Or else I will discover nought to thee.
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LUCIUS Even by my god I swear to thee I will.
AARON First know thou I begot him on the empress.
LUCIUS O most insatiate and luxurious woman!
AARON Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
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’Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;
They cut thy sister’s tongue and ravished her
And cut her hands and trimmed her as thou sawest.
LUCIUS
O detestable villain, call’st thou that trimming?
AARON
Why, she was washed and cut and trimmed, and ’twas
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Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.
LUCIUS O barbarous, beastly villains, like thyself!
AARON Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.
That codding spirit had they from their mother,
As sure a card as ever won the set.
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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 brethren to that guileful hole
Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;
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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 rue
Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?
110
I played the cheater for thy father’s hand,
And when I had it, drew myself apart
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,
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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.
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1GOTH What, canst thou say all this and never blush?
AARON Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
LUCIUS Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
AARON Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day – and yet I think
125
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 myself,
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Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks,
Set fire on barns and haystacks in the night
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves
135
And set them upright at their dear friends’ door,
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
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’.
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Tut, 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.
LUCIUS Bring down the devil, for he must not die
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So sweet a death as hanging presently.
[Aaron is made to climb down.]
AARON 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.
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LUCIUS
Sirs, stop his mouth and let him speak no more.
[Aaron is gagged.]
Enter EMILLIUS.
A GOTH My lord, there is a messenger from Rome
Desires to be admitted to your presence.
LUCIUS Let him come near.
Welcome, Emillius: what’s the news from Rome?
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EMILLIUS Lord Lucius and you princes of the Goths,
The Roman emperor greets you all by me,
And for he understands you are in arms,
He craves a parley at your father’s house,
Willing you to demand your hostages
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And they shall be immediately delivered.
1GOTH What says our general?
LUCIUS Emillius, let the emperor give his pledges
Unto my father and my uncle Marcus,
And we will come. Flourish. They march away.
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5.2 Enter TAMORA and her two Sons, disguised.
TAMORA Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
I will encounter with Andronicus
And say I am Revenge, sent from below
To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
Knock at his study, where they say he keeps
5
To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
Tell him Revenge is come to join with him
And work confusion on his enemies.
They knock, and TITUS aloft with papers, opens his study door.
TITUS [aloft] Who doth molest my contemplation?
Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
10
That so my sad decrees may fly away
And all my study be to no effect?
You are deceived, for what I mean to do
See here in bloody lines I have set down,
And what is written shall be executed.
15
TAMORA Titus, I am come to talk with thee.
TITUS [aloft] No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,
Wanting a hand to give it action?
Thou hast the odds of me, therefore no more.
TAMORA
If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.
20
TITUS [aloft] I am not mad, I know thee well enough:
Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines,
Witness these trenches made by grief and care,
Witness the tiring day and heavy night,
Witness all sorrow, that I know thee well
25
For our proud empress, mighty Tamora.
Is not thy coming for my other hand?
TAMORA Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora:
She is thy enemy and I thy friend.
I am Revenge, sent from th’infernal kingdom
30
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
Come down and welcome me to this world’s light,
Confer with me of murder and of death.
There’s not a hollow cave or lurking place,
35
No vast obscurity or misty vale
Where bloody murder or detested rape
Can couch for fear, but I will find them out,
And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
40
TITUS [aloft]
Art thou Revenge? And art thou sent to me
To be a torment to mine enemies?
TAMORA I am, therefore come down and welcome me.
TITUS [aloft] Do me some service ere I come to thee.
Lo by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
45
Now give some surance that thou art Revenge:
Stab them or tear them on thy chariot wheels,<
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And then I’ll come and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globe,
Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
50
To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away
And find out murderers in their guilty caves;
And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will dismount and by thy waggon wheel
Trot like a servile footman all day long,
55
Even from Hyperion’s rising in the east
Until his very downfall in the sea.
And day by day I’ll do this heavy task,
So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.
TAMORA These are my ministers, and come with me.
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TITUS [aloft]
Are these thy ministers? What are they called?
TAMORA Rape and Murder, therefore called so
’Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.
TITUS [aloft]
Good Lord, how like the empress’ sons they are,
And you the empress! But we worldly men
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Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee,
And if one arm’s embracement will content thee,
I will embrace thee in it by and by. Exit aloft.
TAMORA This closing with him fits his lunacy.
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Whate’er I forge to feed his brainsick humours
Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
For now he firmly takes me for Revenge,
And, being credulous in this mad thought,
I’ll make him send for Lucius his son,
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And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
I’ll find some cunning practice out of hand
To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,
Or at the least make them his enemies.
See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.
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Enter TITUS, below.
TITUS Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.
Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house;
Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
How like the empress and her sons you are!
Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor;
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Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
For well I wot the empress never wags
But in her company there is a Moor,
And would you represent our queen aright
It were convenient you had such a devil.
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But welcome as you are. What shall we do?
TAMORA What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?
DEMETRIUS Show me a murderer, I’ll deal with him.
CHIRON Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
And I am sent to be revenged on him.
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TAMORA
Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,
And I will be revenged on them all.
TITUS [to Demetrius]
Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,
And when thou find’st a man that’s like thyself,
Good Murder, stab him: he’s a murderer.
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[to Chiron] Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap
To find another that is like to thee,
Good Rapine, stab him: he is a ravisher.
[to Tamora] Go thou with them, and in the emperor’s court,
There is a queen attended by a Moor –
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Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,
For up and down she doth resemble thee –
I pray thee, do on them some violent death:
They have been violent to me and mine.
TAMORA Well hast thou lessoned us; this shall we do.
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But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
And bid him come and banquet at thy house?
When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
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I will bring in the empress and her sons,
The emperor himself and all thy foes,
And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,
And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
What says Andronicus to this device?
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TITUS Marcus, my brother! ’Tis sad Titus calls.
Enter MARCUS.
Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
Thou shalt enquire him out among the Goths.
Bid him repair to me and bring with him
Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths.
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Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.
Tell him the emperor and the empress too
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 503