The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

she turns the leaves! Help her.

What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?

This is the tragic tale of Philomel

And treats of Tereus’ treason and his rape; And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.

MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.

TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris’d, sweet girl, Ravish’d and wrong’d as Philomela was, Forc’d in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?

See, see!

Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-O, had we never, never hunted there!-

Pattern’d by that the poet here describes, By nature made for murders and for rapes.

MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den, Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends, What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.

Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst, That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’ bed?

MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,

Inspire me, that I may this treason find!

My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!

[He writes his name with his staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]

This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst, This after me. I have writ my name

Without the help of any hand at all.

Curs’d be that heart that forc’d us to this shift!

Write thou, good niece, and here display at last What God will have discovered for revenge.

Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain, That we may know the traitors and the truth!

[She takes the staff in her mouth and guides it with stumps, and writes]

O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?

TITUS. ‘Stuprum-Chiron- Demetrius.’

MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora Performers of this heinous bloody deed?

TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,

Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?

MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know There is enough written upon this earth To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts, And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.

My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel; And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector’s hope; And swear with me-as, with the woeful fere And father of that chaste dishonoured dame, Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece’ rape-That we will prosecute, by good advice, Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths, And see their blood or die with this reproach.

TITUS. ‘Tis sure enough, an you knew how; But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware: The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once, She’s with the lion deeply still in league, And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back, And when he sleeps will she do what she list.

You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone; And come, I will go get a leaf of brass, And with a gad of steel will write these words, And lay it by. The angry northern wind Will blow these sands like Sibyl’s leaves abroad, And where’s our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?

BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man Their mother’s bedchamber should not be safe For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.

MARCUS. Ay, that’s my boy! Thy father hath full oft For his ungrateful country done the like.

BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.

TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.

Lucius, I’ll fit thee; and withal my boy Shall carry from me to the Empress’ sons Presents that I intend to send them both.

Come, come; thou’lt do my message, wilt thou not?

BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.

TITUS. No, boy, not so; I’ll teach thee another course.

Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.

Lucius and I’ll go brave it at the court; Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we’ll be waited on.

Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS

MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan And not relent, or not compassion him?

Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,

That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart Than foemen’s marks upon his batt’red shield, But yet so just that he will not revenge.

Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus! Exit

SCENE II.

Rome. The palace

 

Enter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door, YOUNG LUCIUS and another 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.

BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may, I greet your honours from Andronicus-

[Aside] And pray the Roman gods confound you both!

DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What’s the news?

BOY. [Aside] That you are both decipher’d, that’s the news, For villains mark’d with rape.- May it please you, My grandsire, well advis’d, hath 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- [Aside] like bloody villains.

Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant DEMETRIUS. What’s here? A scroll, and written round about.

Let’s see:

[Reads] ‘Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, Non eget Mauri iaculis, 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.

[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 wrapp’d 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 awhileAnd 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. [Aside] Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.

[Trumpets sound]

DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?

CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.

DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?

 

Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD

 

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, 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 thy arms?

NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye: Our Empress’ shame and stately Rome’s disgrace!

She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.

AARON. To whom?

NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.

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 Amongst the fair-fac’d 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.

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 her.

Woe to her chance, and damn’d her loathed choice!

Accurs’d 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 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 threat’ning 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-lim’d 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.

DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy 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 sham’d.

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 thy heart!

Here’s a young lad fram’d 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 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 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.

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, 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 Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.

Two may keep counsel when the third’s away: Go to the Empress, tell her this I said. [He kills her]

Weeke weeke!

So cries a pig prepared to the spit.

DEMETRIUS. What mean’st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?

AARON. O Lord, sir, ‘tis a deed