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Titus Andronicus: Act IV, Scene 2

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Titus Andronicus
Act IV, Scene 2

Rome. A room in the palace.

Byam Shaw, 1901

  1. Enter Aaron, Chiron, and Demetrius at one door; and at the
  2. other door Young Lucius and another with a bundle of
  3. weapons, and verses writ upon them.

Chiron

1 - 2
  1. Demetrius, here’s the son of Lucius,
  2. He hath some message to deliver us.

Aaron

3
  1. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.

Young Lucius

4 - 6
  1. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
  2. I greet your honors from Andronicus—
  3. Aside.
  4. And pray the Roman gods confound you both!

Demetrius

7
  1. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What’s the news?

Young Lucius

8 - 18
  1. Aside.
  2. That you are both decipher’d, that’s the news,
  3. For villains mark’d with rape.—May it please you,
  4. My grandsire, well advis’d, hath sent by me
  5. The goodliest weapons of his armory
  6. To gratify your honorable youth,
  7. The hope of Rome, for so he bid me say;
  8. And so I do, and with his gifts present
  9. Your lordships, that, when ever you have need,
  10. You may be armed and appointed well:
  11. And so I leave you both—
  12. Aside.
  13.                          like bloody villains.
  1. Exit with Attendant.

Demetrius

19 - 22
  1. What’s here? A scroll, and written round about.
  2. Let’s see:
  3. Reads.
  4. “Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
  5. Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.”

Chiron

23 - 24
  1. O, ’tis a verse in Horace, I know it well,
  2. I read it in the grammar long ago.

Aaron

25 - 37
  1. Ay, just—a verse in Horace, right, you have it.
  2. Aside.
  3. Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
  4. Here’s no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,
  5. And sends them weapons wrapp’d about with lines
  6. That wound beyond their feeling to the quick.
  7. But were our witty Empress well afoot,
  8. She would applaud Andronicus’ conceit,
  9. But let her rest in her unrest a while.—
  10. And now, young lords, was’t not a happy star
  11. Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
  12. Captives, to be advanced to this height?
  13. It did me good, before the palace gate
  14. To brave the tribune in his brother’s hearing.

Demetrius

38 - 39
  1. But me more good to see so great a lord
  2. Basely insinuate and send us gifts.

Aaron

40 - 41
  1. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?
  2. Did you not use his daughter very friendly?

Demetrius

42 - 43
  1. I would we had a thousand Roman dames
  2. At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.

Chiron

44
  1. A charitable wish, and full of love.

Aaron

45
  1. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.

Chiron

46
  1. And that would she for twenty thousand more.

Demetrius

47 - 48
  1. Come let us go and pray to all the gods
  2. For our beloved mother in her pains.

Aaron

49
  1. Aside.
  2. Pray to the devils, the gods have given us over.
  1. Trumpets sound within.

Demetrius

50
  1. Why do the Emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?

Chiron

51
  1. Belike for joy the Emperor hath a son.

Demetrius

52
  1. Soft, who comes here?
  1. Enter Nurse with a blackamoor child.

Nurse

53 - 54
  1.                       Good morrow, lords.
  2. O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?

Aaron

55 - 56
  1. Well, more or less, or ne’er a whit at all,
  2. Here Aaron is, and what with Aaron now?

Nurse

57 - 58
  1. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
  2. Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!

Aaron

59 - 60
  1. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!
  2. What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?

Nurse

61 - 63
  1. O, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye,
  2. Our Empress’ shame, and stately Rome’s disgrace!
  3. She is delivered, lords, she is delivered.

Aaron

64
  1. To whom?

Nurse

65
  1.          I mean she is brought a-bed.

Aaron

66
  1. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?

Nurse

67
  1. A devil.
Aaron the Moor, Demetrius and a Nurse and Child

Aaron the Moor, Demetrius and a Nurse and Child

Thomas Kirk, circa 1796

Aaron

68
  1. Why, then she is the devil’s dam: a joyful issue.

Nurse

69 - 73
  1. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!
  2. Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad
  3. Amongst the fair-fac’d breeders of our clime.
  4. The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
  5. And bids thee christen it with thy dagger’s point.

Aaron

74 - 75
  1. ’Zounds, ye whore, is black so base a hue?
  2. Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.

Demetrius

76
  1. Villain, what hast thou done?

Aaron

77
  1. That which thou canst not undo.

Chiron

78
  1. Thou hast undone our mother.

Aaron

79
  1. Villain, I have done thy mother.

Demetrius

80 - 82
  1. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.
  2. Woe to her chance, and damn’d her loathed choice!
  3. Accurs’d the offspring of so foul a fiend!

Chiron

83
  1. It shall not live.

Aaron

84
  1. It shall not die.

Nurse

85
  1. Aaron, it must, the mother wills it so.

Aaron

86 - 87
  1. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I
  2. Do execution on my flesh and blood.

Demetrius

88 - 89
  1. I’ll broach the tadpole on my rapier’s point.
  2. Nurse, give it me, my sword shall soon dispatch it.

Aaron

90 - 108
  1. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
  2. Takes the child from the Nurse, and draws.
  3. Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother?
  4. Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,
  5. That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
  6. He dies upon my scimitar’s sharp point,
  7. That touches this my first-born son and heir!
  8. I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
  9. With all his threat’ning band of Typhon’s brood,
  10. Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
  11. Shall seize this prey out of his father’s hands.
  12. What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
  13. Ye white-lim’d walls! Ye alehouse painted signs!
  14. Coal-black is better than another hue,
  15. In that it scorns to bear another hue;
  16. For all the water in the ocean
  17. Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white,
  18. Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
  19. Tell the Empress from me, I am of age
  20. To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

Demetrius

109
  1. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?

Aaron

110 - 114
  1. My mistress is my mistress, this myself,
  2. The vigor and the picture of my youth:
  3. This before all the world do I prefer,
  4. This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
  5. Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.

Demetrius

115
  1. By this our mother is forever sham’d.

Chiron

116
  1. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.

Nurse

117
  1. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.

Chiron

118
  1. I blush to think upon this ignomy.

Aaron

119 - 130
  1. Why, there’s the privilege your beauty bears.
  2. Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
  3. The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!
  4. Here’s a young lad fram’d of another leer:
  5. Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,
  6. As who should say, “Old lad, I am thine own.”
  7. He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
  8. Of that self blood that first gave life to you,
  9. And from your womb where you imprisoned were
  10. He is enfranchised and come to light.
  11. Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
  12. Although my seal be stamped in his face.

Nurse

131
  1. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?

Demetrius

132 - 134
  1. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
  2. And we will all subscribe to thy advice:
  3. Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.

I’ll broach the tadpole on my rapier’s point.

Alexander Chalmers, William Pickering, Charles Corrall, 1826

Aaron

135 - 137
  1. Then sit we down and let us all consult.
  2. My son and I will have the wind of you;
  3. Keep there. Now talk at pleasure of your safety.
  1. They sit.

Demetrius

138
  1. How many women saw this child of his?

Aaron

139 - 143
  1. Why, so, brave lords, when we join in league
  2. I am a lamb, but if you brave the Moor,
  3. The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
  4. The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
  5. But say again, how many saw the child?

Nurse

144 - 145
  1. Cornelia the midwife, and myself,
  2. And no one else but the delivered Empress.

Aaron

146 - 149
  1. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.
  2. Two may keep counsel when the third’s away.
  3. Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.
  4. He kills her.
  5. Weeke, weeke!—so cries a pig prepared to the spit.

Demetrius

150
  1. What mean’st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?

Aaron

151 - 171
  1. O Lord, sir, ’tis a deed of policy.
  2. Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours,
  3. A long-tongu’d babbling gossip? No, lords, no.
  4. And now be it known to you my full intent.
  5. Not far, one Muliteus my countryman
  6. His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
  7. His child is like to her, fair as you are.
  8. Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
  9. And tell them both the circumstance of all,
  10. And how by this their child shall be advanc’d,
  11. And be received for the Emperor’s heir,
  12. And substituted in the place of mine,
  13. To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
  14. And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.
  15. Hark ye, lords, you see I have given her physic,
  16. Pointing to the Nurse.
  17. And you must needs bestow her funeral;
  18. The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.
  19. This done, see that you take no longer days,
  20. But send the midwife presently to me.
  21. The midwife and the nurse well made away,
  22. Then let the ladies tattle what they please.

Chiron

172 - 173
  1. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
  2. With secrets.

Demetrius

174 - 175
  1.               For this care of Tamora,
  2. Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.
  1. Exeunt Demetrius and Chiron, bearing off the Nurse’s body.

Aaron

176 - 184
  1. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,
  2. There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,
  3. And secretly to greet the Empress’ friends.
  4. Come on, you thick-lipp’d slave, I’ll bear you hence,
  5. For it is you that puts us to our shifts.
  6. I’ll make you feed on berries and on roots,
  7. And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,
  8. And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
  9. To be a warrior and command a camp.
  1. Exit.
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