You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
Hark! villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I'll make a paste; 188
And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads;
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase. 192
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,
And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd. 196
And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come.
Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,
Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it; 200
And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.
Come, come, be every one officious
To make this banquet, which I wish might prove
More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast. 204
He cuts their throats.
So, now bring them in, for I'll play the cook,
And see them ready 'gainst their mother comes.
189 coffin: pie-crust; cf. n.
192 increase: offspring
196 worse than Progne; cf. n.
200 temper: mix
202 officious: active
204 Centaurs' feast; cf. n.
