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[Enter AARON with a bag of gold.]

       AARON.

       He that had wit would think that I had none,

       To bury so much gold under a tree,

       And never after to inherit it.

       Let him that thinks of me so abjectly

       Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,

       Which, cunningly effected, will beget

       A very excellent piece of villainy:

       And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest

       [Hides the gold.]

       That have their alms out of the empress’ chest.

       [Enter TAMORA.]

       TAMORA.

       My lovely Aaron, wherefore look’st thou sad

       When everything does make a gleeful boast?

       The birds chant melody on every bush;

       The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;

       The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,

       And make a chequer’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 wandering 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;

       Whiles 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 desires,

       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.

       TAMORA.

       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.

       [Exit.]

       [Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA.]

       BASSIANUS.

       Who have we here? Rome’s royal empress,

       Unfurnish’d of her well-beseeming troop?

       Or is it Dian, habited like her,

       Who hath abandoned her holy groves

       To see the general hunting in this forest?

       TAMORA.

       Saucy controller of my private steps!

       Had I the power that some say Dian had,

       Thy temples should be planted presently

       With horns, as was Actaeon’s; and the hounds

       Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,

       Unmannerly intruder as thou art!

       LAVINIA.

       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.

       BASSIANUS.

       Believe me, queen, your swarth Cimmerian

       Doth make your honour of his body’s hue,

       Spotted, detested, and abominable.

       Why are you sequester’d 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?

       LAVINIA.

       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-coloured love;

       This valley fits the purpose passing well.

       BASSIANUS.

       The king my brother shall have notice of this.

       LAVINIA.

       Ay, for these slips have made him noted long:

       Good king, to be so mightily abus’d!

       TAMORA.

       Why have I patience to endure all this?

       [Enter DEMETRIUS and CHIRON.]

       DEMETRIUS.

       How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!

       Why doth your highness look so pale and wan?

       TAMORA.

       Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?

       These two have ‘ticed 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 mistletoe:

       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

      

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