AARON

Now climeth Tamora Olympus oppe, Safe out of Fortune's shot, and fits aloft, Secure of thunders crack or lightning flash, Advanced above pale envies threatening reach, As when the golden sun salutes the morn, And having gilded the Ocean with his beams, Gallops the Zodiac in his glistering Coach, And overlooks the highest piering hills. So Tamora. Upon her wit does earthly honour wait, And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown, Then Aron arm thy heart, and fit thy thoughts, To mount aloft with thy Imperial Mistress, And mount her pitch, whom thou in triumph long Hast prisoner held, fettered in amorous chains, And faster bound to Arons charming eyes, Than is Prometheus tide to Caucasus. Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts, I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold, To wait upon this new made Empress. To wait said I? to wanton with h this Queen, This Goddess, this Semerimis, this Nymph, This Syren that will charm Rome's Saturnine, And see his shipwreck, and his Commonweals. Hollo, what storm is this? To achieve her how? For shame be friends, and join for that you jar, 'Tis policy and stratagem must do That you affect, and so must you resolve, That what you cannot as you would achieve, You must perforce accomplish as you may: Take this of me, Lucrece was not more chased Than this Lavinia, Bascianus love. A speedier course this lingering languishment Must we pursue, and I have found the path: My Lords a solemn hunting is in hand, There will the lovely Roman Ladies troop: The forest walks are wide and spacious, And many unfrequented plots there are, Fitted by kind for rape and villainy: Single you Thy her then this dainty Do, And strike her home by force, if not by words, This way or not at all, stand you in hope. Come, come, our Empress with her sacred wit To villainy and vengeance consecrate, Will we acquaint withal what we intend, And she shall file our engines with advise, That will not suffer you to square your selves, But to your wishes hight advance you both. The Emperors Court is Like the house of fame, The Palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears: The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull: There speak, and strike brave boys, and take your turns, There serve your lust sh dowed from heavens eye, And revel in Lavinia's treasury Now will I fetch the King to find them here, That he thereby may have a likely guess, Exit. How these were they, that made away his brother. My gracious Lord here is the bag of gold. I go Andronicus, and for thy hand, Look by and by to have thy sons with thee. Their heads I mean: O how this villainy, Does fat me with the very thoughts of it. Let ooles do good, and fair men call for grace, Aron will have his soul black Like his face. Exit. I some mad message from his mad Grandfather. Had he not reason Lord Demetrius, Did you not use his daughter very friendly? Here lacks but your mother for to say Amen. Pray to the devils, the Gods have given us over. Well, more or less, or never a whit at all, Here Aron is, and what with Aron now. Why what a Can terwalling dost thou keep, what dost to ou wrap and fumble in thy arms? To whom. Well God give her good rest, what hath he sent her? Villain I have done thy mother. It shall not die. What must it Nurse? then let no man but I. Do execution on my flesh and blood. Sooner this sword shall blow thy bow S up, Stay murderous villains will you kill your brother? Now by the burning tapors of the sky, That shone so brightly when this boy was God, He die upon my Scimitars 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 Alciades, nor the God oh war, Shall cease this pray out of his father's hands: What, what, ye sanguine shallow hearted boys, Ye white limde walls, ye alehouse painted signs, Coalblack is better than another hue, In that it scorns to bear another hue: For all the water in the Ocean, Can never turn the swans black legs to white, Although she laue them howrely 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 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 Room. Why ther's the Privilege your beauty bears: Fie treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing The close enacts and counsels of thy heart: Hers a young Lad framed of another leere, 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 infraunchised, and come to light: Nay he is your brother by the surer side, Although my seal be stamped in his face. Then fit 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. why so brave Lords, when we join in league I am a Lamb, but if you brave the More, The chafed Boar, the mountain Lioness, The Ocean swells not so as Aron storms: But say again, how many saw the child The Empress, the Midwife, and your self, Two may keep counsel when the third's away: Go to the Empress, tell her this I said. He kills her. Week, week, so cries a Pig prepared to the spit. Oh Lord sir, 'tis a deed of policy, Shall she live to betray this gilded of ours? A long tongude babbling Gossip, No Lords, no: And now be it known to you my full intent. Not far, one Muliteus 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 a duaunst, And be received for the Emperors Heir, And substituted in the place of mine, To calm this tempest whirling in the Court, And let the Lmperour dandle him for his own. Hark ye Lords, you see I have given her Physic, 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. 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 thicke-lipt-slaue, 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 whay, and suck the Goat, And cabin in a Cave, and bring you up, To be a warrior and command a Camp. Exit. Touch not the boy, he is of Royal blood. Get me a ladder, Lucius save the child; And bear it from me to the Empress: If thou do this, isle show thee wondrous things, That highly may advantage thee to hear, If thou wilt not, befall what may befall, I'll speak no more, but vengeance rot you all. And if it please thee? why assure thee Lucius, 'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak: For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres, Acts of black night, abominable deeds, Complots of mischief, treason, villainies, Ruthful to hear, yet piteously performed, And this shall all be buried in my death, Unless thou swear to me my child shall live. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin. What if I do not, as indeed I do not, Yet for I know thou art religious, And hast a thing within thee called conscience, With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies, Which I have seen thee careful to observe, Therefore I urge thy oath, for that I know, And idiot holds his bauble for a God, And keeps the oath which by that God he swears, To that isle urge him, therefore thou shalt vow, By that same God, what God so ere it be That thou adorest, and hast in reverence, To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up, Or else I will discover nought to thee. First know thou, I begotten him on the Empress. ut Lucius, this was but a deed of charity, To that which thou shalt hear of me anon, It her two sons that murdered Bassianus, They cut thy Sisters tongue, and ravished her, And cut her hands, and trimmed her as thou sawest. Why she was washed, and cut, and trimmed, And it trim sport for them which had the doing of it. Indeed I was their tutor to instruct them, That codding spirit had they from their mother, As sure a carded as ever won the set: That bloody mind I think they learned of me, As true a Dog as ever fought at head: Well let my deeds be witness of my worth, I trained thy brothers to that guileful hold, where the dead corpses of Bassianus lay: I wrote the letter that thy Father found, And hid the gold within that letter mentioned, Confederate with the Queen and her two sons. And what not done, that thou hast cause to we, wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it, I played the cheater for thy father's hand, And when I had it drew my self a partly, And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter, I pried me through the crevice of a wall, when for his hand he had his two sons heads, Beheld his tears and laughed so heartily, That both mine eyes were rainy Like to his: And when I told the Empress of this sport, She sounded almost at my pleasing tale, And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses. I Like a black Dog, as the saying is I that I had not done a thousand more, Even now I curse the day and yet I think Few come within the compass of my curse, wherein I did not some notorious ill. As kill a man, or else devise his death, Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it, Accuse some innocent, and forswear my self, Set deadly enmity between two friends, Make poor men's cattle break their necks, Set fire on barns and haystalks in the night, And bid the owners quench them with their tears: Oft have I dug up dead men from their graves, And set them upright at their deer friends door, Even when their sorrows almost was forgotten, And on their skins as on the bark of trees, Have with my knife carved in Roman letters, Let not your sorrow die though I am dead. But I have done a thousand dreadful things, As willingly as one would kill a fly, And nothing grieves me heartily indeed, But that I cannot do ten thousand more. If there be Devils would I were a Devil, To live and burn in everlasting fire, So I might have your company in hell, But to torment you with my bitter tongue. Ah why should wrath be mute and fury dumb, I am no baby I, that with base prayers I should repent the evils I have done, Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform if I might have my will, If one good deed in all my life I did I do repent it from my very soul. Clubs, Clubs, these lovers will not keep the peace. Why how now Lords? So near the Emperors Palace dare ye draw, And maintain such a quarrel openly? Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge, I would not for a million of gold, The cause were known to them it most concerns, Nor would your Noble Mother for much more, Be so dishonoured in the Court of Room. For shame put up. Away I say. Now by the Gods that warlike Goths adore, This petty brabble will undo us all: Why Lords, and think you not how dangerous It is to et upon a Princes right? What is Lavinia then become so lose, Or Bascianus so degenerate, That for her love such quarrels may be brought, Without controlment, justice, or revenge. Young Lords beware, and should the Empress know, This discords ground, the music would not please. Why are you mad? or know ye not in Room, How furious and impatient they be, And cannot brook competitors in love? I tell you Lords, you do but plot your death's, By this devise. I and as good as Saturninus may. Why then it seems some certain snatch, or so Would serve your turns. Would you had hit it too, Then should not we be irde with this ado. Why hark you, hark you, and are you such fools To square for this: would it offend you then That both should speed. He that had wit, would think that I had none, To bury so much gold under a tree, And never after to inherit it. Let him that thinks of me so abjectly, Know that this gold must coin a stratagem, Which cunning lie effected will beget, A very excellent piece of villainy: And so repose sweet gold for their unrest, That have their alms out of the Empress Chest. Madam, though Venus govern your desires, Saturn is dominator over mine: What signifies my deadly standing eye, My silence, ann my cloudy melancholy, My fleece of wolly hair that now uncurls, Even as and Adder when she does unroll, To do some fatal execution. No Madam, these are no venerial signs, Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. Hark Tamora the Empress of my soul, Which never Hope's more heaven than rests in thee, This is the day of doom for Bassianus, His Philomel must lose her tongue to day, Thy sons make pillage of her chasttitie, And wash their hands in Bascianus blood. Seest thou this letter? take it up I pray thee, And give the king this fatal plotted scroll. Now question me no more we are espied, Here comes a parcel of our hopeful lbootie, Which dreads not yet their lives destruction. No more great Empress, Bascianus comes, Be cross with him, and I'll go fetch thy sons To back thy quarrels what so ere they be. Titus Andronicus, My Lord the Emperor, Sends thee this word, that if thou love thy sons, Let Marcus, Lucius, or thy self old Titus, Or any one of you, chop off your hand And send it to the King, he for the same, will send thee hither both thy sons alive, And that shall be the ransom for their fault. If that be called deceit, I will be honest, And never while I live deceive men so: But I'll deceive you in another sort, And that yowl say ere half and hour pass. I joust, a verse in Horace, right you have it, Now what a thing it is to be and Ass. Hers no found east, the old man hath found their gilded, And sends them weapons wrapped about with lines, That wound beyond their feeling to the quick But were our witty Empress well a foot, She would applaud Andronicus conceit, But let her rest in her unrest a while. And now young Lords, wast not a happy star, Led us to Room 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. Some devil whisper curses in my ear, And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth, The venomous malice of my swelling heart. and thou look down into this den, And see a fearful ight of blood and death. Nay come agree whose hand shall go along, For fear they die before their pardon come. Why then she is the devils Dam, a joyful issue. Zounds you whore, is black so base a hue? Sweet blowse you are a beauteous blossom sure. That which thou canst not undo.