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,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Brak. 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 3 flood
Stopt-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,4
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clar. 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, Ihat scourge for perjury

8 Envious in the sense of malicious, which was then its more common meaning. So in the preceding scene: The envious slanders of her false

accusers."

"

4 Bulk was used for breast. So in Hamlet, ii. 2: "He raised a sigh so piteous and profound, that it did seem to shatter all his bulk, and end his being." Vast, in the line before, is void or waste; like the Latin vastus. — The "wandering air" is the aerial expanse where the soul would be free to use its wings, and roam at large. So in the description of Raphael's voyage to the Earth, Paradise Lost, v. 267:

He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky

Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air.

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, perjured 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 howlèd 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 my dream.
Brak. 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 avenged on my misdeeds,

Yet execute Thy will on me alone;

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!-
Keeper, I pr'ythee, sit by me awhile;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

Brak. I will, my lord: God give your Grace good rest !—

[CLARENCE sleeps in a chair.

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,

Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.

Princes have but their titles for their glories,

5 Fleeting or flitting, in old language, was used for uncertain, inconstant, fluctuating. Clarence broke his oath with the Earl of Warwick, and joined the army of his brother Edward.

6 The wife of Clarence died before he was apprehended and confined in the Tower. See page 147, note 23.

An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,

They often feel a world of restless cares :7
So that, between their titles and low name,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

Enter the two Murderers.

1 Murd. Ho! who's here?

Brak. What wouldst thou, fellow? and how camest thou hither?

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

Brak. What, so brief?

2 Murd. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. - Let him see our commission; and talk no more.

[1 Murd. gives a paper to BRAK., who reads it.

Brak. 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.

1 Murd. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom: fare you [Exit BRAKENBURY.

well.

2 Murd. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

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

2 Murd. When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till the judgment-day.

1 Murd. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him sleeping.

7 For imaginary pleasures which are unfelt by them, they often endure a great burden of restless carcs, which they feel, to their cost.

2 Murd. The urging of that word judgment hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

1 Murd. What, art thou afraid?

2 Murd. Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me.

SO.

1 Murd. I thought thou hadst been resolute.

2 Murd. So I am, to let him live.

1 Murd. I'll back to the Duke of Gloster, and tell him

2 Murd. Nay, I pr'ythee, stay a little: I hope my holy humour will change; it was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.

I Murd. How dost thou feel thyself now?

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

1 Murd. Remember our reward, when the deed's done. 2 Murd. Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.

1 Murd. Where's thy conscience now?

2 Murd. In the Duke of Gloster's purse.

I Murd. So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

2 Murd. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or none will entertain it.

1 Murd. What if it come to thee again?

2 Murd. I'll not meddle with it; it makes a man a coward a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 'tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold, that by chance I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turn'd out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust to himself and live without it.

1 Murd. Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

2 Murd. Take the Devil in thy mind, and believe him not : 8 he would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.

1 Murd. I am strong-framed; he cannot prevail with me. 2 Murd. Spoke like a tall fellow9 that respects his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?

I Murd. Take him over the costard with the hilts 10 of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt in the next room.

2 Murd. O excellent device! and make a sop 11 of him. I Murd. Soft! he wakes.

2 Murd. Strike!

I Murd. No, we'll reason 12 with him.

Clar. [Waking.] Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup

of wine.

I Murd. You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.
Clar. In God's name, what art thou?

1 Murd. A man, as you are.

8 Him refers to conscience, not to Devil. To insinuate with is to make friends with, to play upon, to beguile. The idea of conscience trying to wheedle and steal a man out of the Devil's leading is a most Shakesperian stroke of art. And the grim humour of these hired cut-throats in thus jesting away the approaches of preventive remorse is a capital instance of the Poet's inwardness with Nature. For even so men often laugh and sport themselves through the perpetration of crime; the supremacy of the moral law, the self-assertive rights of conscience instinctively prompting them to such tricks of evasion. I can hardly think of any one particular wherein Shakespeare's moral sanity of genius is more pregnantly manifested.

9 That is, a bold, stout-hearted fellow. See vol. v. page 143, note 4.

10 Hills, the plural form, was commonly used where we should use hilt. Costard, of course, is put for head. The word properly means apple, and was thus applied from similarity of shape.

11 A sop is anything soaked or steeped in liquor.

12 Here, as often, to reason is to talk or converse. See vol. iii. page 158,

note 3.- Soft! second line before, is the old exclamative for hold! stay! or not too fast!