She may help you to many fair preferments; What may she not? She may,-ay, marry, may she,-- Riv. Marry with a king, A bachelor, a handsome stripling too : I wis your grandam had a worser match. Q. Eliz. My Lord of Gloster, I have too long borne Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs: By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty Glo. What! threat you me with telling of the king? I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. 'Tis time to speak,-my pains are quite forgot. A weeder-out of his proud adversaries, To royalise his blood I spilt mine own. In all which time you and your husband Grey Let me put in your minds, if you forget, What you have been ere now, and what you are; I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's ; I am too childish-foolish for this world. Riv. My Lord of Gloster, in those busy days Which here you urge to prove us enemies, Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. Enter CATESBY. Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you, Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come.—Lords, will you go with me? Riv. Glo. [Exeunt all except GLOSTER. 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, Stanley, Buckingham; That stir the king against the duke my brother. SCENE II.-A Room in the Tower. Bra. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day? [Exit. Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days,——— So full of dismal terror was the time ! Bra. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me. And, in my company, my brother Gloster ; Upon the hatches: thence we look'd toward England, During the wars of York and Lancaster, Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in these holes Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive Bra. Awak'd you not with this sore agony? O, then began the tempest to my soul ! I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. Bra. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you; I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. Clar. O Brakenbury, I have done those things, For Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!- Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone, O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children !– My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. Bra. I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!— Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, [CLARENCE sleeps. 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, Enter the two Murderers. First Murd. Ho! who's here? Bra. hither? What wouldst thou, fellow? and how cam'st thou First Murd. hither on my legs. I would speak with Clarence, and I came Bra. What, so brief? Sec. Murd. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious.—Let him see our commission; and talk no more. Bra. [Gives a paper to BRAKENBURY, who reads it. I am, in this, commanded to deliver The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands :— That thus I have resign'd to you my charge. First Murd. you well. Sec. Murd. First Murd. wakes. Sec. Murd. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom: fare [Exit BRAKENBURY. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps ? No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when he When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till the judgment-day. First Murd. Why, then he'll say we stabbed him sleeping. Sec. Murd. The urging of that word "judgment" hath bred a kind of remorse in me. Sec. Murd. Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me. First Murd. I thought thou hadst been resolute. Sec. Murd. So I am, to let him live. First Murd. I'll back to the Duke of Gloster, and tell him so. Sec. Murd. Nay, I prithee, stay a little: I hope my holy humour will change; it was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty. First Murd. yet within me. How dost thou feel thyself now? Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are Remember our reward, when the deed's done. Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward. Where's thy conscience now? |