Titus Andronicus 12

⁶LuciusI humbly thank him, and I thank you all.
But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?

¹⁰AaronTouch not the boy; he is of royal blood.

¹⁴AaronAn if it please thee! why, assure thee, Lucius,
’Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;
For I must talk of murders, rapes and massacres,
Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
Complots of mischief, treason, villainies
Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform’d:
And this shall all be buried by my death,
Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.

¹⁸AaronWhat if I do not? as, indeed, I do not;
Yet, for I know thou art religious
And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies,
Which I have seen thee careful to observe,
Therefore I urge thy oath; for that I know
An idiot holds his bauble for a god
And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,
To that I’ll urge him: therefore thou shalt vow
By that same god, what god soe’er it be,
That thou adorest and hast in reverence,
To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;
Or else I will discover nought to thee.

²²AaronTut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
’Twas her two sons that murder’d Bassianus;
They cut thy sister’s tongue and ravish’d her
And cut her hands and trimm’d her as thou saw’st.

²⁶AaronIndeed, I was their tutor to instruct them:
That codding spirit had they from their mother,
As sure a card as ever won the set;
That bloody mind, I think, they learn’d of me,
As true a dog as ever fought at head.
Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
I train’d thy brethren to that guileful hole
Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay:
I wrote the letter that thy father found
And hid the gold within the letter mention’d,
Confederate with the queen and her two sons:
And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,
Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?
I play’d the cheater for thy father’s hand,
And, when I had it, drew myself apart
And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter:
I pry’d me through the crevice of a wall
When, for his hand, he had his two sons’ heads;
Beheld his tears, and laugh’d so heartily,
That both mine eyes were rainy like to his:
And when I told the empress of this sport,
She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,
And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.

³⁰AaronAy, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day⁠—and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse⁠—
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg’d up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends’ doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
“Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.”
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

³⁴Enter a Goth.

³⁸Welcome, Aemilius: what’s the news from Rome?