Act II, Scenes i-iii
Aaron rejoices that Tamora is now the empress. As her lover, he anticipates better opportunities for himself. His thoughts are interrupted by a brawl between Chiron and Demetrius, who argue over which of them deserves Lavinia's love. Aaron counsels them to stop arguing and instead to catch her the next day during the hunt and to both rape her. When Titus, Titus's sons, Saturninus, Tamora, Bassianus, Lavinia, and Marcus gather the next day for the hunt, Chiron and Demetrius reaffirm their intention "to pluck a dainty doe to ground" (II.ii.26).
Away from the hunting party, Aaron buries a bag of gold under a tree. Tamora finds him and urges him to make love to her. However, Aaron is ruled by vengeance and asks her to deliver a letter to Saturninus. The couple is spotted in their physical intimacy by Bassianus and Lavinia, who proceed to roundly insult Tamora, with Lavinia being surprisingly coarse. Chiron and Demetrius enter and stab Bassianus to death in defense of their mother's honor. When Tamora wants to stab Lavinia too, her sons stop her, wishing to keep her alive until they have satisfied their lust on her. Tamora assents, ignoring Lavinia's heartrending request that Tamora kill her immediately instead.
Aaron leads Titus's sons Quintus and Martius to where he claims a panther is asleep. They both fall into the pit where Chiron and Demetrius left Bassianus's body. Aaron then leads Saturninus to the pit, where Tamora hands him the letter Aaron had previously written, and which incriminates Quintus and Martius as Bassianus's murderers. The bag of gold that Aaron buried is conveniently uncovered and taken as proof that Titus's sons were going to pay a huntsman to do the deed. Titus tries to free his sons to no avail; they are taken away by Saturninus to await execution.
Act II, Scene iv
Chiron and Demetrius enter with a ravished Lavinia, whose hands and tongue they have cut off in order to prevent her from revealing the perpetrators of the crime. They insult her before they leave her alone in the wilderness. The wretched girl is discovered by Marcus, who is moved by the sight of the suffering Lavinia to make a long poetic tirade in which the depth of his sympathy is signaled by the length and complex figurativeness of his language. Lavinia tries to flee in shame from her uncle, but he stops her and decides to bring her to her father even though he is sure that such a sight will blind Titus.
Act III, Scenes i and ii
Titus entreats the judges who are leading his sons away to spare their lives for the sake of his war efforts and age. They ignore him, and he prostrates himself upon the ground, saying that he will rain tears on the earth so that it will refuse to drink the blood of his sons. Lucius enters with his sword drawn and tells his father, "You recount your sorrows to a stone" (III.i.29). To this, Titus replies that stones are softer than the tribunes of Rome. Lucius unsuccessfully attempts to free his brothers, and is banished; Titus calls him a lucky man for escaping the "wilderness of tigers" (III.i.54) that Rome has become. Marcus enters with the ravished Lavinia, and all break down in tears, with Titus calling relentlessly for them to "look upon her" (III.i.65).
Aaron enters with the message for Titus that if Titus cuts off one of his own hands, the Emperor will spare his sons. Marcus and Lucius argue that they should sacrifice their hands, but while Titus sends them off for an axe, he gets Aaron to cut off his hand (with the fantastically embarrassing line "Lend me thy hand, and I will give you mine"). The message turns out to be a trick: after Titus has lost his hand, a messenger returns with the severed heads of Quintus and Martius. Titus begins to laugh for the tears he can no longer shed (III.i.263). He retires to his home with his brother and his daughter, sending Lucius off to raise an army of Goths against Tamora and Saturninus.
In the second scene, Titus, Marcus, Lavinia, and Lucius's son, Young Lucius, have a small banquet where Titus feeds his daughter while he deciphers the sorrow behind her mimed actions. For example, he understands that she will have no drink but her tears. When Marcus kills a fly, this causes Titus to wax sympathetic for the parents of the fly. Marcus humors him by saying that it is a black fly like Aaron. Titus reacts with delight, which convinces Marcus that he is mad. Titus then takes Lavinia and young Lucius away to read.
Act IV, Scenes i and ii
Young Lucius flees from his aunt Lavinia, fearing that she is crazed. In fact, she merely wants to get to the book he is carrying, Ovid's Metamorphoses. She turns through its pages until she reaches the story of Philomela and Tereus (Tereus rapes his sister-in-law Philomela and then cuts off her tongue so that she cannot reveal the crime), which she shows to her father and uncle to indicate what has been done to her. Marcus urges her to carve the name of the culprits in the sand. Holding the staff with her mouth and guiding it with her stumps, she writes, "Stuprum[Latin for rape] -- Chiron -- Demetrius." They all kneel and take a vow to not rest until the treacherous Goths have been made to pay with their blood.
On Titus's orders, Young Lucius delivers weapons from his armory to Chiron and Demetrius, along with a scroll bearing a quotation of Horace, stating, "The man of upright life, and free from crime, has no need of the Moore's javelins or arrows." The insult is lost on the young Goths, but Aaron notes it. Then a nurse enters with a blackamoor child, the bastard son of Tamora and Aaron, and asks that Aaron kill it before it brings shame to the empress. Aaron roars to the defense of his son, and claims that black is the best color because it does not deign to take on any other colors. He kills the nurse to keep the secret of the child safe, then decides to return to the Goths so that he may protect his son.
Act IV, Scenes iii and iv
Titus brings Marcus, Young Lucius, and his kinsmen Publius, Sempronius, and Caius to shoot arrows at the constellations. These arrows are tipped with petitions to the gods for justice. Marcus adds a practical touch by advising the men to make certain their shafts fall into the court so as to scare the emperor. Along comes a clown carrying two pigeons; he tells them he is going to court to settle a personal dispute. Titus convinces the clown to bring a message on his behalf to the emperor, with the promise of a hefty monetary reward.
In the court, Saturninus is furious about the arrows he has found, for they have advertised his crimes to all of Rome. The clown enters with the two pigeons and Titus's letter. Saturninus reads the letter and immediately has the clown hanged. Next, the messenger Aemilius enters with word that Lucius has gathered an army of Goths and is already advancing on Rome. Saturninus flies into a panic; he has often heard rumors that the people would support Lucius over himself. Tamora calms him by comparing him to an eagle that tolerates the song of smaller birds because he can silence them at will. Furthermore, she promises him that she can persuade Titus to entreat Lucius to desist in his war efforts. She sends Aemilius to the Goth camp to ask Lucius to go to a meeting at the house of Titus.
Act V, Scenes i and ii
In the Goth camp, Lucius tells the Goths that he has received news from Rome detailing how much the Romans hate their emperor, and how eagerly they await Lucius's coming. The Goths are proud to fight alongside the man who was once their bane, and promise to follow his lead into battle. A Goth soldier has discovered the fugitive Aaron, along with his baby, in an abandoned monastery, and brought him back to camp. Lucius's impulse is to hang the father and child, letting the child hang first so that the father will have to watch. The Goths bring a ladder and make Aaron climb it. From that position, he makes a bargain with Lucius to preserve the child in exchange for Aaron's knowledge of all the horrors that have occurred. When Lucius swears by his gods that he will spare the child, Aaron reveals the parenthood of the child, the rapists of Lavinia, the murderers of Bassianus, his own trickery to get Titus's hand; finally, he takes credit for every act, saying, "And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue, / Wherein I has no stroke of mischief in it?" (V.i.109- 10) Lucius is aghast, but the inveterate Moore goes on to list the other crimes he has committed in his life, claiming his sole regret is that he does not have the chance to commit ten thousand more. Lucius is so horrified that he has Aaron taken down, claiming hanging is too sweet a death for the Moore. Aaron is gagged so that he will stop speaking.
Aemilius enters then with the request from Saturninus for a meeting. Lucius agrees.
In the second scene, Tamora and her sons appear to Titus in disguise, masquerading as Revenge and her attendants Rape and Murder. She says to Titus, whom she believes to be mad, that she will punish all his enemies if he will convince Lucius to attend a banquet at Titus's house. Her plan is to wreak confusion among the Goths while their new leader, Lucius, is at the banquet. Titus, who has simply been playing at madness all along, agrees on the condition that Revenge leave Rape and Murder (Chiron and Demetrius in disguise) with him. Upon Tamora's departure, Titus gets his kinsmen to gag and bind the two young Goths. With Lavinia holding the basin to catch their blood, Titus "play[s] the cook" who slits their throats. He elaborates on his plan to grind their bones to dust and to make a paste of it with their blood, which he will turn into "coffins," a word that also meant pie crust. He will then bake Tamora's sons in their "coffins," and serve the dish to their mother at the banquet.
Act V, Scene iii
Lucius speaks to Marcus at his father's house; he asks Marcus to take custody of Aaron so that they might later get testimony of Tamora's crimes.