QUINTUS.
What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,
Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,
Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood
As fresh as morning dew distilled on flowers?
A very fatal place it seems to me.
Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?
MARTIUS.
O brother, with the dismall’st object hurt
That ever eye with sight made heart lament!
AARON.
[Aside.] Now will I fetch the king to find them here,
That he thereby may have a likely guess
How these were they that made away his brother.
[Exit.]
MARTIUS.
Why dost not comfort me, and help me out
From this unhallowed and blood-stained hole?
QUINTUS.
I am surprised with an uncouth fear;
A chilling sweat o’er-runs my trembling joints.
My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.
MARTIUS.
To prove thou hast a true-divining heart,
Aaron and thou look down into this den,
And see a fearful sight of blood and death.
QUINTUS.
Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart
Will not permit mine eyes once to behold
The thing whereat it trembles by surmise.
O, tell me who it is; for ne’er till now
Was I a child to fear I know not what.
MARTIUS.
Lord Bassianus lies berayed in blood,
All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,
In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.
QUINTUS.
If it be dark, how dost thou know ’tis he?