She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may,—ay, marry, may she,
What, marry, may she?

Riv.
Glo.

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
With those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen, with this condition,—
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at :
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Glo. What! threat you me with telling of the king? Tell him, and spare not look, what I have said

I will avouch in presence of the king :

I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.

'Tis time to speak,—my pains are quite forgot.
Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs ;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends:

To royalise his blood I spilt mine own.

In all which time you and your husband Grey

Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;-
And, Rivers, so were you :—was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?

Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

What you have been ere now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;
Ay, and forswore himself,-which Heaven pardon !
To fight on Edward's party, for the crown;
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.

I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's ;
Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine:

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,
We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:
So should we you, if you should be our king.
Glo. If I should be !-I had rather be a pedlar :
Far be it from my heart, the thought of it!

Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country's king,—
As little joy may you suppose in me,

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

Enter CATESBY.

Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,And for your grace,—and you, my noble lords.

Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come.-Lords, will you go with me? We wait upon your grace.

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;

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 reveng'd 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 stol'n out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

SCENE II.-A Room in the Tower.
Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.

Bra. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. 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,

[Exit.

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days,—

So full of dismal terror was the time!

Bra.
Clar.

What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.
Methought that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Gloster;

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,

That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
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 these holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept—
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.
Bra. Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?

Clar. 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 find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Bra.
Clar.

Awak'd you not with this sore agony ?

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 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 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 to your torments!"
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howléd 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.
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,
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.

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,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

First Murd.

Enter the two Murderers.
Ho! who's here?

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

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 :

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 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.

First Murd. What, art thou afraid?

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.

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.
Sec. Murd.

yet within me.
First Murd.
Sec. Murd.
First Murd.

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?