Page 2194 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

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 it? [110]
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. [120]

[FIRST] 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; [130]
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and haystacks 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,