ZOSER
Don't come on so cocksure boy, you can't escape your genes
No point in feeling pure boy, your background intervenes
Listen good and listen straight, you're not the master of your fate
To this you must be reconciled; you'll always be your father's child
At times acclaimed, at times reviled
You'll wind up doing just what I've done
Like father, like son
RADAMES
Don't assume your vices get handed down the line
That a parent's blood suffices to condemn the child's design
I've done wrong, I can't deny, but at least I know that I
Shouldn't blame that on my stock, this may come as quite a shock
I'm no chip off any block, I wouldn't wish those words on anyone
Like father, like son
ZOSER
Son you're nervous, take my hand
All is settled, all is planned
You've got the world at your command
I don't think you understand
Do you really want to throw away your future? All for some wretched slave!
RADAMES
She has a name!
ZOSER
In a few months, you won't even be able to remember her name!
RADAMES
I appreciate too well
The squalor at which you excel
it isn't very hard to tell
Evil's a distinctive smell
You can forget about your plans, father. There will be no wedding!
(RADAMES storms off, leaving ZOSER horrified.)
ZOSER
He's lost all sense of reason, and why?
Some foreign slut
Not only is that treason,
Some doors are slamming shut
Just like me he's found that flesh can excite but will enmesh
Once we rid him of this blight.
Once this harlot's out of sight.
Then I think he'll see the light.
He won't walk back to daddy he will run.
Like father, like son...
ZOSER & MINISTERS
Like Father, like son
Like Father, like son
Like Father, like
ZOSER
Son
(ZOSER turns to his men.)
Find the slave girl called Aida. And when you do...kill her.
ACT TWO
Scene Four
NUBIAN SLAVE CAMP
AIDA stands alone. Suddenly a slave woman appears outside the fence. She
slips AIDA a folded note and disappears. AIDA begins to read and RADAMES
appears in her imagination.
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