On Pedigree, from Epicharmus

My mother! if thou love me, name no more
My noble birth! Sounding at every breath
My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly,
As to their only refuge, all from whom
Nature withholds all good besides; they boast
Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs
Of their forefathers, and from age to age
Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race:
But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name,
Deriv'd from no forefathers? Such a man
Lives not; for how could such be born at all?
And if it chance that, native of a land
Far distant, or in infancy depriv'd
Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace
His origin, exist, why deem him sprung
From baser ancestry than theirs, who can?
My mother! he whom nature at his birth
Endow'd with virtuous qualities, although
An Æthiop and a slave, is nobly born.