mimesere

so, titus andronicus is a terrible play. TERRIBLE. There are seeds of future glories, there, in Titus' speech at the crossroads and whatnot, but it is on the whole pretty bad.

But then there is Aaron, who is my favorite. He's...he's a burn the buildings, salt the earth kind of guy, and as I was watching it, I was just sort of boggling at how much glee he took in fucking with people. And it's not even that I'm all woo mr. villainy, but like, you can tell that he destroys *everyone* in that play -- or has a hand in destroying everyone -- because they're all assholes and he knows it and he hates them all for it. Because THEY don't think they're assholes.

'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!
Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,
Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,
Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor:
But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,
They never do beget a coal-black calf.
Peace, villain, peace!'--even thus he rates
the babe,--

And I can't really blame him for it. The only moderately okay people in the play get killed off pretty early on to fuel the revenge nonsense (seriously, pies, wtf), and then it's just assholes and crazy assholes and crazy racist assholes and Aaron, who is smarter than every last one of them and who is a little crazy too, but who has to deal with stuff like this:

O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil
That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;
This is the pearl that pleased your empress' eye,
And here's the base fruit of his burning lust.
Say, wall-eyed slave, whither wouldst thou convey
This growing image of thy fiend-like face?
Why dost not speak? what, deaf? not a word?
A halter, soldiers! hang him on this tree.
And by his side his fruit of bastardy.

and well. If that's what you get growing up, no wonder you end up wanting to salt the earth, I'm just saying.

Right, okay, back to the incoherent point:

Everyone in this play is an asshole. Every single person. Like Lucius.

Too like the sire for ever being good.
First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl;
A sight to vex the father's soul withal.
Get me a ladder.

But the only person who really acknowledges that he's an asshole is Aaron. (speech at the end)

Anyway. Aaron is complex and awesome and villainous and scary and has some amazing speeches. Also, Harry Lennix plays him amazingly in the Julie Taymor Titus, which is beautiful and weird and over the top.

Lucius:
Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?

Aaron:

Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day--and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,--
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.