1    Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;
2    He hath some message to deliver us.

3    Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.

4    My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
5    I greet your honours from Andronicus.
Aside
6    And pray the Roman gods confound you both!

7    Gramercy, lovely Lucius: what's the news?

Aside
8     That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,
9    For villains mark'd with rape.--May it please you,
10   My grandsire, well advised, hath sent by me
11   The goodliest weapons of his armoury
12   To gratify your honourable youth,
13   The hope of Rome; for so he bade me say;
14   And so I do, and with his gifts present
15   Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,
16   You may be armed and appointed well:
17   And so I leave you both:
Aside
18   like bloody villains.

19   What's here? A scroll; and written round about?
20   Let's see;
Reads
21   'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
22   Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.'

23   O, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
24   I read it in the grammar long ago.

25   Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.
Aside
26   Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
27   Here's no sound jest! the old man hath found their guilt;
28   And sends them weapons wrapped about with lines,
29   That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.
30   But were our witty empress well afoot,
31   She would applaud Andronicus' conceit:
32   But let her rest in her unrest awhile.
33   And now, young lords, was't not a happy star
34   Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
35   Captives, to be advanced to this height?
36   It did me good, before the palace gate
37   To brave the tribune in his brother's hearing.

38   But me more good, to see so great a lord
39   Basely insinuate and send us gifts.

40   Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?
41   Did you not use his daughter very friendly?

42   I would we had a thousand Roman dames
43   At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.

44   A charitable wish and full of love.

45   Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.

46   And that would she for twenty thousand more.

47   Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods
48   For our beloved mother in her pains.

Aside
49    Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.

50   Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?

51   Belike, for joy the emperor hath a son.

52   Soft! who comes here?

53   Good morrow, lords:
54   O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?

55   Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,
56   Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?

57   O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
58   Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!

59   Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!
60   What dost thou wrap and fumble in thine arms?

61   O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye,
62   Our empress' shame, and stately Rome's disgrace!
63   She is deliver'd, lords; she is deliver'd.

64   To whom?

65   I mean, she is brought a-bed.

66   Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?

67   A devil.

68   Why, then she is the devil's dam; a joyful issue.

69   A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue:
70   Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad
71   Amongst the fairest breeders of our clime:
72   The empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
73   And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.

74   'Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?
75   Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.

76   Villain, what hast thou done?

77   That which thou canst not undo.

78   Thou hast undone our mother.

79   Villain, I have done thy mother.

80   And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.
81   Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!
82   Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!

83   It shall not live.

84   It shall not die.

85   Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.

86   What, must it, nurse? then let no man but I
87   Do execution on my flesh and blood.

88   I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point:
89   Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.

90   Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
Takes the Child from the Nurse, and draws
91   Stay, murderous villains! will you kill your brother?
92   Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,
93   That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
94   He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point
95   That touches this my first-born son and heir!
96   I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
97   With all his threatening band of Typhon's brood,
98   Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
99   Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
100  What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
101  Ye white-limed walls! ye alehouse painted signs!
102  Coal-black is better than another hue,
103  In that it scorns to bear another hue;
104  For all the water in the ocean
105  Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
106  Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
107  Tell the empress from me, I am of age
108  To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

109  Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?

110  My mistress is my mistress; this myself,
111  The vigour and the picture of my youth:
112  This before all the world do I prefer;
113  This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
114  Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.

115  By this our mother is forever shamed.

116  Rome will despise her for this foul escape.

117  The emperor, in his rage, will doom her death.

118  I blush to think upon this ignomy.

119  Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:
120  Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
121  The close enacts and counsels of the heart!
122  Here's a young lad framed of another leer:
123  Look, how the black slave smiles upon the father,
124  As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'
125  He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
126  Of that self-blood that first gave life to you,
127  And from that womb where you imprison'd were
128  He is enfranchised and come to light:
129  Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
130  Although my seal be stamped in his face.

131  Aaron, what shall I say unto the empress?

132  Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
133  And we will all subscribe to thy advice:
134  Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.

135  Then sit we down, and let us all consult.
136  My son and I will have the wind of you:
137  Keep there: now talk at pleasure of your safety.

138  How many women saw this child of his?

139  Why, so, brave lords! when we join in league,
140  I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,
141  The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
142  The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
143  But say, again; how many saw the child?

144  Cornelia the midwife and myself;
145  And no one else but the deliver'd empress.

146  The empress, the midwife, and yourself:
147  Two may keep counsel when the third's away:
148  Go to the empress, tell her this I said.
He kills the nurse
149  Weke, weke! so cries a pig prepared to the spit.

150  What mean'st thou, Aaron? wherefore didst thou this?

151  O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy:
152  Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours,
153  A long-tongued babbling gossip? no, lords, no:
154  And now be it known to you my full intent.
155  Not far, one Muli lives, my countryman;
156  His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
157  His child is like to her, fair as you are:
158  Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
159  And tell them both the circumstance of all;
160  And how by this their child shall be advanced,
161  And be received for the emperor's heir,
162  And substituted in the place of mine,
163  To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
164  And let the emperor dandle him for his own.
165  Hark ye, lords; ye see I have given her physic,
Pointing to the nurse
166  And you must needs bestow her funeral;
167  The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms:
168  This done, see that you take no longer days,
169  But send the midwife presently to me.
170  The midwife and the nurse well made away,
171  Then let the ladies tattle what they please.

172  Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
173  With secrets.

174  For this care of Tamora,
175  Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

176  Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies;
177  There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,
178  And secretly to greet the empress' friends.
179  Come on, you thick lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;
180  For it is you that puts us to our shifts:
181  I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,
182  And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,
183  And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
184  To be a warrior, and command a camp.