When everything doth make a gleeful boast?
The birds chant melody on every bush;
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun;
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a checker'd shadow on the ground:
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
And, whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once,
Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise:
And, after conflict such as was suppos'd
The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoy'd,
When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,
And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave,
We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,
While hounds, and horns, and sweet melodious
birds,

Be unto us as is a nurse's song

Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.

Aaron. Madam, though Venus govern your de

sires,

Saturn is dominator over mine:
What signifies my deadly standing eye,
My silence, and my cloudy melancholy,
My fleece of woolly hair, that now uncurls
Even as an adder when she doth unroll
To do some fatal execution?

No, madam, these are no venereal signs;
Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,

Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee,
This is the day of doom for Bassianus ;
His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day;
Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,
And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.
Seest thou this letter? take it up, I pray thee,
And give the king this fatal-plotted scroll.
Now question me no more; we are espied:
Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,
Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.

Enter BASSIANUS, and LAVINIA.

Tam. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!

Aaron. No more, great empress, Bassianus comes. Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.

Bass. Who have we here? Rome's royal empress,

Unfurnish'd of our well-beseeming troop?
Or is it Dian, habited like her,
Who hath abandoned her holy groves,
To see the general hunting in this forest?

Tam. Saucy controller of our private steps,
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns as was Acteon's, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
Unmannerly intruder as thou art!

Lav. Under your patience, gentle empress, 'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning, And to be doubted that your Moor and you Are singled forth to try experiments: Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day; 'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.

Bass. Believe me, queen, your swarth Cimmerian

Doth make your honour of his body's hue,
Spotted, detested, and abominable.

Why are you sequestered from all your train?
Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,
And wander'd hither to an obscure plot,
Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,
If foul desire had not conducted you?
Lav. And, being intercepted in your sport,
Great reason that my noble lord be rated
For sauciness; I pray you, let us hence,
And let her 'joy her raven-colour'd love;
This valley fits the purpose passing well.
Bass. The king, my brother, shall have notice
of this.

Lav. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long;

Good king, to be so mightily abused!

Tam. Why have I patience to endure all this?

Enter CHIRON, and DEMETRIUS.

Demet. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother,

Why doth your highness look so pale and wan?

Tam. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
These two have 'tic'd me hither to this place,
A barren detested vale, you see, it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful misseltoe.
Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven:
And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,
They told me here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,

Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.
No sooner had they told this hellish tale,

But straight they told me they would bind me here.
Unto the body of a dismal yew,

And leave me to this miserable death.
And then they call'd me foul adulteress,
Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms
That ever ear did hear to such effect.
And had you not by wondrous fortune come,
This vengeance on me had they executed:
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.
Demet. This is a witness that I am thy son.

[Stabs him. Chi. And this for me struck home to show my strength. [Stabs him likewise. Lav. Ay, come, Semiramis,-nay, barbarous Tamora!

For no name fits thy nature but thy own.

Tam. Give me thy poniard; you shall know, my boys,

Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong. Demet. Stay, madam; here is more belongs to

her;

First thresh the corn, then after burn the straw:
This minion stood upon her chastity,
Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,
And, with that painted hope, braves your mighti-

ness:

And shall she carry this unto her grave?

Chi. And if she do, I would I were an eunuch. Drag hence her husband to some secret hole, And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust. Tam. But when ye have the honey you desire, Let not this wasp outlive us both to sting.

Chi. I warrant you, madam, we will make that

sure.

Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy
That nice preserved honesty of yours.

Lav. Oh, Tamora! thou bear'st a woman's face-
Tam. I will not hear her speak; away with her!
Lav. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a
word.

Demet. Listen, fair madam; let it be your glory To see her tears, but be your heart to them As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.

Lav. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?

O, do not learn her wrath; she taught it thee.
The milk thou suck'st from her did turn to marble;
Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.
Yet every mother breeds not sons alike;
Do thou entreat her show a woman pity.

[TO CHIRON. Chi. What! wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?

Lav. 'Tis true; the raven doth not hatch a lark: Yet have I heard,-oh could I find it now!— The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure To have his princely paws par'd all away. Some say that ravens foster forlorn children, The whilst their own birds famish in their nests: Oh, be to me, though thy hard heart say no, Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!

Tam. I know not what it means; away with her. Lav. Oh let me teach thee! For my father's sake,

That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,

Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.

Tam. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me, Even for his sake am I pitiless.

Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain,
To save your brother from the sacrifice;
But fierce Andronicus would not relent:
Therefore, away with her, and use her as you will;
The worse to her, the better lov'd of me.

Lav. Oh Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,
And with thine own hands kill me in this place:
For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;
Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.

Tam. What begg'st thou then? fond woman, let me go.

Lav. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing

Par. Else might the world convince of levity As well my undertakings as your counsels : But I attest the gods, your full consent Gave wings to my propension, and cut off All fears attending on so dire a project. For what, alas, can these my single arms? What propugnation is in one man's valour, To stand the push and enmity of those This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest, Were I alone to pass the difficulties, And had as ample power as I have will, Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done, Nor faint in the pursuit.

Pri.

Paris, you speak

Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all.

Par. Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasure such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wip'd off, in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up,

On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this

Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There's not the meanest spirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble,
Whose life were ill bestow'd, or death unfam'd,
Where Helen is the subject: then, I say,
Well may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hect. Paris, and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have gloz'd, but superficially; not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy:
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood,
Than to make up a free determination

"Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure, and revenge

Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be render'd to their owners: Now
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? if this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-order'd nation,
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,--
As it is known she is,-these moral laws
Of nature, and of nations, speak aloud
To have her back return'd: Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,

But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion

Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough. Tit. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them. [Exeunt.

SCENE V.-The Forest.

Enter DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with LAVINIA, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out. Demet. So now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,

Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee. Chi. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,

An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe. Demet. See, how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.

Chi. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.

Demet. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;

And so, let's leave her to her silent walks.

Chi. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.

Demet. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord. [Exeunt DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON.

Enter MARCUS, from hunting.

Marc. Who is this? my niece, that flies away so fast?

Cousin, a word; where is your husband?

If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
That I may slumber in eternal sleep!
Speak, gentle niece; what stern ungentle hands
Have lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare
Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments
Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep
in,

And might not gain so great a happiness

119

As half thy love? why dost not speak to me?
Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,
Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,
Coming and going with thy honey breath.
But sure some Tereus hath defloured thee,
And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.
Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!
And, notwithstanding all this loss of blood,
As from a conduit with their issuing spouts,
Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face,
Blushing to be encounter'd with a cloud.
Shall I speak for thee? shall I say, 'tis so?
Oh that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind!
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,
Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind.
But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee;
A craftier Tereus hast thou met withal,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,
That could have better sew'd than Philomel.
Oh! had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble like aspen-leaves upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
He would not then have touch'd them for his life.
Or had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,

He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
Come, let us go, and make thy father blind;
For such a sight will blind a father's eye:
One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads;
What will whole months of tears thy father's
eyes?

Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;
Oh, could our mourning ease thy misery!

23

[Exeunt.