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 pr'ythee, sit by me awhile;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

BRAKENBURY. I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest.

[CLARENCE reposes himself on a Chair.

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Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And for unfelt imaginations,

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

Enter the two Murderers.

I. MURDERER. Ho! who's here?

BRAK. What would'st thou, fellow? and how cam'st thou hither?

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

BRAK. What! so brief?

II. MURD. 'T is better, Sir, than to be tedious. Let him see our commission; and talk no more.

[A Paper delivered to BRAKENBURY, 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.

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1. The wife of Clarence, Isabel, be thus understood, "The glories died before he was apprehended of princes are nothing more than and confined in the Tower (poisoned empty titles": but it would impress by the Duke of Gloster, as it has the purpose of the speaker, and been conjectured). Clarence after- correspond better with the following wards wished to marry Mary, daugh- lines, if it were read: ter and heir of the Duke of Burgundy; this was opposed by Edward, and is supposed to have been the principal cause for the breach between the King and Clar

"Princes have but their titles for their troubles."

3. They often suffer real miseries for imaginary and unreal gratifications.

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.

I. MURDERER. You may, Sir; 't is a point of wisdom: Fare you well. [Exit BRAKENBURY. II. MURD. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps? I. MURD. No; he 'll say, 't was done cowardly, when he wakes.

II. MURD. Why, he shall never wake until the great judgment day.

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I. MURD. Why, then he 'll say, we stabb'd him sleeping. II. MURD. The urging of that word, judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

I. MURD. What! art thou afraid?

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

I. MURD. I thought, thou hadst been resolute.

II. MURD. So I am, to let him live.

I. MURD. I'll back to the duke of Gloster, and tell him so. II. MURD. Nay, I pr'ythee, stay a little: I hope, my holy 2 humour will change; it was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.

I. MURD. How dost thou feel thyself now?

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

I. MURD. Remember our reward, when the deed 's done.
II. MURD. Zounds! he dies: I had forgot the reward.
I. MURD. Where 's thy conscience now?

II. MURD. O! in the duke of Gloster's purse.

I. MURD. When he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

II. MURD. T is no matter; let it go: there 's few or none, will entertain it.

I. MURD. What, if it come to thee again?

II. MURD. 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; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 't is a blushing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom;

it fills a man 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 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 live without it.

I. MURDERER. Zounds! it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

II. MURD. Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him 1 not: he would insinuate with thee, but to make thee sigh. I. MURD. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with me. II. MURD. Spoke like a tall man 2 that respects his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?

I. MURD. Take him on the costard 3 with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt in the next room.

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II. MURD. O, excellent device! and make a sop of him. I. MURD. Soft! he wakes.

I. MURD. No; we 'll reason with him. 5

CLARENCE. [Waking.] Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.

I. MURD. You shall have wine enough, my lord anon. 6
CLAR. In God's name, what art thou?
I. MURD. A man, as you are.
CLAR. But not, as I am, royal.

I. MURD. Nor you, as we are, loyal.

CLAR. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble. I. MURD. My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own. CLAR. 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 MURD. To, to, to
CLAR. To murder me?
BOTH MURD. Ay, Ay.

CLAR. 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?

1. Him and the following he refer to conscience.

2. i. e. a bold, courageous fellow. 3. i. e. Strike him on the head.

4. A sop is anything steeped in liquor, as a biscuit in a glass of wine.

5. i. e. talk with him.
6. Anon, presently.

I. MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the king. CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.

II. MURD. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die. CLAR. Are you drawn forth among a world of men, To slay the innocent? What is my offence?

Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?

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What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounc'd
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?
Before I be convict 2 by course of law,

To threaten me with death is most unlawful. 3
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.

I. MURD. What we will do, we do upon command.
II. MURD. And he, that hath commanded, is our king.
CLAR. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings
Hath in the table of his law commanded,

That thou shalt do no murder: will you, then,
Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's?"

Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand,

To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

II. MURD. And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee, For false forswearing, and for murder too.

Thou didst receive the sacrament, to fight

In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.

I. MURD. And, like a traitor to the name of God, Didst break that vow; and, with thy treacherous blade, Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.

II. MURD. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend. I. MURD. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us, When thou hast broke it in such dear 5 degree?

1. Quest, jury.
2. i. e. convicted.

3. Shakespeare has followed the current tale of his own time. But the truth is that Clarence was tried and found guilty by his peers. According to Sir Thomas Moore, his death was commanded by Edward, but he does not assert that the Duke of Gloucester was the instrument.

grace, he was permitted to choose the manner of his death, and that he selected the curious mode of being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine, being particularly fond of that liquor.

4. Will you despise his edict? To spurn, to kick contemptuously.

5. Dear is here a word of mere

It is said that as an act of enforcement.

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CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake:
He sends you not to murder me for this;
For in that sin he is as deep as I.

If God will be avenged for the deed,
O! know you yet, he doth it publicly;
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm:
He needs no indirect or lawless course,

To cut off those that have offended him.

I. MURDERER. Who made thee, then, a bloody minister, When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet, 1

That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?

CLAR. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage. I. MURD. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy faults, Provoke 2 us hither now to slaughter thee.

CLAR. If you do love my brother, hate not me;

I am his brother, and I love him well.

If

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you are hir'd for meed, go back again, And I will send you to my brother Gloster; Who shall reward you better for my life, Than Edward will for tidings of my death.

Gó

II. MURD. You are deceiv'd; your brother Gloster hates you. CLAR. O! no; he loves me, and he holds me dear. you to him from me.

BOTH MURD.

Ay, so we will.

CLAR. Tell him, when that our princely father York
Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,

And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided friendship:

Bid Gloster think on this, and he will weep.

I. MURD. Ay, mill-stones; as he lesson'd us to weep.
CLAR. O! do not slander him, for he is kind.
I. MURD. Right; as snow in harvest.

Come, you de

ceive yourself; 'T is he that sends us to destroy you here. CLAR. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune, And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs, That he would labour my delivery.

I. MURD. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.

1. i. e. blooming Plantagenet, a prince in the spring of life.

Richard III.

2. To provoke, to cause, to move, to incite.

3. Meed, reward.

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