Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/76

62

What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!

Ye white-lim'd 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 the swan's black legs to white,

Although she lave them hourly in the flood.

Tell the empress from me, I am of age

To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

Dem. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?

Aar. My mistress is my mistress; this myself;

The vigour, and the picture of my youth:

This before all the world do I prefer;

This maugre 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 sham'd.

Chi. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.

Nur. The emperor in his rage will doom her death.

Chi. I blush to think upon this ignomy.

Aar. 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 fram'd 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 is your brother by the surer side,

Although my seal be stamped in his face.

 98 sanguine: blood-colored

99 white-lim'd: whitewashed

104 lave: wash

111 maugre: in spite of

114 escape: escapade

116 ignomy: ignominy

119 enacts: workings

120 leer: complexion

123 sensibly: manifestly

124 self; selfsame

