LUCIUS.
O barbarous beastly villains, like thyself!
AARON.
Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.
That codding spirit had they from their mother,
As sure a card as ever won the set;
That bloody mind I think they learned of me,
As true a dog as ever fought at head.
Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
I trained thy brethren to that guileful hole
Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay.
I wrote the letter that thy father found,
And hid the gold within that letter mentioned,
Confederate with the queen and her two sons.
And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,
Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in’t?
I played the cheater for thy father’s hand,
And, when I had it, drew myself apart,
And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.
I pried me through the crevice of a wall
When, for his hand, he had his two sons’ heads;
Beheld his tears, and laughed so heartily
That both mine eyes were rainy like to his.
And when I told the empress of this sport,
She sounded almost at my pleasing tale,
And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.
GOTH.
What, canst thou say all this and never blush?
AARON.
Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
LUCIUS.
Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
AARON.
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day, and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and haystalks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends’ door,
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
“Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.”
But I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
LUCIUS.
Bring down the devil, for he must not die
So sweet a death as hanging presently.
AARON.
If there be devils, would I were a devil,
To live and burn in everlasting fire,
So I might have your company in hell
But to torment you with my bitter tongue!
LUCIUS.
Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.
Enter Aemilius.