Aaron

Play

Titus Andronicus

Summary

Aaron the Moor is Tamora's lover and the play's chief architect of evil — one of Shakespeare's most theatrically compelling villains, unapologetically malicious and gleefully inventive in his cruelties. He engineers the rape and mutilation of Lavinia, the false accusation of Titus's sons, and convinces Titus to cut off his own hand on a false promise of mercy. Unlike most Shakespearean villains who offer rationalisation or self-deception, Aaron boasts of his evil with exuberant honesty, recounting a lifetime of wickedness with evident pride. The single crack in his armour is his ferocious love for his black infant son by Tamora — he risks everything to protect the child, a detail that lends him unexpected human complexity.

Notable Quotations

"If one good deed in all my life I did, / I do repent it from my very soul." *(5.3)*

"Even now I curse the day — and yet I think / Few come within the compass of my curse — / Wherein I did not some notorious ill." *(5.1)*

"Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?" *(4.2 — defending his infant son)*

"Touch not the boy; he is of royal blood." *(4.2)*

Cross-references

• Titus Andronicus — the play
• Tragedies
• character_tamora — his lover and partner in revenge
• character_titus — his principal victim
• character_lucius_ta — the son of Titus who captures him