Act 3 Scene 2
Titus talking to Lavinia at table-Quotation:
‘This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast,
Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
Then thus I thump it down.
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
May run into that sink, and soaking in,
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.’
Personification is used suggesting the heart is a creature rather than an organ prisoned within the hollow flesh. This symbolises the emotion of pain and heartbreak which Titus is suffering through the personified heart. The heart being prisoned suggest Titus has no answer because he is trapped also implying the emotion of loneliness.
React!