Titus Andronicus Complaint. To the tune of Fortune.
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Y Ou noble minds and famous martiall wights,
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That in defence of native Country fights;
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Give eare to me that ten yeeres fought for Rome,
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Yet reapt disgrace when I returned home,
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In Rome I liv'd in fame full threescore yeeres,
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My name beloved was of all my Peeres,
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Full five and twenty valiant sons I had,
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Whose forward vertues made their father glad.
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For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent,
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Against them still my sons and I were sent,
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Against the Gothes full ten yeeres weary warre
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We spent, receiving many a bloody scarre.
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Just two and twenty of my sons were slaine,
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Before we did returne to Rome againe:
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Of five and twenty sons I brought but three
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Alive, the stately Towers of Rome to see.
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When wars were done, I conquest home did bring
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And did present my prisonsrs to the King:
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The Queene of Gothes, her sons, and eke a Moore,
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Which did such murders; the like was nere before.
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The Emperour did make the Queene his wife,
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Which bred in Rome debate and deadly strife,
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The Moore with her two sons did grow so proud,
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That none like them in Rome was then alowd.
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The Moore so pleasd the new made Empresse eie,
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That she consented with him secretly
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For to abuse her husbands marriage bed,
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And so in time a Blackamoore she bred.
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Then she whose thoughts to murder were inclin'd
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Consented with the Moore with bloody mind,
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Agoinst my selfe, my kin, and all my friends,
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In cruell sort to bring them to their ends.
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So when in age I thought to live in peace,
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Both woe and griefe began then to encrease:
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Amongst my sons I had one daughter bright,
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Which joy'd and pleased best my aged sight:
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My deare Lavinia was betroth'd as than,
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To Cesars son, a young and Noble man,
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Who in a hunting by the Emperours wife,
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And her two sons bereaved was of life,
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He being slaine, was cast in cruell wise,
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Into a dismall den from light of skies:
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The cruell Moore did come that way as then,
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With my two sons, who fell into that den,
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The Moore then fetcht the Emperour with speed
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For to accuse them of that murderous deed,
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And when my sons within the den were found,
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In wrongfull prison they were cast and bound:
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But now behold what wounded most my mind,
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The Emperours two sons of Tygers kind,
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My daughter ravished without remorse,
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And tooke away her honour quite perforce.
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When they had tasted of so sweet a flowre,
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Fearing their sweet should shortly turn to sowre,
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They cut her tongue, whereby she could not tell,
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How that dishonour unto her befell.
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Then both her hands they falsly cut off quite,
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Whereby their wickednesse she could not write,
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Nor with her needle on her Sampler sow,
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The bloody workers of her direfull woe.
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My brother Marcus found her in the wood,
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Staining the grassie ground with purple blood,
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That trickled from her stumps & handlesse armes,
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No tongue at all she had to tell her armes.
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But when I saw her in that wofull case,
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With teares of blood I wet my aged face:
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For my Lavinia I lamented more,
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Then for my two and twenty sons before.
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When as I saw she could not write nor speake,
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With griefe my aged heart began to breake,
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We spread of sand upon the ground,
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Whereby those bloody tyrants we out found.
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For with a staffe, without the helpe of hand,
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She writ these words upon the plot of sand,
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The lustfull sons of the proud Empresse,
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Are doers of this hatefull wickednesse.
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I tare the milke-white haires from off my head,
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I curst the houre wherein I was first bred;
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I wisht my hand that fought for Countries fame,
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In Cradle rockt, had first bin strucken lame.
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The Moore delighting still in villany,
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Did say, to set my sons from prison free,
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I should unto the King my right hand give,
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And then my two imprisoned sons should live.
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The Moore I causd to strike it off with speed,
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Whereat I grieved not to see it bleed,
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But for my sons would willingly impart,
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And for their ransome send my bleeding heart.
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But as my life did linger thus in paine,
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They sent to me my bloodlesse hand againe,
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And therewithall, the heads of my two sons,
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Which fild my dying heart with fresher groanes.
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Then past reliefe, I up and downe did goe,
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And with my teares, writ in the dust my woe:
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I shot my arrowes towards heaven hie:
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And for revenge to hell did sometimes cry.
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The Empresse thinking then that I was mad,
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Like Furies she and both her sons were clad,
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She nam'd Revenge, and Rape, and Murther they,
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To undermine and know what I would say.
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I fed their foolish veines a certain space,
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Untill my friends and I did find a place,
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Where both her sons unto a post were bound,
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Where just revenge in cruell sort was found.
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I cut their throates, my daughter held the pan,
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Betwixt her stumps, wherein the blood then ran,
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And then I ground their bones in powder small,
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And made a paste for pyes straight therewithall.
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Then with their flesh I made two mighty pyes,
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And at a banket serv'd it in stately wise,
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Before the Empresse set this loathesome meat:
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So of her sons owne flesh she well did eat.
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My selfe bereav'd my daughter then of life:
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The Empresse then I slew with bloody knife:
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I stabb'd the Emperour immediately,
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And then my selfe; even so did Titus d[y]e.
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Then this revenge against the Moore was found
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[Alive] they set him halfe into the ground,
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Whereas he stood untill such time he starv'd,
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And so God send all muderers may be serv'd.
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