Titus Andronicus, revenge, and child-eating in Shakespeare's Bible

In Titus Andronicus, Titus has Chiron and Demetrius restrained and killed, to be baked up and served to their mother for revenge, a deception of cannibalism (vaguely similar to the deception at the end of The Spanish Tragedy). In The Bloody Banquet, by T.D., as punishment, an adulterer must eat the flesh of her lover.  

Why the fascination with revenge and cannibalism?

CANNIBALISM:
Many Catholics believed in transubstantiation (that the bread and wine actually became the body and blood of Christ). Protestant polemics claimed it was a form of cannibalism, which Catholics denied.

“EAT THEIR OWN CHILDREN”
Deut 28:54-57 (Bishop’s Bible trans.) notes note people who are “delicate and tender” (entitled, pampered, spoiled), who - if the city were under siege and food limited - would eat their own children. [1] When Hamlet calls Fortinbras a “delicate and tender prince,” it is not a compliment, but a reference to this passage.

Titus stabs his own daughter, and Tamora wants the mixed-race child she had with Aaron the Moor to be killed.

In Shakespeare’s England, some families may have been torn by conflicting religious allegiances, Protestant, Catholic, Puritan, and other sects or denominations against one another. There were betrayals, and it may have seemed families were figuratively eating their own children.  

FRUITLESS REVENGE:
Titus is a play about the fruitlessness of revenge. Titus and Rome are victorious against Tamora and the Goths, so he claims that he must ritualize the victory and memorialize his side’s dead by sacrificing Alarbus, eldest son of Tamora. Tamora vows revenge.

What may have felt similar to this in Shakespeare’s England?

Shakespeare’s older sister was baptized Roman Catholic under Mary I, but Shakespeare was baptized Protestant under Eliz. I.

Catholic Mary I (“bloody Mary”) was infamous in Shakespeare’s time for having burned many Protestants as heretics, memorialized in John Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments” ("Book of Martyrs").

Protestant Eliz. I was infamous to Catholics for having executed many Catholics as traitors.

Executions included “quartering” the heretic or traitor, showing them their own intestines, displaying their body parts in different regions of the realm.

It may easily have felt like England’s Christianity in the age was a saga of revenge and dismemberment in executions, back and forth.

Religious executions, for some, would have had a silencing effect: Why be too vocal about one’s religious allegiances if it gets one killed? Others may have spoken out in spite of the danger.

Lavinia is raped and silenced, and her tongue cut out, her hands cut off, so that she cannot name those who raped and mutilated her. She finds a way to communicate it anyway.

Her father, who should have protected her, is more concerned with his own honor and that of his house. He stabs her.

How might this correlate to Shakespeare’s England? Religious and political leaders (including monarchs), who should have protected victims, may sometimes have abandoned them, more concerned with their own honor than with the victims.

The play illustrates very well (as do other Shakespeare plays) the fruitlessness of revenge, even when cloaked and justified in official government and religious rhetoric.

See Peter Lake, Hamlet’s Choice (2020), Part 1, Titus Andronicus (17-72).
 


IMAGES:
L: Titus Andronicus: Act II, Scene 3: Tamora's cruelty to Lavinia. 1793. engraving by Anker S. Smith (1759–1819) after painting by Samuel Woodforde  (1763–1817). Public domain via Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Woodforde-TitusAct2.jpg

Middle:  Illustration of Act III, scene II from Titus Andronicus of William Shakespeare. 1740. By Hubert-François Gravelot  (1699–1773) & Gerard Vandergucht  (1696–1776). Public domain via Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titus_-_Gravelot.jpg

R:  Illustration of Act 2, Scene 3 from Titus Andronicus. 1843 by Edward Smith. Public domain via Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titus_-_Smith.jpg


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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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