ABSTRACT
the Moor, Tit, adulterous lover of the emperor Saturninus’ wife Tamora, father of her illegitimate child, and author of plots to destroy the family of Titus Andronicus. Aaron is a thoroughly evil character unredeemed by any trace of remorse. Sh.’s source for Tit is uncertain, but an 18th c. chapbook preserves a version of a tale that Sh. may have known. The Moor in the chapbook is unnamed and is less important to the plot of its story than he is to Sh.’s tragedy. It is likely, therefore, that Sh. fleshed out the character and chose its Hebrew name. The Biblical Aaron was Moses’ elder brother and the first Hebrew high priest. By linking a black man with the ‘blasphemous’ Jews, Sh. invoked common prejudices of his day to establish Aaron as an archetypal villain, an alien creature devoid of moral scruples.
