Titus Andronicus (theatre)/Funny

• Even Titus Andronicus has a moment that always brings the house down:
  • In scene (3.1) Aaron promises Titus two of his sons returned alive if he or one of his family will give the Emperor a hand. Literally. The request is definitely not funny- it's pointless and cruel- but the argument about whose hand will go is easily played for a laugh.
• The latter half of Act 3, Scene 2:

Titus: "What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?"
Marcus: "At that that I have killed, my lord- a fly."
Titus: "Out on thee, murderer! ...Poor harmless fly, that with his pretty buzzing melody came here to make us merry, and you have killed him!"

• Then, when Marcus says that the fly reminded him of Aaron the Moor, Tamora's vicious lover, he stabs the already-dead insect multiple times. And then lampshades the impassioned foolishness of it all.
  • The above sequence was added some years after the play was originally written, and it has always seemed to me to be a tongue-in-cheek jibe by the author at the sensationalism of his early work.

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