With those words Marcus Andronicus seeks to persuade his brother Titus to accept the proferred empery of Rome in Shakespeare's oft derided but actually rather fun bloodbath,
Titus Andronicus. You might have caught a whiff of my liking for this play in earlier blogs.
'Headless Rome' is rather apt today as a dead-duck prime minister ekes out his notice and the Conservative Party fight among themselves like rats in a sack. As for the Labour Party, well one really shouldn't intrude on private grief - 'internecine' hadly does it justice but it is a bloody good word.
I was doing a bit of close reading of
Titus Andronicus this afternoon, a process I find easier if I have the piece playing in the background, ususally by means of the BBC Complete Works. The BBC
Titus Andronicus is rather good. Some online reviews are critical of Hugh Quarshie's Aaron but these are wide of the mark - Aaron is designed to be gloriously clever, sexy and above all else, unrepentant. At the end the director chooses to suggest that Aaron's child has been put to death, a bleakly bloody end to a decidedly bloody play. Interestingly the gorier fimed
Titus (directed by Julie Taymor and reviewed here previously) posits a mildly more optimistic conclusion. On balance I'm with Taymor but you pays your money and you takes your choice. One thing is for sure,
"Rome is but a wilderness of tigers."
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