Aron the Moor begins this act with a long soliloquy. In this, he praises Tamora for her current position as empress, saying that she is powerful and safe: ‘Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top/Safe out of fortune’s shot, and sits aloft,’
He then reveals that his plans involving her are malicious; that he will rise to power as Tamora is madly in love with him. ‘To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress….Hast prisoner held, fett’red in amorous chains’.
His soliloquy is then interrupted by Chirron and Demitrius (Tamora’s sons) who are quarrelling over the love of Lavinia (Titus’s daughter). Demetrius uses his age against Chirron, saying that he is older and therefore more deserving of Lavinia, to which Chirron retorts by saying ‘I am as able and as fit as thou’, and by saying that he is better and should therefore get Lavinia.
Aron sees the argument as an advantage for him to exploit, and interrupts the two brothers, asking if she would really love two boys that she had never met such as themselves. He then persuades them help him in a plot against Titus, essentially telling them to rape Lavinia in a forrest where the hunt was taking place.
‘And many unfrequented plots there are/Fitted by kind for rape and villainy/Single you thither then this dainty doe/And strike her home by force, if not by words’. The brothers both agree.
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