Original: So, so; now sit: and look you eat no more
Modern: Okay, okay; now sit down, and make sure you don’t eat more

Original: Than will preserve just so much strength in us
Modern: Than what will keep just enough strength in us

Original: As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
Modern: To get revenge for these terrible sorrows we’ve suffered.

Original: Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:
Modern: Marcus, unfold your arms from that grief-twisted embrace:

Original: Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,
Modern: Your niece and I, poor things, are missing our hands,

Original: And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
Modern: And can’t express our overwhelming grief

Original: With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Modern: By crossing our arms. This pitiful right hand of mine

Original: Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;
Modern: Is all I have left to beat violently against my chest;

Original: Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Modern: And when my heart, driven crazy with suffering,

Original: Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
Modern: Pounds inside this empty cage of my body,

Original: Then thus I thump it down.
Modern: Then this is how I pound it down.

Original: Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
Modern: You picture of sorrow, who can only communicate through gestures!

Original: When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
Modern: When your poor heart pounds with violent beating,

Original: Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
Modern: You can’t hit it like this to make it stop.

Original: Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
Modern: Hurt it with sighs, girl, destroy it with moans;

Original: Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
Modern: Or put some small knife between your teeth,

Original: And just against thy heart make thou a hole;
Modern: And make a hole right at your heart;

Original: That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
Modern: So that all the tears that fall from your sad eyes

Original: May run into that sink, and soaking in
Modern: Can pour into that drain, and seeping in

Original: Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
Modern: Drown the crying wretch in an ocean of salty tears.

Titus Andronicus opens with the Roman general Titus returning victorious from war against the Goths, bringing with him prisoners including Tamora, Queen of the Goths, and her three sons. Despite Tamora’s pleas, Titus sacrifices her eldest son Alarbus in revenge for his own sons killed in battle. The Emperor Saturninus chooses Tamora as his bride, and she secretly plots revenge against Titus. Meanwhile, Titus’s daughter Lavinia is betrothed to Bassianus, the Emperor’s brother, though Saturninus had wanted to marry her himself.

Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron, aided by the villainous Aaron the Moor, murder Bassianus and brutally assault Lavinia, cutting off her hands and tongue to prevent her from identifying them. Aaron tricks two of Titus’s sons, Quintus and Martius, into falling into the pit where Bassianus’s body lies, and they are arrested for his murder. Aaron then deceives Titus into believing that if he cuts off his own hand and sends it to the Emperor, his sons will be spared. Titus complies, but receives back his severed hand along with the heads of his executed sons.

Lavinia manages to reveal her attackers’ identities by writing in the dirt with a stick held in her mouth. Titus feigns madness while plotting revenge and sends weapons with threatening messages to Tamora’s sons. When Tamora gives birth to Aaron’s child, Aaron flees with the baby but is eventually captured. In the final act, Titus kills Tamora’s sons and serves them to her baked in a pie at a banquet. He then kills Lavinia to end her suffering, murders Tamora, and is immediately killed by Saturninus. Titus’s surviving son Lucius kills Saturninus and is proclaimed the new Emperor, ordering Aaron to be buried alive and vowing to restore order to Rome.