The Most

Lamentable

Roman

Tragedy of

Titus

Andronicus Told Through the Scenes Shakespeare Most Heavily Borrowed From.

INTRODUCTION

Titus Andronicus is believed to be one of William Shakespeare’s earliest works. The

play is a gruesome tale of relentless plots of revenge that showcase Shakespeare’s knowledge

of the classics. Many of the scenes in Titus Andronicus directly correspond to earlier works.

Aaron the moor is argued to be inspired by the “cruel moor” from Bandello’s Novelle.

Lavinia’s rape and mutilation is similar to Philomela’s tragedy in Ovid’s Metamopheses.

Titus’ ultimate revenge of feeding Tamar her sons is debated to have come from Ovid’s

Metamorpheses or Seneca’s Thyeste’s “mad banquet,” and Titus’ choice to kill his daughter is

a direct reference of sacrifice of dishonor from Appius and Virginia.

“What we have, then, in the play is a curious composition of crime and revenge

borrowed from the Roman lore, chiefly Seneca and Ovid, all joined together by the young

Shakespeare, presumably earlier than 1594, its publication date” (Law,145). The following

pages are a mix of original scenes, displayed in comic book style, followed by text that

emphasizes Shakespeare’s adaptations in Titus Andronicus.

Ovid’s MetaMorphoses

The Feast

The “mad banquet” from Seneca’s story is often listed as the work that influenced the

scene where Titus serves Tamara her sons as a vengeful meal, but it also argued that Ovid’s

scene parallels the events more accurately. “…and it seems fair to conclude that however

important the Senecan model may have been, Ovid exerted a more direct influence.

References in the play leave no doubt that his telling of the Philomela story in his

Metamorphoses was fresh in Shakespeare’s mind” (Waith, 42) Philomela’s tragic experience

is the same fate that Lavinia faces, so it creates a more valid point knowing that her father,

Titus, exacted the same revenge on Tamara that Procne had on her husband.

Bandello’s novelle

Aaron’s inspiration.

More, Moor.

The moor in Bandello’s novelle is very similar to the moor, Aaron, in Titus

Andronicus. “The most important source for Aaron is the seventeenth story from the second

part of Mattero Bandello’s Novelle” (Vaughan, 44). Before casting the King’s wife out of a

tower he says that he regretted not having done additional bad deeds. This is the exact

statement Aaron makes to Tituts’s son as he is facing his death sentence. The moor in

Bandello’s Novelle acts as thought he is pure evil, Aaron does too. There is a scene in the

novella where the moor tells the husband that if he cuts the tip of his nose off that he will get

his family back. The father eagerly obliges, but the moor only hurls the king’s sons and wife

to their death. He played an evil trick; he returned the bodies just as he promised he would do,

but never said he would give them back alive.

“The story provides the basis for Aaron’s gleeful deception of Titus in act 3”

(Vaughan, 44) This is exactly how the scene in Titus Andronicus plays out when Aaron

storms into ACT III Scene i telling Titus that to cut off his hand in exchange for his sons.

What Titus is unaware of is that he is only giving his hand in exchange for their dead bodies.

Aaron pulls the same villainous act as the moor in the novelle did—who is obviously a very

direct influence in Shakespeare’s rendition of this scene.

Appius and Virginia

Fatherly Love

It may not make sense for Titus to have killed his daughter after everything she had

been through, but that was the exact reason for doing it. He wanted to save her from the

condition she was forced to live with. This wasn’t a random act that Shakespeare sprinkled in

his gruesome tale either. This was another scene that Shakespeare heavily borrowed from an

earlier work about a dishonorable sacrifice. “Virginoius tells his daughter that there are only

two ways, death or shame, that she must suffer, and then choose death for her” (Rose, 194).

This is exactly how the scene with Titus and his daughter Lavinia is played out too.