Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.
And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.
Woe to her chance, and damn’d her loathed choice!
Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!
What, must it, nurse? then let no man but I
Do execution on my flesh and blood.
I’ll broach the tadpole on my rapier’s point:
Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.
Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up. 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!
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!
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,
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.
My mistress is my mistress; this myself,
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.
Why, there’s the privilege your beauty bears:
Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
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
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.
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.
Then sit we down, and let us all consult.
My son and I will have the wind of you:
Keep there: now talk at pleasure of your safety. They sit.
Why, so, brave lords! when we join in league,
I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,
The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
But say, again, how many saw the child?
Cornelia the midwife and myself;
And no one else but the deliver’d empress.
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.
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;
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,
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, 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,
Then let the ladies tattle what they please.
Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
With secrets.
For this care of Tamora,
Herself and hers are highly bound to thee. Exeunt Demetrius and Chiron bearing off the Nurse’s body.
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:
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.
Scene III
The same. A public place.
| Enter Titus, bearing arrows with letters at the ends of them; with him, Marcus, Young Lucius, Publius, Sempronius, Caius, and other Gentlemen, with bows. | |
| Titus |
Come, Marcus; come, kinsmen; this is the way. |
