Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/75

Titus Andronicus, IV. ii

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.

Aar. 'Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?

Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.

Dem. Villain, what hast thou done?

Aar. That which thou canst not undo.

Chi. Thou hast undone our mother.

[Aar. Villain, I have done thy mother.]

Dem. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.

Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!

Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!

Chi. It shall not live.

Aar. It shall not die.

Nur. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.

Aar. 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 dispatch it.

Aar. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.

Stay, murtherous 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 threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,

Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,

Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.

 72 'Zounds; cf. n.

73 blowse; cf. n.

86 broach: spit

94 Enceladus: one of the Titans confined under Mt. Ætna

95 Typhon's brood; cf. n.

96 Alcides: Hercules

