He hath some message to deliver us.

Aar. Aye, some mad message from his mad grandfather.

Boy. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
I greet your honors from Andronicus.

[Aside] And pray the Roman gods confound
you both!

Dem. Gramercy, lovely Lucius: what's the news? Boy. [Aside] That you are both decipher'd, that's

the news,

For villains mark'd with rape.-May it please
you,

My grandsire, well advised, hath sent by me 10
The goodliest weapons of his armory

To gratify your honorable youth,

The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;
And so I do, and with his gifts present
Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,
You may be armed and appointed well:

villains.

And so I leave you both, [Aside] like bloody [Exeunt Boy and Attendant. Dem. What's here? A scroll, and written round

about!

Let's see:

[Reads] 'Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,

Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.' Chi. O, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well: I read it in the grammar long ago.

20

Aar. Aye, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.

8, 76; omitted in Ff.-I. G.

20-21. "He who is pure in life, and free from sin, needs not the darts of the Moor, nor the bow" (Horace, Odes, I. 22).—I. G.

[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 wrapp'd about with lines,

30

That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.
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,
Captives, to be advanced to this height?

It did me good, before the palace gate

To brave the tribune in his brother's hearing. Dem. But me more good, to see so great a lord Basely insinuate and send us gifts.

Aar. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?

Did you not use his daughter very friendly? 40 Dem. I would we had a thousand Roman dames At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.

Chi. A charitable wish and full of love.

Aar. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen. Chi. And that would she for twenty thousand

more.

Dem. Come, let us go, and pray to all the gods
For our beloved mother in her pains.

Aar. [Aside] Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over. [Trumpets sound within.

26. “sound"; Theobald conjectured "Fond," i. e. foolish; but "sound" is probably to be taken ironically.-I. G.

28. “beyond their feeling"; without their perceiving it.-C. H. H. 38. "insinuate"; insinuate himself, wind into our favor.-C. H. H.

Dem. Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish

thus?

Chi. Belike, for joy the emperor hath a son.
Dem. Soft! who comes here?

Nur.

Enter Nurse, with a blackamoor Child.

50

Good morrow, lords: O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor? Aar. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all, Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now? Nur. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!

Now help, or woe betide thee evermore! Aar. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep! What dost thou wrap and fumble in thine arms? Nur. 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. Aar. To whom?

Nur.

I mean, she is brought a-bed.

60

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

Nur. A devil.

Aar.

Why, then she is the devil's dam;

A joyful issue.

Nur. A joyless, dismal, black and sorrowful issue:
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.

Aar. 'Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?

70

Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure. Dem. Villain, what hast thou done?

Aar. That which thou canst not undo.

Chi. Thou hast undone our mother.

Aar. Villain, I have done thy mother.

Dem. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.

Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!

Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!

Chi. It shall not live.

Aar. It shall not die.

Nur. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.
Aar. What, must it, nurse? then let no man but I
Do execution on my flesh and blood.

80

Dem. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point: Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.

Aar. Sooner this sword shall plow 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, 90
He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point
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.

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

100

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.
Dem. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?
Aar. My mistress is my mistress, this myself,
The vigor and the picture of my youth:
This before all the world do I prefer;

This mauger all the world will I keep safe, 110
Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.
Dem. By this our mother is for ever shamed.
Chi. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.
Nur. The emperor in his rage will doom her death.
Chi. I blush to think upon this ignomy.
Aar. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:
Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blush-
ing

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,

120

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;
And from that womb where you imprison'd

were

He is enfranchised and come to light: