Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/54

40

And for these bitter tears, which now you see

Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks:

Be pitiful to my condemned sons,

Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.

For two-and-twenty sons I never wept,

Because they died in honour's lofty bed.

For these, tribunes, in the dust I write

Andronicus lieth down, and the Judges pass by him [and exeunt].

My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.

Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;

My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.

Exeunt [Senators, Tribunes, and the Others, with the Prisoners].

O earth! I will befriend thee more with rain,

That shall distil from these two ancient urns,

Than youthful April shall with all his showers:

In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;

In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow,

And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,

So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.

O reverend tribunes! O gentle, aged men!

Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death:

And let me say, that never wept before,

My tears are now prevailing orators.

Luc. O noble father, you lament in vain:

The tribunes hear you not, no man is by;

And you recount your sorrows to a stone.

Tit. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!

Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you,—

 10 two-and-twenty sons; cf. n.

