ACT IV SCENE II

Titus Andronicus

ACT IV SCENE II	The same. A room in the palace.
[ Enter, from one side, AARON, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON; from the other side, Young LUCIUS, and an Attendant, with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon them ]
CHIRON	Demetrius, here’s the son of Lucius;
	He hath some message to deliver us.
AARON	Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.
Young LUCIUS	My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
	I greet your honours from Andronicus.	5
[Aside]
	And pray the Roman gods confound you both!
DEMETRIUS	Gramercy, lovely Lucius: what’s the news?
Young LUCIUS	[Aside] That you are both decipher’d, that’s the news,
	For villains mark’d with rape.–May it please you,
	My grandsire, well advised, hath sent by me	10
	The goodliest weapons of his armoury
	To gratify your honourable youth,
	The hope of Rome; for so he bade me say;
	And so I do, and with his gifts present
	Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,	15
	You may be armed and appointed well:
	And so I leave you both:
[Aside]
	like bloody villains.
[Exeunt Young LUCIUS, and Attendant]
DEMETRIUS	What’s here? A scroll; and written round about?
	Let’s see;	20
[Reads]
	‘Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
	Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.’
CHIRON	O, ’tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
	I read it in the grammar long ago.
AARON	Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.	25
[Aside]
	Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
	Here’s no sound jest! the old man hath found their guilt;
	And sends them weapons wrapped about with lines,
	That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.
	But were our witty empress well afoot,	30
	She would applaud Andronicus’ conceit:
	But let her rest in her unrest awhile.
	And now, young lords, was’t not a happy star
	Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
	Captives, to be advanced to this height?	35
	It did me good, before the palace gate
	To brave the tribune in his brother’s hearing.
DEMETRIUS	But me more good, to see so great a lord
	Basely insinuate and send us gifts.
AARON	Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?	40
	Did you not use his daughter very friendly?
DEMETRIUS	I would we had a thousand Roman dames
	At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.
CHIRON	A charitable wish and full of love.
AARON	Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.	45
CHIRON	And that would she for twenty thousand more.
DEMETRIUS	Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods
	For our beloved mother in her pains.
AARON	[Aside] Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
[Trumpets sound within]
DEMETRIUS	Why do the emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?	50
CHIRON	Belike, for joy the emperor hath a son.
DEMETRIUS	Soft! who comes here?
[Enter a Nurse, with a blackamoor Child in her arms]
Nurse	Good morrow, lords:
	O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?
AARON	Well, more or less, or ne’er a whit at all,	55
	Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?
Nurse	O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
	Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!
AARON	Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!
	What dost thou wrap and fumble in thine arms?	60
Nurse	O, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye,
	Our empress’ shame, and stately Rome’s disgrace!
	She is deliver’d, lords; she is deliver’d.
AARON	To whom?
Nurse	I mean, she is brought a-bed.	65
AARON	Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?
Nurse	A devil.
AARON	Why, then she is the devil’s dam; a joyful issue.
Nurse	A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue:
	Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad	70
	Amongst the fairest breeders of our clime:
	The empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
	And bids thee christen it with thy dagger’s point.
AARON	‘Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?
	Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.	75
DEMETRIUS	Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON	That which thou canst not undo.
CHIRON	Thou hast undone our mother.
AARON	Villain, I have done thy mother.
DEMETRIUS	And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.	80
	Woe to her chance, and damn’d her loathed choice!
	Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!
CHIRON	It shall not live.
AARON	It shall not die.
Nurse	Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.	85
AARON	What, must it, nurse? then let no man but I
	Do execution on my flesh and blood.
DEMETRIUS	I’ll broach the tadpole on my rapier’s point:
	Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.
AARON	Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.	90
[Takes the Child from the Nurse, and draws]
	Stay, murderous villains! will you kill your brother?
	Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,
	That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
	He dies upon my scimitar’s sharp point
	That touches this my first-born son and heir!	95
	I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
	With all his threatening band of Typhon’s brood,
	Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
	Shall seize this prey out of his father’s hands.
	What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!	100
	Ye white-limed walls! ye alehouse painted signs!
	Coal-black is better than another hue,
	In that it scorns to bear another hue;
	For all the water in the ocean
	Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white,	105
	Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
	Tell the empress from me, I am of age
	To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.
DEMETRIUS	Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?
AARON	My mistress is my mistress; this myself,	110
	The vigour and the picture of my youth:
	This before all the world do I prefer;
	This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
	Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.
DEMETRIUS	By this our mother is forever shamed.	115
CHIRON	Rome will despise her for this foul escape.
Nurse	The emperor, in his rage, will doom her death.
CHIRON	I blush to think upon this ignomy.
AARON	Why, there’s the privilege your beauty bears:
	Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing	120
	The close enacts and counsels of the heart!
	Here’s a young lad framed of another leer:
	Look, how the black slave smiles upon the father,
	As who should say ‘Old lad, I am thine own.’
	He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed	125
	Of that self-blood that first gave life to you,
	And from that womb where you imprison’d were
	He is enfranchised and come to light:
	Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
	Although my seal be stamped in his face.	130
Nurse	Aaron, what shall I say unto the empress?
DEMETRIUS	Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
	And we will all subscribe to thy advice:
	Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.
AARON	Then sit we down, and let us all consult.	135
	My son and I will have the wind of you:
	Keep there: now talk at pleasure of your safety.
[They sit]
DEMETRIUS	How many women saw this child of his?
AARON	Why, so, brave lords! when we join in league,
	I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,	140
	The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
	The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
	But say, again; how many saw the child?
Nurse	Cornelia the midwife and myself;
	And no one else but the deliver’d empress.	145
AARON	The empress, the midwife, and yourself:
	Two may keep counsel when the third’s away:
	Go to the empress, tell her this I said.
[He kills the nurse]
	Weke, weke! so cries a pig prepared to the spit.
DEMETRIUS	What mean’st thou, Aaron? wherefore didst thou this?	150
AARON	O Lord, sir, ’tis a deed of policy:
	Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours,
	A long-tongued babbling gossip? no, lords, no:
	And now be it known to you my full intent.
	Not far, one Muli lives, my countryman;	155
	His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
	His child is like to her, fair as you are:
	Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
	And tell them both the circumstance of all;
	And how by this their child shall be advanced,	160
	And be received for the emperor’s heir,
	And substituted in the place of mine,
	To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
	And let the emperor dandle him for his own.
	Hark ye, lords; ye see I have given her physic,	165
[Pointing to the nurse]
	And you must needs bestow her funeral;
	The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms:
	This done, see that you take no longer days,
	But send the midwife presently to me.
	The midwife and the nurse well made away,	170
	Then let the ladies tattle what they please.
CHIRON	Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
	With secrets.
DEMETRIUS	For this care of Tamora,
	Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.	175
[ Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON bearing off the Nurse’s body ]
AARON	Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies;
	There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,
	And secretly to greet the empress’ friends.
	Come on, you thick lipp’d slave, I’ll bear you hence;
	For it is you that puts us to our shifts:	180
	I’ll make you feed on berries and on roots,
	And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,
	And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
	To be a warrior, and command a camp.
[Exit]

Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 3