The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 309
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
RICHARD What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
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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?
O, but remember this another day
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
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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.
BUCKINGHAM
My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
RIVERS And so doth mine; I muse why she’s at liberty.
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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.
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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 frank’d up to fatting for his pains.
God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
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RIVERS A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
RICHARD
So do I ever – [Speaks to himself.] being well advis’d;
For had I curs’d now, I had curs’d myself.
Enter CATESBY.
CATESBY Madam, his Majesty doth call for you,
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And for your Grace, and you my gracious lords.
ELIZABETH
Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
RIVERS We wait upon your Grace.
Exeunt all but Richard.
RICHARD I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl:
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
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I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have cast in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls,
Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;
And tell them ’tis the Queen and her allies
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That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
Now they believe it, and withal whet me
To be reveng’d on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
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And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol’n forth 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, resolved mates;
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Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
1 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 –
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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.
2 MURDERER
Tut, tut, my lord: we will not stand to prate.
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Talkers are no good doers; be assur’d
We go 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.
BOTH We will, my noble lord. Exeunt.
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1.4 Enter CLARENCE and Keeper.
KEEPER Why looks your Grace so heavily today?
CLARENCE O, I have pass’d 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
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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 embark’d to cross to Burgundy;
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And in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we look’d toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
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That had befall’n us. As we pac’d 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.
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O Lord! Methought what pain it was to drown:
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears;
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon;
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Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalu’d jewels,
All scatter’d 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 –
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As ’twere in scorn of eyes – reflecting gems,
That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by.
KEEPER Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
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CLARENCE Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
Stopp’d in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand’ring air,
But smother’d it within my panting bulk,
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Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
KEEPER Awak’d you not in this sore agony?
CLARENCE
No, no; my dream was lengthen’d after life.
O, then began the tempest to my soul:
I pass’d, methought, the melancholy flood,
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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, renowned Warwick,
Who spake aloud, ‘What scourge for perjury
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Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’
And so he vanish’d. Then came wand’ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shriek’d out aloud,
‘Clarence is come: false, fleeting, perjur’d Clarence,
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That stabb’d me in the field by Tewkesbury!
Seize on him, Furies! Take him unto torment!’
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ’d me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
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I trembling wak’d, 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.
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CLARENCE
Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things,
That now give 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 aveng’d on my misdeeds,
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Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;
O 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.
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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
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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 the two Murderers.
1 MURDERER Ho, who’s here?
BRAKENBURY
What would’st thou, fellow? And how cam’st thou
hither?
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2 MURDERER I would speak with Clarence, and I came
hither on my legs.
BRAKENBURY What, so brief?
1 MURDERER ’Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let
him see our commission, and talk no more.
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[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.
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I’ll to the King, and signify to him
That thus I have resign’d to you my charge.
1 MURDERER
You may, sir; ’tis a point of wisdom. Fare you well.
Exeunt Brakenbury and Keeper.
2 MURDERER What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?
1 MURDERER No: he’ll say ’twas done cowardly, when he
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wakes.
2 MURDERER Why, he shall never wake until the great
Judgement Day.
1 MURDERER Why, then he’ll say we stabbed him
sleeping.
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2 MURDERER The urging of that word, ‘Judgement’,
hath bred a kind of remorse in me.
1 MURDERER What, art thou afraid?
2 MURDERER Not to kill him – having a warrant – but to
be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant
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can defend me.
1 MURDERER I thought thou hadst been resolute.
2 MURDERER So I am – to let him live.
1 MURDERER I’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester, and
tell him so.
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2 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.
1 MURDERER How dost thou feel thyself now?
2 MURDERER Some certain dregs of conscience are yet
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within me.
1 MURDERER Remember our reward, when the deed’s
done.
2 MURDERER Zounds, he dies! I had forgot the reward.
1 MURDERER Where’s thy conscience now?
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2 MURDERER Oh, in the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.
1 MURDERER When he opens his purse to give us our
reward, thy conscience flies out?
2 MURDERER ’Tis no matter; let it go. There’s few, or
none, will entertain it.
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1 MURDERER What if it come to thee again?
2 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
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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