Buckingham
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Margaret
What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
Oh, but remember this another day,
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.
Exit.
Hastings
My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
Rivers
And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.
Richard
I cannot blame her, by God’s holy mother,
She hath had too much wrong, and I repent
My part thereof that I have done to her.
Elizabeth
I never did her any to my knowledge.
Richard
Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
He is franked up to fatting for his pains.
God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
Rivers
A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
Richard
So do I ever, being well-advised.
(Speaks to himself.) For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter Catesby.
Catesby
Madam, his majesty doth call for you,
And for your grace, and you, my gracious lord.
Queen Elizabeth
Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
Rivers
We wait upon your grace.
Exeunt all but Glouceter.
Richard
I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls,
Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham,
And tell them ʼtis the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it, and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter two Murderers.
But, soft, here come my executioners —
How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates,
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
First Murderer
We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant
That we may be admitted where he is.
Richard
Well thought upon, I have it here about me.
When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate. Do not hear him plead,
For Clarence is well spoken and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
First Murderer
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
Richard
Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes fall tears.
I like you, lads. About your business straight.
Go, go, dispatch.
Murderers
We will, my noble lord.
Exeunt.
Scene 4Enter Clarence and Keeper.
Keeper
Why looks your grace so heavily today?
Clarence
Oh, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.
Keeper
What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.
Clarence
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And, in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. There we looked toward England
And cited up a thousand heavy times
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears,
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As ʼtwere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
Keeper
Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?
Clarence
Methought I had, and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Stopped in my soul and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
Keeper
Awaked you not in this sore agony?
Clarence
No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.
Oh, then began the tempest to my soul.
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger-soul
Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick,
Who spake aloud, ʼWhat scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud,
ʼClarence is come: false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury.
Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment.’
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howlèd in mine ears
Such hideous cries that with the very noise
I trembling waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made my dream.
Keeper
No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you.
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
Clarence
Ah keeper, keeper, I have done these things
Which now bear evidence against my soul
For Edward’s sake, and see how he requites me.
O God, if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath in me alone.
Oh, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children.
Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile.
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
Keeper
I will, my lord. God give your grace good rest.
Enter Brakenbury, the Lieutenant.
Brakenbury
Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil,
And for unfelt imaginations
They often feel a world of restless cares;
So that between their titles and low name
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.
Enter two Murderers.
First Murderer
Ho, who’s here?
Brakenbury
What wouldst thou, fellow? And how cam’st thou hither?
Second Murderer
I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.
Brakenbury
What, so brief?
First Murderer
ʼTis better, sir, than to be tedious.
Let him see our commission, and talk no more.
Brakenbury reads.
Brakenbury
I am in this commanded to deliver
The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.
I will not reason what is meant hereby,
Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.
There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys.
I’ll to the king and signify him
That thus I have resigned to you my charge.
First Murderer
You may, sir, ʼtis a point of wisdom. Fare you well.
Exeunt Brakenbury and Keeper.
Second Murderer
What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?
First Murderer
No. He’ll say ʼtwas done cowardly, when he wakes.
Second Murderer
Why, he shall never wake until the great judgement day.
First Murderer
Why, then he’ll say we stabbed him sleeping.
Second Murderer
The urging of that word judgment hath bred a kind of remorse in me.
First Murderer
What? Art thou afraid?
Second Murderer
Not to kill him, having a warrant,
But to be damned for killing him, from the which
No warrant can defend me.
First Murderer
I thought thou hadst been resolute.
Second Murderer
So I am, to let him live.
First Murderer
I’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester and tell him so.
Second Murderer
Nay, I prithee, stay a little.
I hope this passionate humour of mine will change.
It was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.
First Murderer
How dost thou feel thyself now?
Second Murderer
Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.
First Murderer
Remember our reward when the deed’s done.
Second Murderer
Come, he dies. I had forgot the reward.
First Murderer
Where’s thy conscience now?
Second Murderer
In the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.
First Murderer
So when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.
Second Murderer
ʼTis no matter, let it go. There’s few or none will entertain it.
First Murderer
What if it come to thee again?
Second Murderer
I’ll not meddle with it; it makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal but it accuseth him. A man cannot swear but it checks him. A man cannot lie with his neighbour’s wife, but it detects him. ’Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust to himself and to live without it.
First Murderer
ʼTis even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.
