The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works > Page 501
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 501

by William Shakespeare


  AARON Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.

  [Draws his sword and takes the child.]

  Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother?

  90

  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

  95

  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!

  100

  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.

  105

  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 myself,

  The vigour and the picture of my youth.

  110

  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.

  115

  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.

  120

  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,

  125

  And from that 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?

  130

  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.

  135

  Keep there. [They sit.]

  Now talk at pleasure of your safety.

  DEMETRIUS [to the Nurse]

  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,

  140

  The ocean, swells not so as Aaron storms.

  [to the Nurse] 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.

  145

  Two may keep counsel when the third’s away.

  Go to the empress, tell her this I said: [He kills her.]

  ‘Wheak, wheak!’ – so cries a pig prepared to the spit. [All stand up.]

  DEMETRIUS

  What mean’st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou

  this?

  AARON O Lord, sir, ’tis a deed of policy:

  150

  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 Muly lives, my countryman:

  His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;

  155

  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,

  160

  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, you see I have given her physic,

  And you must needs bestow her funeral;

  165

  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.

  170

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

  DEMETRIUS For this care of Tamora,

  Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

  Exeunt Chiron and Demetrius, with the Nurse’s body.

  AARON Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,

  There to dispose this treasure in mine arms

  175

  And secretly to greet the empress’ friends.

  Come on, you thick-lipped 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 fat on curds and whey, and suck the goat,

  180

  And cabin in a cave, and bring you up

  To be a warrior and command a camp. Exit.

  4.3 Enter TITUS, OLD MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen, Marcus’ son PUBLIUS; kinsmen of the Andronici, CAIUS and SEMPRONIUS with bows; and Titus bears the arrows with letters on the ends of them.

  TITUS Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.

  Sir Boy, let me see your archery.

  Look ye draw home enough, and ’tis there straight.

  Terras Astraea reliquit: be you remembered, Marcus,

  She’s gone, she’s fled. Sirs, take you to your tools.

  5

  You, cousins, shall go sound the ocean

  And cast your nets:

  Happily you may catch her in the sea;

  Yet there’s as little justice as at land.

  No, Publius and Sempronius, you must do it,

  10

  ’Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,

  And pierce the inmost centre of the earth.

  Then, when you come to Pluto’s region,

  I pray you deliver him this petition.

  Tell him it is for justice and for aid,

  15

  And that it comes from old Andronicus,

  Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.

  Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable

  What time I threw the people’s suffrages

  On him that thus doth tyrannize o’er me.

  20

  Go, get you gone, and pray be careful all,

  And leave you not a man-of-war unsearched:

  This wicked emperor may have shipped her hence,

  And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.

  MARCUS O Publius, is not this a heavy case,

  25

  To see thy noble uncle thus distract?

  PUBLIUS Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns

  By day and night t’attend him carefully

  And feed his humour kindly as we may,

  Till time beget some careful remedy.

  30

  MARCUS Kinsmen, his sorrows are past rem
edy,

  But let us live in hope that Lucius will

  Join with the Goths and with revengeful war

  Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,

  And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.

  35

  TITUS Publius, how now? How now, my masters?

  What, have you met with her?

  PUBLIUS No, my good lord, but Pluto sends you word

  If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.

  Marry, for Justice, she is so employed,

  40

  He thinks with Jove in heaven or somewhere else,

  So that perforce you must needs stay a time.

  TITUS He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.

  I’ll dive into the burning lake below

  And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.

  45

  MARCUS, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,

  No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops’ size,

  But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,

  Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear.

  And sith there’s no justice in earth nor hell,

  50

  We will solicit heaven and move the gods

  To send down Justice for to wreak our wrongs.

  Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus:

  [He gives them the arrows.]

  ‘Ad Jovem’, that’s for you; here, ‘ad Apollinem’;

  ‘Ad Martem’, that’s for myself;

  55

  Here, boy, ‘to Pallas’; here, ‘to Mercury’;

  ‘To Saturn’, Caius – not to Saturnine:

  You were as good to shoot against the wind.

  To it, boy; Marcus, loose when I bid.

  Of my word, I have written to effect:

  60

  There’s not a god left unsolicited.

  MARCUS Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;

  We will afflict the emperor in his pride.

  TITUS Now, masters, draw. [They shoot.]

  O, well said, Lucius,

  Good boy: in Virgo’s lap! Give it Pallas.

  65

  MARCUS My lord, I aimed a mile beyond the moon:

  Your letter is with Jupiter by this.

  TITUS Ha, ha! Publius, Publius, what hast thou done?

  See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus’ horns.

  MARCUS

  This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,

  70

  The Bull, being galled, gave Aries such a knock

  That down fell both the Ram’s horns in the court,

  And who should find them but the empress’ villain!

  She laughed and told the Moor he should not choose

  But give them to his master for a present.

  75

  TITUS

  Why, there it goes; God give his lordship joy.

  Enter the Clown with a basket and two pigeons in it.

  News, news, from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.

  Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?

  Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?

  CLOWN Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath

  80

  taken them down again, for the man must not be

  hanged till the next week.

  TITUS But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?

  CLOWN

  Alas, sir, I know not Jubiter, I never drank with him in all my life.

  85

  TITUS Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?

  CLOWN Ay, of my pigeons, sir – nothing else.

  TITUS Why, didst thou not come from heaven?

  CLOWN From heaven? Alas, sir, I never came there. God

  forbid I should be so bold to press to heaven in my

  90

  young days. Why, I am going with my pigeons to the

  tribunal plebs to take up a matter of brawl betwixt my

  uncle and one of the emperal’s men.

  MARCUS [to Titus] Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to

  serve for your oration, and let him deliver the pigeons

  95

  to the emperor from you.

  TITUS Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the

  emperor with a grace?

  CLOWN Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all

  my life.

  100

  TITUS Sirrah, come hither; make no more ado,

  But give your pigeons to the emperor.

  By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.

  Hold, hold – meanwhile here’s money for thy charges.

  Give me pen and ink. [Writes.]

  105

  Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a supplication?

  CLOWN Ay, sir.

  TITUS [Gives letter.] Then here is a supplication for

  you, and when you come to him, at the first approach

  you must kneel, then kiss his foot, then deliver up your

  110

  pigeons, and then look for your reward. I’ll be at hand,

  sir; see you do it bravely.

 

‹ Prev