both sons are to be put to death, but this does not seem necessarily to be the purport of the illustration.
The text of the dialogue accompanying the drawing reads as follows:
Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution
Tam: Stay Romane bretheren gratious Conquerors
Victorious Titus rue the teares I shed
A mothers teares in passion of her sonnes
And if thy sonnes were ever deare to thee
Oh thinke my sonnes to bee as deare to mee
Suffizeth not that wee are brought to Roome
To beautify thy triumphes and returne
Captiue to thee and to thy Romane yoake
But must my sonnes be slaughtered in the streetes
for valiant doinges in there Cuntryes cause
Oh if to fight for kinge and Common weale
Were piety in thine it is in these
Andronicus staine not thy tombe with blood
Wilt thou drawe neere the nature of the Godes
Drawe neere them then in being mercifull
Sweete mercy is nobilityes true badge
Thrice noble Titus spare my first borne sonne
Titus: Patient your self madame for dy hee must
Aaron do you likewise prepare your selfe
And now at last repent your wicked life
Aron: Ah now I curse the day and yet I thinke
few comes within the compasse of my curse
Wherein I did not some notorious ill
As kill a man or els devise his death
Ravish a mayd or plott the way to do it
Acuse some innocent and forsweare my selfe
Set deadly enmity betweene too freendes
Make poore mens cattell breake theire neckes
Set fire on barnes and haystackes in the night
And bid the owners quench them with their teares
