Remorse.

To look out on ills that are one's own,
In which another's hand has had no share,

This bringeth sharpest woe.

SOPHOCLES, Aias, 1. 260.

I

Ah woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight,

Now silence thou light

In the night, in the night,

The remorse in thy heart that is beating.

VON PLATEN, translated by Longfellow.

HAVE not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 62.

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?

Clarence. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,

REMORSE.

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night,

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time! . . .
Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O, 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

6

Dabbled in blood; and he shrieked 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 about, and howled 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 the dream.

Brak. No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you ;
I promise you, I am afraid to hear you tell it.

187

Clar. O Brakenbury, I have done those things,
Which now bear 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 wrath in me alone,

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me ;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

King Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4, l. 1.

Lady Macbeth. Here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh ! Doctor. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. Gentlewoman. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo 's buried; he cannot come out on 's grave.

Doct. Even so?

Lady M. To bed, to bed! there 's knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. - To bed, to bed, to bed!

[Exit.

REMORSE.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets :
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all!

189

Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 1, 1. 56.

THE MURDER OF THE TWO YOUNG PRINCES.

Sir James Tyrrel. The tyrannous and bloody deed is done,

The most arch act of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this ruthless piece of butchery,

Although they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and kind compassion
Wept like two children in their death's sad stories,
'Lo, thus,' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes : '
Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another
Within their innocent alabaster arms:

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

Which in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay;

Which once,' quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind;
But O! the devil' there the villain stopp'd;

Whilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered

The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'
Thus both are gone with conscience and remorse;
They could not speak; and so I left them both,
To bring this tidings to the bloody king.

And here he comes.

King Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 1.