Titus Andronicus' Complaint

To the Tune of Fortune



1
You noble minds and famous martial wights,
That in defence of native country fights,
Give ear to me that ten years fought for Rome,
Yet reaped disgrace when I returnèd home.

2
In Rome I lived in fame full threescore years,
By name belovèd dear of all his peers,
Full five-and-twenty valiant sons I had,
Whose forward virtues made their father glad.

3
For when Rome's foes their warlike forces felt,
Against them still my sons and I were sent;
Against the Goths full ten years' weary war
We spent, receiving many a bloody scar.

4
Just two-and-twenty of my sons were slain,
Before we did return to Rome again;
Of five-and-twenty sons I brought but three
Alive the stately towers of Rome to see.

5
When wars were done I conquest home did bring,
And did present my prisoners to the King;
The Queen of Goth, her sons, and eke a Moor,
Which did much murder, like was ne'er before.

6
The Emperor did make this Queen his wife,
Which bred in Rome debate and deadly strife;
The Moor with her two sons did grow so proud
That none like them in Rome was then allowed.

7
The Moor so pleased the new-made Empress' eye
That she consented with him secretly
For to abuse her husband's marriage bed,
And so in time a blackamoor she bred.

8
Then she, whose thoughts to murder were inclined,
Consented with the Moor with bloody mind
Against myself, my kin, and all my friends
In cruel sort to bring them to their ends.

9
So when in age I thought to live in peace,
Both woe and grief began then to increase;
Amongst my sons I had one daughter bright,
Which joyed and pleasèd best my age's sight.

10
My dear Lavinia was betrothed as then
To Caesar's son, a young and noble man,
Who in a hunting by the Emperor's wife
And her two sons bereavèd were of life.

11
He, being slain, was cast in cruel wise
Into a dismal den from light of skies;
The cruel Moor did come that way as then
With my two sons, who fell into that den.

12
The Moor then fetched the Emperor with speed,
For to accuse them of that murderous deed;
And then my sons within the den were found;
In wrongful prison they were cast and bound.

13
But now behold what wounded most my mind,
The Emperor's two sons of tiger's kind
My daughter ravishèd without remorse,
And took away her honour quite perforce.

14
When they had tasted of so sweet a flower
Fearing their sweet should shortly turn to sour,
They cut her tongue, whereby she could not tell
How that dishonour unto her befell.

15
Then both her hands they falsely cut off quite,
Whereby their wickedness she could not write,
Nor with her needle on her sampler sew
The bloody workers of her direful woe.

16
My brother Marcus found her in a wood,
Staining the grassy ground with purple blood
That trickled from her stumps and handless arms.
No tongue at all she had to tell her harms.

17
But when I saw her in that woeful case,
With tears of blood I wet my agèd face;
For my Lavinia I lamented more
Than for my two-and-twenty sons before.

18
Whenas I saw she could not write nor speak,
With grief my agèd heart began to break;
We spread a heap of sand upon the ground,
Whereby those bloody tyrants out we found.

19
For with a staff, without the help of hand,
She writ these words upon that plot of sand:
"The lustful sons of the proud Empress
Are doers of this hateful wickedness."

20
I tare the milk-white hairs from off my head,
I cursed the hour wherein I first was bred;
I wished the hand that fought for country's fame
In cradle's rock had first been stroken lame.

21
The Moor, delighting still in villainy,
Did say, to set my sons from prison free,
I should unto the King my right hand give,
And then my two imprisoned sons should live.

22
The Moor I caused to strike it off with speed,
Whereat I grievèd not to see it bleed,
But for my sons would willingly impart
And for their ransom send my bleeding heart.

23
But as my life did linger thus in pain,
They sent to me my bloodless hand again,
And therewithal the heads of my two sons,
Which filled my dying heart with fresher moans.

24
Then past relief, I up and down did go,
And with my tears writ in the dust my woe;
I shot my arrows towards heaven high,
And for revenge to hell did sometimes cry.

25
The Empress then, thinking I was mad,
Like furies she and both her sons were clad,
She named Revenge, and Rape and Murder they,
To undermine and know what I would say.

26
I fed their foolish veins a certain space,
Until my friends and I did find a place,
Where both her sons unto a post were bound,
Where just revenge in cruel sort was found.

27
I cut their throats, my daughter held the pan
Betwixt the stumps, wherein their blood then ran;
And then I ground their bones to powder small,
And made a paste for pies straight therewithal.

28
Then with their flesh I made two mighty pies,
And at a banquet served in stately wise
Before the Empress set this loathsome meat,
So of her sons' own flesh she well did eat.

29
Myself bereaved my daughter then of life;
The Empress then I slew with bloody knife,
And stabbed the Emperor immediately,
And then myself, even so did Titus die.

30
Then this revenge against their Moor was found:
Alive they set him half into the ground,
Whereas he stood until such time he starved;
And so God send all murderers may be served.


From Richard Johnson's The Golden Garland of Princely Pleasures, printed in 1620

DREADFUL ACCOUNT OF CANNIBALISM

On July the 6th, 1824, Alexander Pierce, for his depraved and wicked conduct, was found guilty, before a Bench of Magistrates held at the Court-house in Hobart Town, and transported to the penal settlement of Maoquarie Harbour.

An important advantage which attends the establishment at Macquarie Harbour, as a place of secondary transportation, is the certainty that the persons sent thither cannot, with any possibility, escape by land, so completely shut in is it by the surrounding rugged, closely wooded, and altogether impracticable country. Notwithstanding those difficulties, in November, Alexander Pierce, and several miseuided men, eight in number, attempted to escape ; but two returned (named Brown and Dalton,) to the settlement after an absence of sixteen days, and an inefiectual effort to pass the mountains, so far exhausted for want of food, that they died in the hospital a few days after. These men stated, that previous to their leaving the others, a man named Cornelius, had been killed to afford sustenance to the rest. It has turned out, that Alexander Herce was the only survivor that reached the Eastern settlements, and gave out that his unfortunate companions had died, and that some were drowned in crossing the stream. He was punished, and again sent to the penal settlement, from whence he attempted a second escape with Thomas Cox, whom he murdered. Upoa being apprehended, he acknowled he had subsisted, during his first departure and absence, upon the remainmg unfortunate men before alluded to, and which dreadful circumstance is more fully explained in the following confession made by him in the gaol, to Mr. Birder, the Keeper, the evening before his execution.

« I was born in the County of Fermanagh, in the North of Ireland. In the 26th year of my age, I was convicted of stealing six pair of shoes, and received sentence to be transported foe seven years ; I arrived in Van Dieman*s Land, on board the ship Castle Forbes, from Sidney ; was assigned as a servant to John Bellinger, with whom I remained about nine months ; was then from misconduct, returned to the Government Superintendent A few months after, I was assigned to a man named Cane, a constable, and staid with him only sixteen weeks, when an occasion obliged him to take me before the Magistrates, who ordered that I should receive fifty lashes, in the
usual way, and again be returned to Crown labour. Afterwards I was placed to serve a Mr. Scmttergood, of New Norfolk, from whom I absconded into the woods, and joined Langton, Saunders, Latten, and Atkinson, who were then at large ; staid with them three months, and surrendered myself by a proclamation, issued by the Lieut. Governor ; and was pardoned. Shortly afterwards I forged several orders, upon which I obtained property. On hearing the fraud was discovered, I was again induced to take to the woods. But, after three or four months, I was taken by a party of the 48th regiment, brought to Hobart Town, tried for the forgenes, found guilty, and sent to the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour for the remainder of my sentence.
1 was not there more than a month, before I made my escape with seven others,
namely, Dalton, Traverse, Badman, Mathews, Greenhill, Brown, and Cornelius. We kept together for ten days, during which time we had no food but our kangaroo skackets, which we ate, being nearly exhausted with hunger and fatigue. On the eleventh night, we began to consult what was best to be done for our preservation, and made up our minds to a dreadful result.

*' In the morning we missed three of our companions, Dalton, Cornelius, and Brown, whom we concluded had left us with the intention of going back if possible. We then drew cuts which of us five should die ; it ^11 to Badman's lot ; I went with one of the others to collect dry wood, to make a fire, during which time Traverse had succeeded in killing Badman, and had begun to cut him up. We dressed part of the flesh immediately, and continued to use it as long as it lasted. We then drew cuts again, and it fell to the fate of Mathews ; Traverse and Greenhill killed him with an axe, cut the flesh from his bones, carried it on, and lived upon it as long as it lasted.

By the time it was all eat, Traverse through fatigue fell lame in his knee, so much so that he could not proceed ; Greenhill proposed that I should kill him, which I agreed to. We then made the best of our way, carrying the flesh of Traverse between us, in the hope of reaching the Eastern settlements while it lasted. We did not, however, succeed, and I perceived Greenhill always carried the axe, and thought he watched an opportunity to kill me. I was always on my guard, and succeeded, when he fell asleep, to get the axe, with which I immemately despatched him, made a meal, and carried the remaining flesh with me to feed upon. To my great disappointment, I was afterwards many days without food, and subsisted solely upon grass and nettle-tops, which I boiled in a tin pot that I brought with me from the settlement. At length I fell in with some natives' huts, which, from appearance, the inmates
had just lefy where I collected some entrails and bits of kangaroo, wich afforded me a meal. Two days afterward, when nearly exhausted, I came in sight of a hut, which proved to be McGuire's.

I staid there a fortnight, and made up my mind to surrender myself to Captain Wood, a magistrate on the river Clyde, but on ray way thither I met Davis and Churton, who were then desperadoes, and living at the Shannon hut They wished me to join there, to which I agreed, ki a few weeks we were dl taken near Jericho by a party of the 48th regiment, and brought into Hobart Town Gaol: Churton and Davis were tried, found suiltyof capital ofiences and suffered death. It was my fate to be returned to the penal settlement. I again made my escape with Thomas Cox whe eageriy pressed my departure. I had irons on at the time ; when we had proceeded some distance, Cox knocked them o& with an axe he had brougbt with him, and we made the best of our way through a thick scrub, winch was very wet At night we tried to make a fire, but could not. We traveled several days without food, except the tops of trees and shrubs, until we came to King^s River : I asked Cox if he could swim : he replied he could not ; I remarked that had I been aware of it he should not have been my oom-
panion ; we were enabled to make a fire ; the arrangement for crosswg the fiver created words, and 1 killed Cox with the axe ; I ate part of kin that night, and cut the greatest part of his flesh up, in order to take on with ne. I swam the river with the intention of keeping the coast round to Port Dalrymple, my heart failed me, and I resolved to return and give myself up to the Commandant. I threw most of the flesh away, but one piece, which I carried in my pocket to shew the Commandant that Cox was dead. I confessed that I killed him, and accompanied a party in a boat to brine up his remains, which was done. I was then sent up to Hobart Town, connued in
the prison to take my trial in the Criminal Court ; the result is now universally known here.— Gaol, 20th June, 1824."

The taste of the individual savage

When Sefu returned to Kasongo, a day or two afterwards, he gave orders that the pieces of Debruyne's body should be collected and buried with Lippens, whose body, with the exception of the hands (which had been sent to Sefu and Mohara of Nyangwe as tokens), was otherwise unmutilated. The strong innate respect for a chief had protected Lippens' body, while that of his subordinate had been hacked to pieces. A curious fatality followed these twelve murderers. The chief of the band, Kabwarri by name, was killed by us in the battle of the 26 th of February with Lippens* Martini express in his hand. Of the others — all of whom were the sons of chiefs, and some of them important men on their own account — four died of smallpox, one was killed at Nyangwe, one in the storming of Kasongo, and the remaining six we took prisoners at Kasongo. During the trial they one day, though in a chained gang, succeeded in overpowering the sentry, and thus escaped.

One was drowned in crossing a river ; three more were killed, either fighting or by accident, within a month or two of their escape ; and the two remaining we retook and hanged ; — which brings to me a curious point. Of the many men I have seen hanged nearly all died by strangulation, and not by having the neck broken. As compared with shooting, hanging seems to me the less painful death ; the wretched being becomes insensible in a very few seconds, whereas a man shot will often require a coup de grace, no matter how carefully the firing party is placed.

During this time I made several excursions through the country in search of game, and also as
a means of getting to know the district What struck me most in these expeditions was the
number of partially cut-up bodies I found in every direction for miles around. Some of them
were minus the hands and feet, and some with steaks cut from the thighs or elsewhere ; others
had the entrails or the head removed, according to the taste of the individual savage, though, as I
afterwards discovered, this taste is more tribal than individual. Neither old nor young, women
or children, are exempt from the possibility of serving as food for their conquerors or neighbours..."


S. L. Hinde