A family dinner

The sound of trumpets ushers in the dinner guests. Dressed as a cook, an old soldier brings in the food. He greets the Emperor Saturninus and his wife with courtesy and encourages them to begin. The former Roman general's costume elicits a question, but since the guests already suspect that Titus Andronicus is not in his right mind, they do not press the point.

Over dinner, Titus turns the conversation to an episode in Roman history, when Virginius killed his daughter because she had been raped. Was this right, he wonders? Decidedly, the emperor assures him: she should not outlive the deed that shamed her. The old man takes this for authority, rounds on his own daughter and kills her then and there.

Self-evidently, this is not how families are expected to behave, and Saturninus says as much. However patriarchal Shakespeare’s culture, or ancient Rome, come to that, this is ‘unnatural and unkind’ (5.3.4). But Lavinia too was raped, Titus explains, and begs his guests not to interrupt their meal, as if the summary execution of his daughter were no more than incidental.