And see their blood, or die with this reproach.

  [They rise.]

  TITUS

  95 ’Tis sure enough, and 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,

  100 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

  105 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

  110 Ay, that’s my boy! Thy father hath full oft

  For his ungrateful country done the like.

  BOY

  And, uncle, so will I, and if I live.

  TITUS

  Come, go with me into mine armoury:

  Lucius, I’ll fit thee, and withal my boy

  115 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.

  120 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 [all but Marcus.]

  MARCUS

  O heavens, can you hear a good man groan

  And not relent or not compassion him?

  125 Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy

  That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart

  Than foemen’s marks upon his battered shield,

  But yet so just that he will not revenge.

  Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus! Exit.

  4.2 Enter AARON, CHIRON and DEMETRIUS 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,

  5 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 deciphered, that’s the news,

  For villains marked with rape. [to them]

  May it please you,

  10 My grandsire, well advised, 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

  15 Your lordships that, whenever you have need,

  You may be armed and appointed well.

  [Attendant presents the weapons.]

  And so I leave you both [aside] like bloody villains.

  Exit [with Attendant].

  DEMETRIUS

  What’s here? A scroll, and written round about?

  Let’s see:

  20 [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.

  25 [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 wrapped about with lines

  That wound beyond their feeling to the quick.

  But were our witty empress well afoot

  30 She would applaud Andronicus’ conceit.

  But let her rest in her unrest awhile.

  [to them]

  And 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?

  35 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?

  40 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

  45 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

  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.

  Trumpets sound.

  DEMETRIUS

  Why do the emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?

  CHIRON

  50 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:

  55 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

  60 O, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye,

  Our empress’ shame and stately Rome’s disgrace:

  She is delivered, lords, she is delivered.

  AARON

  To whom?

  NURSE

  I mean she is brought abed.

  AARON

  65 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

  70 Amongst the fair-faced 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?

  [to the baby]

  Sweet blowze, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.

  DEMETRIUS

  75 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.

  80 Woe to her chance and damned her loathed choice,

  Accursed 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

  85 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.

  [Draws his sword and takes the child.]

  90 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.

  95 I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus

  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,

  100 Ye white-limed 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,

  105 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 myself,

  110 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 shamed.

  CHIRON

  115 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

  120 The close enacts and counsels of thy heart.

  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

  125 Of that self blood that first gave life to you,

  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

  130 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.

  135 My son and I will have the wind of you.

  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,

  140 The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,

  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

  145 The empress, 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.

  ‘Wheak, wheak!’ – so cries a pig prepared to the spit.

  [All stand up.]

  DEMETRIUS

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

  AARON

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

  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:

  155 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 advanced

  160 And be received for the emperor’s heir,

  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,

  165 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,

  170 Then let the ladies tattle what they please.

  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,

  175 There to dispose this treasure in mine arms

  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,

  180 And fat on curds and whey, and suck the goat,

  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,

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

  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.

  10 No, Publius and Sempronius, you must do it,

  ’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.

  15 Tell him it is for justice and for aid,

  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

  20 On him that thus doth tyrannize o’er me.

  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

  25 O Publius, is not this a heavy case,

  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,

  30 Till time beget some careful remedy.

  MARCUS

  Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy,

  But [let us live in hope that Lucius will]

  Join with the Goths and with revengeful war

  Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,

  35 And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.

  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.

  40 Marry, for Justice, she is so employed,

  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

  45 And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.

  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.

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

  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’;

  55 ‘Ad Martem’, that’s for myself;

  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.

  60 Of my word, I have written to effect:

  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,

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

  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

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

  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

  75 But give them to his master for a present.