From
Titus Andronicus, by
William Shakespeare:
Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS
with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin
TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;
But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;
This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.
You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault
Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,
My hand cut off and made a merry jest;
Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.
+++
Titus goes on with his rant, eventually explaining to Chiron and Demetrius how he will make them into a pie which he later feeds to their mother. Shakespeare at his most horrific!
Anthony Hopkins does an excellent job with this scene (and most every other scene) in the recent film adaptation, "Titus".
Text from the play courtesy Project Gutenberg.