AARON Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.
CHIRON And that would she for twenty thousand more.
DEMETRIUS Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods
For our beloved mother in her pains.
AARON [Aside] Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
[Trumpets sound within]
DEMETRIUS Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?
CHIRON Belike, for joy the emperor hath a son.
DEMETRIUS Soft! who comes here?
[Enter a Nurse, with a blackamoor Child in her arms]
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 thine arms?
Nurse O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye,
Our empress' shame, and stately Rome's disgrace!
She is deliver'd, lords; she is deliver'd.
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 fairest breeders of our clime:
The empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.
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