XaiJu
shakespeare's hall
shakespeare's hall

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2505

NURSE. Good morrow, lords.

O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?

AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,

Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?

NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!

Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!

AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!

What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?

NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:

Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!

She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.

AARON. To whom?

NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.

AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?

NURSE. A devil.

AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;

A joyful issue.

NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!

Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad

Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;

The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,

And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.

AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?

Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.

DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?

AARON. That which thou canst not undo.

CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.

AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.

DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.

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

Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!

CHIRON. It shall not live.

AARON. It shall not die.

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

AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I

Do execution on my flesh and blood.

DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.

Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.

AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.

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