Aaron. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep! What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy 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. Aaron. I mean, she's brought to bed. Well, God Give her good rest! What hath he sent her? Nurse. A devil. Aaron. Why, then she's the devil's dam; a joyful issue. Nurse. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue. Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad hue? Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure. Aaron. Canst not undo. Chi. Done! that which thou Thou hast undone our mother. Aaron. Villain, I have done thy mother. Dem. 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! Aaron. It shall not die. Nurse. 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. Dem. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point. Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon despatch it. Aaron. Sooner this sword shall plough thy boweis 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, With all his threatening band of Typhon's brood, Shall seise 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 Can never turn a swan's black legs to white, 1 Spit. Although she lave them hourly in the flood. Dem. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus? Aaron. My mistress is my mistress; this, myself; The vigor and the picture of my youth: This, before all the world, do I prefer; This, maugre1 all the world, will I keep safe, Dem. By this our mother is for ever shamed. Chi. I blush to think upon this ignomy.3 Aaron. Why there's the privilege your beauty bears! 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! Nay, he's your brother by the surer side, 1 In spite of. For ignominy. 2 i.e. this foul illegitimate child. 4 Complexion. |