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.
Clarence
Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings
Hath in the tables of his law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,
Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man’s?
Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
Second Murderer
And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,
For false forswearing and for murder too:
Thou didst receive the holy sacrament,
To fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
First Murderer
And, like a traitor to the name of God,
Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade
Unrip’dst the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.
Second Murderer
Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.
First Murderer
How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law to us,
When thou hast broke it in so dear degree?
Clarence
Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,
He sends ye not to murder me for this
For in this sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be revenged for this deed.
O, know you yet, he doth it publicly,
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm;
He needs no indirect nor lawless course
To cut off those that have offended him.
First Murderer
Who made thee, then, a bloody minister,
When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?
Clarence
My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.
First Murderer
Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy fault,
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
Clarence
Oh, if you love my brother, hate not me;
I am his brother, and I love him well.
If you be hired for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
Who shall reward you better for my life
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
Second Murderer
You are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.
Clarence
O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:
Go you to him from me.
Both
Ay, so we will.
Clarence
Tell him, when that our princely father York
Bless’d his three sons with his victorious arm,
And charged us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided friendship:
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
First Murderer
Ay, millstones; as be lesson’d us to weep.
Clarence
O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
First Murderer
Right,
As snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:
’Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.
Clarence
It cannot be; for when I parted with him,
He hugg’d me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,
That he would labour my delivery.
Second Murderer
Why, so he doth, now he delivers thee
From this world’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.
First Murderer
Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.
Clarence
Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,
That thou wilt war with God by murdering me?
Ah, sirs, consider, he that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
Second Murderer
What shall we do?
Clarence
Relent, and save your souls.
First Murderer
Relent! ’tis cowardly and womanish.
Clarence
Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
Would not entreat for life?
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
Second Murderer
Look behind you, my lord.
First Murderer
Take that, and that: if all this will not do,
Stabs him
I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.
Exit, with the body
Second Murderer
A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch’d!
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous guilty murder done!
Re-enter First Murderer
First Murderer
How now! what mean’st thou, that thou help’st me not?
By heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!
Second Murderer
I would he knew that I had saved his brother!
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;
For I repent me that the duke is slain.
Exit
First Murderer
So do not I: go, coward as thou art.
Now must I hide his body in some hole,
Until the duke take order for his burial:
And when I have my meed, I must away;
For this will out, and here I must not stay.
ACT II
SCENE I. LONDON. THE PALACE.
Flourish. Enter King Edward IV sick, Queen Elizabeth, Dorset, Rivers, Hastings, Buckingham, Grey, and others
King Edward IV
Why, so: now have I done a good day’s work:
You peers, continue this united league:
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;
And now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,
Since I have set my friends at peace on earth.
Rivers and Hastings, take each other’s hand;
Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.
Rivers
By heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:
And with my hand I seal my true heart’s love.
Hastings
So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!
King Edward IV
Take heed you dally not before your king;
Lest he that is the supreme King of kings
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
Either of you to be the other’s end.
Hastings
So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!
Rivers
And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!
King Edward IV
Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,
Nor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;
You have been factious one against the other,
Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
Queen Elizabeth
Here, Hastings; I will never more remember
Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!
King Edward IV
Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.
Dorset
This interchange of love, I here protest,
Upon my part shall be unviolable.
Hastings
And so swear I, my lord
They embrace
King Edward IV
Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league
With thy embracements to my wife’s allies,
And make me happy in your unity.
Buckingham
Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
On you or yours,
To the Queen
but with all duteous love
Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most love!
When I have most need to employ a friend,
And most assured that he is a friend
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he unto me! this do I beg of God,
When I am cold in zeal to yours.
King Edward IV
A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,
To make the perfect period of this peace.
Buckingham
And, in good time, here comes the noble duke.
Enter Gloucester
Gloucester
Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen:
And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
King Edward IV
Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
Brother, we done deeds of charity;
Made peace enmity, fair love of hate,
Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
Gloucester
A blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:
Amongst this princely heap, if any here,
By false intelligence, or wrong surmise,
Hold me a foe;
If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
’Tis death to me to be at enmity;
I hate it, and desire all good men’s love.
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my duteous service;
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
If ever any grudge were lodged between us;
Of you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;
That without desert have frown’d on me;
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.
I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds
More than the infant that is born to-night
I thank my God for my humility.
Queen Elizabeth
A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
Gloucester
Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this
To be so bouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the noble duke is dead?
They all start
You do him injury to scorn his corse.
Rivers
Who knows not he is dead! who knows he is?
Queen Elizabeth
All seeing heaven, what a world is this!
Buckingham
Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
Dorset
Ay, my good lord; and no one in this presence
But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
King Edw
ard IV
Is Clarence dead? the order was reversed.
Gloucester
But he, poor soul, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear:
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
That came too lag to see him buried.
God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion!
Enter Derby
Dorset
A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
King Edward IV
I pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.
Dorset
I will not rise, unless your highness grant.
King Edward IV
Then speak at once what is it thou demand’st.
Dorset
The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant’s life;
Who slew to-day a righteous gentleman
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
King Edward IV
Have a tongue to doom my brother’s death,
And shall the same give pardon to a slave?
My brother slew no man; his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was cruel death.
Who sued to me for him? who, in my rage,
Kneel’d at my feet, and bade me be advised
Who spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field by Tewksbury
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me,
And said, ‘Dear brother, live, and be a king’?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his own garments, and gave himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck’d, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defaced
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I unjustly too, must grant it you
But for my brother not a man would speak,
Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholding to him in his life;
Yet none of you would once plead for his life.
O God, I fear thy justice will take hold
On me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.
Oh, poor Clarence!
Exeunt some with King Edward IV and Queen Margaret
Gloucester
This is the fruit of rashness! Mark’d you not
How that the guilty kindred of the queen
Complete Plays, The Page 240