repeated motif that occurs in which Rome is metaphorically referred to in embodied language, as though there is a literal body of Rome that is in need of care, protection, and healing. The first of these instances occurs in Act 1, Scene 1, as Marcus encourages Titus to take up the mantle as the people’s chosen Emperor of Rome:
Be candidatus, then, and put [the white robe] on
And help to set a head on headless Rome.
The image of Rome as a metaphorical body missing its head is striking and grotesque, and it's an apt signifier of the empire’s current state of affairs at the start of the play. Following the death of the recently deceased emperor, the Rome of Titus Andronicus is caught between two brothers struggling in pursuit of power—over their country and over their chosen romantic partner, Lavinia. With this passage, Shakespeare signals that this play takes place during the decline of the Roman Empire, even if it is a fictional one.
Another significant instance in which this motif appears is during Act 5, Scene 3, at the conclusion of the play:
You sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,
By uproars severed as a flight of fowl
Scattered by winds and high tempestuous gusts,
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,
These broken limbs again into one body,
Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,
Following the extreme violence and bloodshed of the climax, Marcus addresses the Roman people, pledging to help them repair their broken country through the metaphorical healing of the Roman “body.” By drawing this parallel between the crumbling infrastructure of the state and the literal dismemberment of the empire’s leaders, Marcus likewise affirms that the empire may heal itself just as the body may heal a broken limb.
Aaron’s desire to assist Tamora in her quest for revenge against Titus, Saturninus, and Rome leads him to concoct a villainous plot that hinges on the rape of Titus’s daughter, Lavinia. In Act 2, Scene 1, Aaron approaches Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron in order to convince them to commit the act. Playing upon their preexisting lascivious desires for Lavinia and their masculine competitive instincts, Aaron uses a metaphor to suggest that instead of fighting each other or lusting after Lavinia in vain, the brothers might be better served hunting her together:
Chiron: Aaron, a thousand deaths
Would I propose to achieve her whom I love
Aaron: To Achieve her how?
Demetrius: She is a woman, therefore may be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;
She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved.
[...]
Then why should he despair that knows to court it
With words, fair looks, and liberality?
What, hast not thou full often struck a doe
And borne her cleanly by the keeper’s nose?
Aaron: Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so
Would serve your turns.
In the passage above, Aaron cleverly leads Chiron and Demetrius to arrive at the conclusion he desires: that they should rape Lavinia. The metaphor Aaron makes—"some certain snatch or so"—is quite lewd. The phrase, in this case, metaphorically refers to a hunt, and therefore implies that Tamora’s sons could satisfy their lustful desires by chasing down and seizing Lavinia for sport. This language is yet another instance in which Lavinia is reduced to a mere object and prize to be won.
During the hunt in Act 2, Scene 3, Quintus and Martius are led through the woods by Aaron the Moor to a pit, under the false pretense that it holds a trapped panther. However, when Martius trips in the darkness and falls into the pit, he discovers not a panther, but the dead body of his sister’s husband, Bassianus. As Quintus attempts to help him up out of the pit, he uses a metaphor that foreshadows the play’s gruesome end:
Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out;
Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,
I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb
Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.
I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.
In the passage above, Quintus metaphorically compares the pit to a “swallowing womb,” conjuring a vivid image that speaks to the overwhelming inevitability and bloodiness of the vengeful path each of the characters have chosen. The pit is also referred to as a mouth, adding to its cavernous, consuming quality that foreshadows the fact that the characters in the play are trapped in their cycles of violence at this point, unable to see a way forward that does not involve bloodshed.
As Marcus tries to discover what happened to Lavinia in Act 2, Scene 4 after discovering her alone and mutilated—absent her hands and tongue—he uses metaphorical language to describe what he can observe:
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 rosèd lips,
Coming and going with thy honey breath.
In the passage above, Marcus catalogs Lavinia’s various injuries. As he does so, his illustrative language transforms her grotesque appearance: Lavinia’s severed limbs become “branches” and “sweet ornaments” a king would gladly sleep in, while blood flows like a river from her lips, sweet like honey despite the gruesome violence. The extreme juxtaposition of Marcus’s flowing metaphors and the evidence of violence that he is describing in this passage is stirring and evocative. Although such language may seem out of place in the face of such a grisly scene, Marcus’s reliance on figurative language to verbalize what he is witnessing actually speaks to the indescribable reality of her rape. In other words, his use of metaphor allows him to approach the unapproachable, communicating with Lavinia as best he can in an impossible situation.
During Act 3, Scene 1, Titus is overcome with grief at the news that his sons Quintus and Martius will be executed for the murder of Bassianus, which they did not commit. Disconsolate, he begs and begs the tribunes for mercy, but to no avail. When Lucius enters the scene and sees his father lying on the ground and pleading to an empty street, he uses a metaphor to try and wake him from his stupor:
O noble father, you lament in vain.
The Tribunes hear you not; no man is by,
And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
In the passage above, Lucius tells his father that he is vocalizing his grief “in vain.” As he does so, he metaphorically compares Titus’s lamentation to the tributes to the act of expressing his grief only to a “stone,” rather than being heard by a living, breathing person or creature. With this metaphor, the tragic futility of Titus's efforts are made crystal clear, as Lucius effectively tells his father that his current cries of woe have just as much impact upon the tribunes as they would upon the stone surrounding them on the ground. The stonelike immovability of the tribunes' hearts in the face of Titus’s visceral grief at the injustice his family is suffering is yet another indication that the Roman Empire is in a swift decline.
In Act 3, Scene 1 Titus uses a metaphor to express his despair at the current state of the Roman Empire and of his own terrible, tragic circumstances:
O happy man, they have befriended thee!
Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
But me and mine. How happy art thou then
From these devourers to be banishèd.
In the passage above, Titus is responding to Lucius’s news that he has been banished by the tribunes for trying to rescue Quintus and Martius. In an example of verbal irony, Titus congratulates Lucius upon hearing the news of his exile. Of course, his congratulations are not delivered with joy, but with bitterness, for he is heartbroken and disillusioned at the horror that his life has become. While explaining the reason for his congratulations, Titus metaphorically refers to Rome as “a wilderness of tigers.” This metaphor conjures a very strong image of the empire in ruins, on a precarious edge between stability and chaos. The vicious cycles of vengeance that occur throughout the play destabilize the already-declining empire, and this metaphor brings that fact sharply into focus. Alone and without allies, as his sons face execution sentences for a murder they did not commit, Titus no longer recognizes the empire that once nearly crowned him its ruler.
When Aaron is captured by the Goths in Act 5, Scene 1, he offers to trade information with Lucius in exchange for the life of his infant son. As he recounts the evil deeds he committed throughout the duration of the play, he uses a disturbing metaphor to discuss the rape of Lucius’s sister, Lavinia:
Aaron: Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
'Twas her two sons that murder'd Bassianus;
They cut thy sister's tongue and ravish'd her
And cut her hands and trimm'd her as thou saw'st.
Lucius: O detestable villain! call'st thou that trimming?
Aaron: Why, she was wash'd and cut and trimm'd, and 'twas
Trim sport for them that had the doing of it.
In the passage above, Aaron metaphorically refers to the sexual assault committed against Lavinia as “trimming.” The language he uses refers to literal butchery, as she has been forcibly, horrifically robbed of her hands and tongue, as well as her virginity and innocent purity. Aaron’s metaphorical comparison of the animalistic, anatomical trimming of fat from meat with precision is starkly contrasted with Lavinia’s undeniable humanity and the violence that the audience knows occurred.
Throughout the play, there is a repeated motif that occurs in which Rome is metaphorically referred to in embodied language, as though there is a literal body of Rome that is in need of care, protection, and healing. The first of these instances occurs in Act 1, Scene 1, as Marcus encourages Titus to take up the mantle as the people’s chosen Emperor of Rome:
Be candidatus, then, and put [the white robe] on
And help to set a head on headless Rome.
The image of Rome as a metaphorical body missing its head is striking and grotesque, and it's an apt signifier of the empire’s current state of affairs at the start of the play. Following the death of the recently deceased emperor, the Rome of Titus Andronicus is caught between two brothers struggling in pursuit of power—over their country and over their chosen romantic partner, Lavinia. With this passage, Shakespeare signals that this play takes place during the decline of the Roman Empire, even if it is a fictional one.
Another significant instance in which this motif appears is during Act 5, Scene 3, at the conclusion of the play:
You sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,
By uproars severed as a flight of fowl
Scattered by winds and high tempestuous gusts,
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,
These broken limbs again into one body,
Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,
Following the extreme violence and bloodshed of the climax, Marcus addresses the Roman people, pledging to help them repair their broken country through the metaphorical healing of the Roman “body.” By drawing this parallel between the crumbling infrastructure of the state and the literal dismemberment of the empire’s leaders, Marcus likewise affirms that the empire may heal itself just as the body may heal a broken limb.
