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Motifs
Definition of Personification
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the... read full definition
Act 4, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Terras Astraea Reliquit:
Justice is frequently personified as a woman throughout the play. One of the most potent examples of this phenomenon occurs in Act 4, Scene 3, when Titus gathers his family to ask for divine aid in their pursuit of justice:
Terras Astraea reliquit.
Be you remembered, Marcus, she’s gone, she’s fled.—
Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall
Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;
Happily you may catch her in the sea;
Yet there’s as little justice as at land.
No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it.
’Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
And pierce the inmost center of the Earth.
Then, when you come to Pluto’s region,
I pray you, deliver him this petition.
Tell him it is for justice and for aid,
And that it comes from old Andronicus,
Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
In a story full of masculine acts of revenge, often for violence perpetrated against women, it is significant that the female goddess Justice takes a very prominent role. The pursuit of Justice in the face of her flight from the world (as the Latin phrase in the passage above means that the goddess of Justice has left the earth) is a potent theme in the play. The forcible loss of Lavinia’s virtue mirrors the loss of Justice from the earth—with both gone, although Titus declares that he seeks justice, it becomes clear what he really wants is personal vengeance.
Justice is again personified by Saturninus in Act 4, Scene 4, as he declares his own commitment to her cause in the face of Titus’s implication that he is unjust:
But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
Shall be no shelter to these outrages:
But he and his shall know that justice lives
In Saturninus' health, whom, if she sleep,
He'll so awake as she in fury shall
Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.
The question of whether justice is attainable frequently recurs throughout the play and is posed to both the characters and the audience. Saturninus’s vehement affirmation of his belief in fairness and justice demonstrates just how subjective and nebulous the concept of justice actually is. Each character in the play has their own definition of justice, and it is their inability to reconcile these various interpretations that leads to their inevitably tragic ruin.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Terras Astraea Reliquit:
Justice is frequently personified as a woman throughout the play. One of the most potent examples of this phenomenon occurs in Act 4, Scene 3, when Titus gathers his family to ask for divine aid in their pursuit of justice:
Terras Astraea reliquit.
Be you remembered, Marcus, she’s gone, she’s fled.—
Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall
Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;
Happily you may catch her in the sea;
Yet there’s as little justice as at land.
No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it.
’Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
And pierce the inmost center of the Earth.
Then, when you come to Pluto’s region,
I pray you, deliver him this petition.
Tell him it is for justice and for aid,
And that it comes from old Andronicus,
Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
In a story full of masculine acts of revenge, often for violence perpetrated against women, it is significant that the female goddess Justice takes a very prominent role. The pursuit of Justice in the face of her flight from the world (as the Latin phrase in the passage above means that the goddess of Justice has left the earth) is a potent theme in the play. The forcible loss of Lavinia’s virtue mirrors the loss of Justice from the earth—with both gone, although Titus declares that he seeks justice, it becomes clear what he really wants is personal vengeance.
Justice is again personified by Saturninus in Act 4, Scene 4, as he declares his own commitment to her cause in the face of Titus’s implication that he is unjust:
But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
Shall be no shelter to these outrages:
But he and his shall know that justice lives
In Saturninus' health, whom, if she sleep,
He'll so awake as she in fury shall
Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.
The question of whether justice is attainable frequently recurs throughout the play and is posed to both the characters and the audience. Saturninus’s vehement affirmation of his belief in fairness and justice demonstrates just how subjective and nebulous the concept of justice actually is. Each character in the play has their own definition of justice, and it is their inability to reconcile these various interpretations that leads to their inevitably tragic ruin.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—I am Revenge:
In Act 5, Scene 2, Tamora and her sons Demetrius and Chiron disguise themselves as personified representations of Revenge, Rape, and Murder to trick Titus. Although Titus suspects he knows the identities of the three figures at his door, Tamora is quick to try and convince him of their purported identities:
Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora.
She is thy enemy, and I thy friend.
I am Revenge, sent from th’ infernal kingdom
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
Come down and welcome me to this world’s light.
Confer with me of murder and of death.
There’s not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
No vast obscurity or misty vale
Where bloody murder or detested rape
Can couch for fear but I will find them out,
And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
Tamora, Demetrius, and Chiron’s embodiment of Revenge, Rape, and Murder is actually more of a self-revelation than a true disguise, as Titus easily sees through them. More to the point, each of their corresponding actual characteristics fit with their assumed identities. Tamora, for instance, seeks revenge, so she becomes an embodied representation of revenge itself (or herself, to go along with Tamora's use of personification). In this way, these disguises show the audience the characters’ true colors.
Related Themes:
