In the final act of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the titular character kills the two men who perpetrated the rape and mutilation of his daughter. He then bakes the two – Demetrius and Chiron – into a pie. This meal is served to their mother, Tamora, which she unknowingly eats. This revolting scenario has played out many a time on stage, but Tamora is never afforded any dialogue to express her odium before Titus kills her. Though in some versions she takes a second bite, and a third even, filling herself with her kin. I wanted to give her some grace, a conversation with her sons, somewhere between the feast and the end.

TAMORA / REVENGE:
This meal was no mere sin, no vile deceit.
I, in hunger, sought not to ravage thee
But to protect, to guard you in my chest.
You’re still here now, baked beneath my own skin.

DEMETRIUS / MURDER:
But then, what of our flesh engrossed by fire?
What tenderness could coax such fierce craving?

TAMORA / REVENGE:
Titus can’t take you from me anymore.
I cannot lose again. Not to the world,
Not to the empty earth— To keep you safe.

CHIRON / RAPINE:
Our bodies, torn and twisted, fixed to die.
But what of our own blood that stains thy lips?
Sacred trust dissolved as hunger sated.

REVENGE:
No crueler fate than to abandon love.
Why can’t you see that I did it for you,
To pull you back, restore thee to thy fate.
My womb, once empty, swells with you again.

This place is broken, and you can’t be but—
You both are pieces of this legacy.
If only peace could rise from what is dead.

MURDER:
We were not simply pieces. More than scraps,
We were men, once. Full. Real. Do you see us?
Or is all that you see what stopped being.
A hollow truth from years and years ago.

RAPINE:
So what do you call this? This wretched taste?
Do you not relish our blood as your own?

REVENGE:
I would have done worse for you both, you know.
Vengeance brings the heart to feast, to chew.

RAPINE:
I don’t see what could be much worse than this.

MURDER:
Was it not wrath that drove thee to this task?
To hold us within our coffin under corse.

REVENGE:
The act was pure; born of a mother’s heart.
I gave you life again, returned intact.
I broke this flesh of mine, freed your spirits.
In me, you are safe, devoured whole, but kept.

Love is naught but taking back, the return.
To give everything, to tear it apart.
You have to return, or there is nothing.

I could not leave you, could not let you fall—

MURDER:
Marrow, it must fall apart in the jaw.
Do your sons not choke you, lodged in your throat?

RAPINE:
There must be something loathsome in thy soul.

REVENGE:
Yes. And I am responsible for you.
I see what you’ve become; Rape and Murder.
I have consumed the dark to stop it from
Leaking out. The world won’t know you like me.
Worry not, for I have swallowed your rage.

RAPINE:
We were not meant to be kept. Not like this.
You forgot to make us in such a way.

REVENGE:
I do not expect you to understand.

(a prolonged silence.)

SONS:
Do we cease to be, as you swallow us whole?

MOTHER:
You will never cease to be. Not in me.