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QUEEN MARGARET: Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.

RIVERS: Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.

QUEEN MARGARET: To serve me well, you all should do me duty, Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects: O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!

DORSET: Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

QUEEN MARGARET: Peace, master marquess, you are malapert: Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current. O, that your young nobility could judge What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable! They that stand high have many blasts to shake them; And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

GLOUCESTER: Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.

DORSET: It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.

GLOUCESTER: Yea, and much more: but I was born so high, Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

QUEEN MARGARET: And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas! Witness my son, now in the shade of death; Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath Hath in eternal darkness folded up. Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest. O God, that seest it, do not suffer it! As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

BUCKINGHAM: Have done! for shame, if not for charity.

QUEEN MARGARET: Urge neither charity nor shame to me: Uncharitably with me have you dealt, And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd. My charity is outrage, life my shame And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.

BUCKINGHAM: Have done, have done.

QUEEN MARGARET: O princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand, In sign of league and amity with thee: Now fair befal thee and thy noble house! Thy garments are not spotted with our blood, Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

BUCKINGHAM: Nor no one here; for curses never pass The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

QUEEN MARGARET: I'll not believe but they ascend the sky, And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace. O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog! Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites, His venom tooth will rankle to the death: Have not to do with him, beware of him; Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him, And all their ministers attend on him.

GLOUCESTER: What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAM: Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

QUEEN 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, 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!

HASTINGS: My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

RIVERS: And so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.

GLOUCESTER: 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.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: I never did her any, to my knowledge.

GLOUCESTER: But 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 frank'd up to fatting for his pains God pardon them that are the cause of it!

RIVERS: A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion, To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

GLOUCESTER: So do I ever: being well-advised. For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

CATESBY: Madam, his majesty doth call for you, And for your grace; and you, my noble lords.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: Catesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?

RIVERS: Madam, we will attend your grace.

GLOUCESTER: 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, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness, I do beweep to many simple gulls Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham; And say it is 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, Vaughan, 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 villany With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. But, soft! here come my executioners. How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates! Are you now going to dispatch this deed?

First Murderer: We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant That we may be admitted where he is.

GLOUCESTER: 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: Tush! Fear not, 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.

GLOUCESTER: Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears: I like you, lads; about your business straight; Go, go, dispatch.

First Murderer: We will, my noble lord.

BRAKENBURY: Why looks your grace so heavily today?

CLARENCE: O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, 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!

BRAKENBURY: What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.

CLARENCE: Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloucester; Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England, And cited up a thousand fearful times, During the wars of York and Lancaster That had befall'n 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. Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears! What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

BRAKENBURY: 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 Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth To seek the empty, vast and wandering air; But smother'd it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

BRAKENBURY: Awaked you not with this sore agony?

CLARENCE: O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life; O, then began the tempest to my soul, Who pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, With that grim 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 cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?' And so he vanish'd: then came wandering by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud, 'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury; Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!' With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me about, and howled 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 the dream.

BRAKENBURY: No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you; I promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.

CLARENCE: O Brakenbury, I have done those 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, O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children! I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me; My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

BRAKENBURY: I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest! Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night. Princes have but their tides for their glories, An outward honour for an inward toil; And, for unfelt imagination, They often feel a world of restless cares: So that, betwixt their tides and low names, There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

First Murderer: Ho! who's here?

BRAKENBURY: In God's name what are you, and how came you hither?

First Murderer: I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.

BRAKENBURY: Yea, are you so brief?

Second Murderer: O sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show him our commission; talk no more.

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 of the meaning. Here are the keys, there sits the duke asleep: I'll to the king; and signify to him That thus I have resign'd my charge to you.

First Murderer: Do so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.

Second Murderer: What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

First Murderer: No; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.

Second Murderer: When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till the judgment-day.

First Murderer: Why, then he will 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 for it; but to be damned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.

First Murderer: I thought thou hadst been resolute.

Second Murderer: So I am, to let him live.

First Murderer: Back to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.

Second Murderer: I pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour will change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one would tell twenty.

First Murderer: How dost thou feel thyself now?

Second Murderer: 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

First Murderer: Remember our reward, when the deed is done.

Second Murderer: 'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.

First Murderer: Where is 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: Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it.

First Murderer: How if it come to thee again?

Second Murderer: I'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it makes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him; he cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold that 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: 'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

Second Murderer: Take the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.

First Murderer: Tut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me, I warrant thee.

Second Murderer: Spoke like a tail fellow that respects his reputation. Come, shall we to this gear?

First Murderer: Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt in the next room.

Second Murderer: O excellent devise! make a sop of him.

First Murderer: Hark! he stirs: shall I strike?

Second Murderer: No, first let's reason with him.

CLARENCE: Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.

Second murderer: You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.

CLARENCE: In God's name, what art thou?

Second Murderer: A man, as you are.

CLARENCE: But not, as I am, royal.

Second Murderer: Nor you, as we are, loyal.

CLARENCE: Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

Second Murderer: My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own.

CLARENCE: How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak! Your eyes do menace me: why look you pale? Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?

Both: To, to, to--

CLARENCE: To murder me?

Both: Ay, ay.

CLARENCE: You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so, And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it. Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?

First Murderer: Offended us you have not, but the king.

CLARENCE: I shall be reconciled to him again.

Second Murderer: Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.

CLARENCE: Are you call'd forth from out a world of men To slay the innocent? What is my offence? Where are the evidence that do accuse me? What lawful quest have given their verdict up Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounced The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death? Before I be convict by course of law, To threaten me with death is most unlawful. I charge you, as you hope to have redemption By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins, That you depart and lay no hands on me The deed you undertake is damnable.

First Murderer: What we will do, we do upon command.

Second Murderer: And he that hath commanded is the king.