Andronicus

“ Tamora, was it you? TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up. TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail; For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow They shall be ready at your Highness' will To answer their suspicion with their lives. SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me. Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers; Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain; For, by my soul, were there worse end than death, That end upon them should be executed. TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King. Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough. TITUS. Come, Lucius, come ”

“ Andronicus put to the rack.—Then said the President: “Let Andronicus come forth.”
Demetrius, the captain, said: “He is already here.”
The President said to Andronicus: “Have at least compassion on thy youth, if thou hast prudently advised with thyself to reverence the gods: consent and sacrifice to the gods, that thou mayest be released.”
Andronicus answered: “May God never suffer thee, O tyrant, that I do aught against the law of God. Thou shalt never shake my good confession, which I have founded upon my Lord. Here I stand ready, for thee to make manifest on me thy hardness.” ”

“ Enter Marcus Andronicus, aloft, with the crown.
Mar. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends
Ambitiously for rule and empery,
Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand 20
A special party, have, by common voice,
In election for the Roman empery,
Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius,
For many good and great deserts to Rome; 24
A nobler man, a braver warrior,
Lives not this day within the city walls;
He by the senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths; 28
That, with his sons, a terror to our foes,
Hath yok'd a nation, strong, train'd up in arms. ”

“ And make them know what 'tis to let a queen Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.- Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus. Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart That dies in tempest of thy angry frown. SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd. TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord; These words, these looks, infuse new life in me. TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome, A Roman now adopted happily, And must advise the Emperor for his good. This day all quarrels die, Andronicus ”

“ LUCIUS.
Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.
TITUS.
Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.
Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
That to her brother which I said to thee.
His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,
Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
O, what a sympathy of woe is this,
As far from help as limbo is from bliss.
Enter Aaron the Moor, alone.
AARON.
Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor
Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,
Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
Or any one of you, chop off your hand
And send it to the king ”

“ Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
Who threats, in course of this revenge, to do
As much as ever Coriolanus did.
SATURNINUS.
Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?
These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.
Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.
’Tis he the common people love so much;
Myself hath often overheard them say,
When I have walked like a private man,
That Lucius’ banishment was wrongfully,
And they have wished that Lucius were their emperor.
TAMORA.
Why should you fear? Is not your city strong? ”

“ Romans, make way! The good Andronicus,
Patron of virtue, Rome’s best champion,
Successful in the battles that he fights,
With honour and with fortune is returned
From where he circumscribed with his sword
And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.
Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter two of Titus’ sons, and then two men bearing a coffin covered with black; then two other sons; then Titus Andronicus; and then Tamora, the Queen of Goths and her sons Alarbus, Chiron and Demetrius with Aaron the Moor, and others as many as can be, then set down the coffin, and Titus speaks. ”

“ Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,
For up and down she doth resemble thee.
I pray thee, do on them some violent death;
They have been violent to me and mine.
TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.
But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
And bid him come and banquet at thy house;
When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
I will bring in the Empress and her sons,
The Emperor himself, and all thy foes ”

“ If he is the same as the Andronicus mentioned by Photius (Cod. 279, p. 536, a. Bekk.) as the author of dramas and various other poems, he was a native of Hermopolis in Egypt, of which town he was decurio. Themistius (Orat. xxix. p. 418, &c.) , who speaks of a young poet in Egypt as the author of a tragedy, epic poems, and dithyrambs, appears likewise to allude to Andronicus. In A.D. 359, Andronicus, with several other persons in the east and in Egypt, incurred the suspicion of indulging in pagan practices. ”

“ ANDRONICUS III. (c. 1296–1341) , eastern Roman emperor, was the son of Michael, son of Andronicus II. His conduct during youth was so violent that, after the death of his father Michael in 1320, his grandfather resolved to deprive him of his right to the crown. Andronicus rebelled; he had a powerful party, and the first period of civil war ended in his being crowned and accepted as colleague by his grandfather, 1325. ”

“ Andronicus the Elder dispossessed his unruly grandson, who, however, escaped from confinement under pretext of hunting, and raised the standard of revolt in the provinces. During a ruinous period of seven years the quarrel between grandfather and grandson was protracted, till in 1328 Andronicus the Younger effected his entry into the city by surprise, forced his aged grandfather to retire, and as third monarch of that name usurped the throne. Four years after his abdication Andronicus the Elder died, known to his monastery as Monk Authoy. ”

“ Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome
To beautify thy triumphs, and return
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;
But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. ”

“ After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung by the feet, between two pillars, that supported the statues of a wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could reach the public enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In this long and painful agony, "Lord, have mercy upon me!" and "Why will you bruise a broken reed?" were the only words that escaped from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the man ”

“ But the peculiar infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils, without affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death more cruel and shameful than that of the vilest malefactor; but the most glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from their subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom ”

“ We know little more of the life of Andronicus, but he is of special interest in the history of philosophy, from the statement of Plutarch (Sull. c. 26) , that he published a new edition of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which formerly belonged to the library of Apellicon, and were brought to Rome by Sulla with the rest of Apellicon’s library in B.C. 84. ”

“ This is that in which I have made bold to differ from Casaubon, Rigaltius, Dacier, and indeed from all the modern critics,—that not Ennius, but Andronicus was the first, who, by the Archæa Comœdia of the Greeks, added many beauties to the first rude and barbarous Roman satire: which sort of poem, though we had not derived from Rome, yet nature teaches it mankind in all ages, and in every country. ”

“ Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house. Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court; Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on. Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan And not relent, or not compassion him? Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy, That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield, But yet so just that he will not revenge. Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus! Exit
SCENE II. Rome. The palace Enter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door ”

“ The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the august triad was formed by the names of the father, the son, and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang, over his rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes the most precious attributes of a monarch ”

“ Sometimes the kindest-hearted judges were driven to exasperation by their total inability to make the slightest impression upon the Christians. “Do abandon your foolish boasting,” said Maximus, the Governor of Cilicia, to Andronicus, “and listen to me as you would listen to your father. Those who have played the madman before you have gained nothing by it. Pay honour to our Princes and our fathers and submit yourself to the gods.” ”

“ May the immortal hand of God tolerate them no longer and punish their cruel amusements, that they may learn and know the evil they have done to God’s servants.” No doubt, most Christians agreed with the sentiments expressed by Andronicus, but they rarely gave expression to them. ”

“ The life of Andronicus has been drawn by every writer who has treated of the Eastern empire. In the whole of history there is no more romantic story of adventure, daring, danger, ambition, and strength. ”

“ The grievances of forty years were mingled in his revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the endless prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age was without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of five hundred thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns of Christendom was incapable of maintaining three thousand horse and twenty galleys, to resist the destructive progress of the Turks. 9 "How different," said the younger Andronicus, "is my situation from that of the son of Philip! ”

“ Such a leader as Carlo Zeno might indeed have successfully besieged Andronicus in his palace; but he knew, and every man and woman in Constantinople knew well enough, that Andronicus would make an end of his father and of his two younger brothers in prison, at the first sign of a revolution, so that there might be no lawful heir to the throne left alive but he himself. ”

“ The first translator whose name is recorded in the history of European literature is L. Livius Andronicus, a manumitted Greek slave who about 240 B.C., rendered the Odyssey into Saturnian verse. This translation, of which some fragments are preserved, was long in use as a school text, for Horace studied it under the formidable Orbilius; but Andronicus appears to have recognized his mistake in using the native Latin measure as a vehicle of literary expression, and is said to have rendered Greek tragedies and comedies into metres corresponding to those of his Greek originals. ”

“ As both Andronicus II. and his grandson Andronicus III. were married to ladies named Anna, it is not clear which of these imperial couples was here portrayed. The fact that the consort of the former emperor died before the restoration of the church by the protostrator Michael is certainly in favour of the view supported by Mr. Siderides that the portraits represented the latter emperor and empress. ”

“ Andronicus was the last of the line--the most heinous monster that ever sat on the Byzantine throne. But his career in crime was cut short. The people rose up against the author of so many assassinations. Isaac Angelus, a nobleman, accused of treason, resisted arrest, and fled to Saint Sophia. A mob gathered and took his side against the mercenaries of Andronicus. The tyrant himself was seized and torn to pieces, and the Angeli succeeded the Comneni on the throne of Constantinople. ”

“ It was at the end of that period, and about two hundred and forty years before the Christian æra that the first play performed after the manner of the Greeks, was brought forward in Rome, by Livius Andronicus, the earliest of the Roman dramatic poets. He turned the personal Satires and Fescenine verses so long the admiration of the Romans, into regular form and dialogue, and though the character of a player, so long valued and applauded in Greece, was reckoned vile and despicable among the Romans, Andronicus himself acted a part in his dramatic compositions. ”

“ Andronicus II., indeed, had a long but disastrous reign. He continued his father's works at the harbour of the Kontoscalion. He repaired the sea walls, and in 1317, when his wife, Irene, died and left him some money, the impoverished Cæsar was able to undertake a general repair of the whole of the fortifications. Otherwise he is known in the history of the city only for his disputes with the patriarch, his abject submissions, and his misfortunes. His son, Michael IX., was from 1295 to 1320 the associate of his throne, and won universal praise. ”