TPTT The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus: ACT IV
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
SCENE I. Rome. Titus's garden.
SCENE II. The same. A room in the palace.
SCENE III. The same. A public place.
SCENE IV. The same. Before the palace.
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE II. The same. A room in the palace.
Enter, from one side, AARON, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON; from the other side, Young LUCIUS, and an Attendant, 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.
Young LUCIUS
      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?
Young LUCIUS
      (Aside) That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,
      For villains mark'd with rape.--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 bade 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:
      And so I leave you both:

Aside

      like bloody villains.
Exeunt Young LUCIUS, and Attendant
DEMETRIUS
      What's here? A scroll; and written round about?
20    Let's see;

Reads

      'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
      Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.'
CHIRON
      O, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
      I read it in the grammar long ago.
AARON
25    Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.

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.
30    But were our witty empress well afoot,
      She would applaud Andronicus' conceit:
      But let her rest in her unrest awhile.
      And now, young lords, was't not a happy star
      Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
35    Captives, to be advanced to this height?
      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
40    Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?
      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
45    Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.
CHIRON
      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
      (Aside) Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
Trumpets sound within
DEMETRIUS
50    Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?
CHIRON
      Belike, for joy the emperor hath a son.
DEMETRIUS
      Soft! who comes here?
Enter a Nurse, with a blackamoor Child in her arms
Nurse
      Good morrow, lords:
      O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?
AARON
55    Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,
      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!
60    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thine arms?
Nurse
      O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye,
      Our empress' shame, and stately Rome's disgrace!
      She is deliver'd, lords; she is deliver'd.
AARON
      To whom?
Nurse
65    I mean, she is brought a-bed.
AARON
      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:
70    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad
      Amongst the fairest 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?
75    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.
DEMETRIUS
      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
80    And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.
      Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!
      Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!
CHIRON
      It shall not live.
AARON
      It shall not die.
Nurse
85    Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.
AARON
      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
90    Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.

Takes the Child from the Nurse, and draws

      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
95    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 Alcides, nor the god of war,
      Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
100   What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
      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
105   Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
      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
110   My mistress is my mistress; this myself,
      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
115   By this our mother is forever shamed.
CHIRON
      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:
120   Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
      The close enacts and counsels of the 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.'
125   He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
      Of that self-blood that first gave life to you,
      And from that womb where you imprison'd were
      He is enfranchised and come to light:
      Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
130   Although my seal be stamped in his face.
Nurse
      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
135   Then sit 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.
They sit
DEMETRIUS
      How many women saw this child of his?
AARON
      Why, so, brave lords! when we join in league,
140   I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,
      The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
      The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
      But say, again; how many saw the child?
Nurse
      Cornelia the midwife and myself;
145   And no one else but the deliver'd empress.
AARON
      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 the nurse

      Weke, weke! so cries a pig prepared to the spit.
DEMETRIUS
150   What mean'st thou, Aaron? wherefore didst thou this?
AARON
      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.
155   Not far, one Muli lives, 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;
160   And how by this their child shall be advanced,
      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.
165   Hark ye, lords; ye see I have given her physic,

Pointing to the nurse

      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.
170   The midwife and the nurse well made away,
      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,
175   Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.
Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON bearing off the Nurse's body
AARON
      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 thick lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;
180   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 whey, and suck the goat,
      And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
      To be a warrior, and command a camp.
Exit
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