• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

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,

Who 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

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

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,

That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.

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,

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.

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,

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.

[CLARENCE sleeps]

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 tides and low name

There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

Enter the two MURDERERS

FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?

BRAKENBURY.

What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st thou hither?

FIRST MURDERER.

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

BRAKENBURY.

What, so brief?

SECOND MURDERER.

'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let

him see our commission and talk no more.

[BRAKENBURY reads it]

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 to him

That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.

FIRST MURDERER.

You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare

you well. Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER

SECOND MURDERER.

What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?

FIRST MURDERER.

No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.

SECOND MURDERER.

Why, he shall never wake until the great

judgment-day.

FIRST MURDERER.

Why, then he'll say we stabb'd 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 damn'd 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.

Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.