CHIRON
Demetrius, here’s the son of Lucius;
He 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;
And pray the Roman gods confound you both.
DEMETRIUS
, lovely Lucius. What’s the news?
YOUNG LUCIUS
That you are both deciphered, that’s the news,
For villains marked with rape. May it please you,
My grandsire, well advised, sent by me
The goodliest weapons of his armoury
To gratify your honourable youth,
The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;
And so I do, and with his gifts present
Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,
You may be armed and appointed well.
And so I leave you both, like bloody villains.
DEMETRIUS
What’s here? A scroll; and written round about?
Let’s see:
Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.
CHIRON
O, 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.
Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
Here’s no sound jest! The old man 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,
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?
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?
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.
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
Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
DEMETRIUS
Why do the emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?
CHIRON
for joy the emperor a son.
DEMETRIUS
Soft, who comes here?
NURSE
Good morrow, lords.
O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?
AARON
Well, more or less, or a whit at all,
Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?
NURSE
O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
Now help, or woe betide evermore!
AARON
Why, what a caterwauling keep!
What wrap and fumble in arms?
NURSE
O, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye,
Our empress’ shame and stately Rome’s disgrace.
She is delivered, lords, she is delivered.
AARON
To whom?
NURSE
I mean, she’s brought a-bed.
AARON
Well, God give her good rest! What 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
Amongst the fair-faced breeders of our clime.
The empress sends it , stamp, seal,
And bids christen it with dagger’s point.
AARON
Zounds, whore, is black so base a hue?
Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.
DEMETRIUS
Villain, what done?
AARON
That which canst not undo.
CHIRON
undone our mother.
AARON
Villain, I have done mother.
DEMETRIUS
And therein, hellish dog, undone her.
Woe to her chance, and damned 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.
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 bowels up.
AARON
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, sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
white-limed walls, 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.
DEMETRIUS
Wilt betray noble mistress thus?
AARON
My mistress is my mistress; this my self;
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 for ever shamed.
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
The close enacts and counsels of 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 own.”
He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
Of that self blood that first gave life to you;
And from your womb where you imprisoned 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.
NURSE
Aaron, what shall I say unto the empress?
DEMETRIUS
Advise , Aaron, what is to be done,
And we will all subscribe to advice.
Save the child, so we may all be safe.
AARON
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.
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,
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 delivered empress.
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.
AARON
“Wheak, wheak!” So cries a pig prepared to the spit.
DEMETRIUS
What mean’st , Aaron? this?
AARON
O Lord, sir, 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 Muliteus 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 , lords; see I have given her physic,
AARON
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 to me.
The midwife and the nurse well made away,
Then let the ladies tattle what they please.
CHIRON
Aaron, I see wilt not trust the air
With secrets.
DEMETRIUS
For this care of Tamora,
Herself and hers are highly bound to .
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-lipped slave, I’ll bear you ;
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.