LUCIUS

Then I'll go fetch an axe.

MARCUS ANDRONICUS

But I will use the axe.

Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Come hither, Aaron; I'll deceive them both:
Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.

AARON

[Aside] If that be call'd 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.

Cuts off TITUS's hand

Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Now stay your strife: what shall be is dispatch'd.
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 villany
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 ANDRONICUS

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, wilt 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.

MARCUS ANDRONICUS

O brother, speak with possibilities,
And do not break into these deep extremes.