In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare wrestles with the rhetorical and ethical depiction of profound grief. Act Three, scene one pushes to extremes what can be spoken and endured, as the exchange between Titus and Marcus stages a clash of rhetorical traditions. Marcus expresses a Stoical belief in the ability of reason to temper the passions, and a preference for rationally ordered rhetoric. For Titus, the horrors done to his family outstrip Stoic maxims, and his rhetoric and actions become unconstrained, hyperbolic, and unreasonable, evoking the biblical book of Lamentations. Rather than trying to reconcile the competing Roman and Judeo-Christian rhetorical ideas about lamentation found in classical and exegetical literature, Shakespeare translates these contradictions into dramatic conflict. The interplay of classical and biblical rhetoric of lamentation generates a shifting dynamic that renders grief as both stasis and excess, past and future, allowing for a theatrical and philosophical exploration of the lamenter.