MARCUS.
But I will use the axe.
[Exeunt Lucius and Marcus.]
TITUS.
Come hither, Aaron; I’ll deceive them both.
Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.
AARON.
[Aside.] If that be called deceit, I will be honest,
And never whilst I live deceive men so.
But I’ll deceive you in another sort,
And that you’ll say ere half an hour pass.
[He cuts off Titus’s hand.]
Enter Lucius and Marcus again.
TITUS.
Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatched.
Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
From thousand dangers, bid him bury it;
More hath it merited, that let it have.
As for my sons, say I account of them
As jewels purchased at an easy price;
And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.
AARON.
I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
[Aside.] Their heads, I mean. O, how this villainy
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace,
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.
[Exit.]
TITUS.
O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
And bow this feeble ruin to the earth.
If any power pities wretched tears,
To that I call! [To Lavinia.] What, wouldst thou kneel with me?
Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,
Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim,
And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.