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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
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. Out, you whore! is black so base a

hue?

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

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!

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Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend!
Chi. It shall not live.

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,
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 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.
Tell the emperess from me, I am of age
To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

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,
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.
Nurse. The emperor, in his rage, will doom her
death.

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!
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:

Nay, he's your brother by the surer side,
Although my seal be stamped in his face.

1 In spite of. For ignominy.

2 i.e. this foul illegitimate child. 4 Complexion.

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