Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/52

38 

Mar. Who's 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

Hath 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

As have 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 deflower'd 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 three 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?

O that I knew thy heart! and knew the beast,

That I might rail at him to ease my mind.

Sorrow conceal'd, like to 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;

 12 Cousin: near relation, of either sex

17 Hath: have

26 Tereus; cf. n.

31 Titan's: the sun's

34 thy heart: what is in thy mind

39 mind: meaning; cf. n.

40 mean: means

