Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Now fair befall thee, and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Q. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky, And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace. O, Buckingham, beware of yonder dog;

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites, His venom tooth will rankle to the death.

Have not to do with him, beware of him;

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him ;
And all their ministers attend on him.

Glo. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Q. Mar. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle
counsel ?

And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow;
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.-
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's ?1

[Exit.

Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

Riv. And so doth mine; I muse, why she's at

liberty.

Glo. I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother; She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof, that I have done to her.

Q. Eliz. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
Glo. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good,

That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid.

1 It is evident, from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancastrian prejudices, even in the reign of queen Elizabeth. He seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which queen Margaret had ranted against them; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them.— Walpole.

He is franked' up to fatting for his pains ;-
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
Riv. A virtuous and a Christianlike conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scath to us.
Glo. So do I ever, being well advised ;-
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter CATESBY.

[Aside.

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?

Riv. Madam, we will attend upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.

Glo. 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 Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham ;
And tell them-'tis the queen and her allies,
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged 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, stolen forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Enter Two Murderers.

But soft, here come my executioners.

How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates?
Are you now going to despatch this thing?

1 Murd. We are, my lord; and come to have the

warrant,

That we may be admitted where he is.

1 A frank is a pen or coop in which hogs and other animals were confined while fatting. To franch, or frank, was to cram, to fatten.

Glo. Well thought upon; I have it here about me;

[Gives the warrant.

When you have done, repair to Crosby-place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead ;
For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps,
May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.

1 Murd. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate,

Talkers are no good doers; be assured,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

Glo. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop tears.1

I like you, lads;—about your business straight.
Go, go, despatch.

1 Murd.

We will, my noble lord. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower.

Enter CLARENCE and BRAKEnbury.

Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. O, I have passed 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,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you,

tell me.

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy;2

1 This appears to have been a proverbial saying. It occurs again in the tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, 1607 :

"Men's eyes must mill-stones drop when fools shed tears."

2 Clarence was desirous to assist his sister Margaret against the French king, who invaded her jointure lands after the death of her husband, Charles duke of Burgundy, who was killed at Nancy, in January, 1476–7. Isabel, the wife of Clarence, being then dead (poisoned by the duke of Gloucester, as it has been conjectured), he wished to have married Mary,

And, in my company, my brother Gloster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we looked toward England, And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befallen us. As we paced 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 sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued1 jewels,

All scattered 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 wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon these 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 seek the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,3
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthened after life;

the daughter and heir of the duke of Burgundy; but the match was opposed by Edward, who hoped to have obtained her for his brother-in-law, lord Rivers; and this circumstance has been suggested as the principal cause of the breach between Edward and Clarence. Mary of Burgundy, however, chose a husband for herself, having married, in 1477, Maximilian, son of the emperor Frederic.

1 Unvalued for invaluable.
2 Vast is waste, desolate.
3 Bulk, i. e. breast.

[blocks in formation]

O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I passed, 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 vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud,-
Clarence is come, false, fleeting,1 perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ;—
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!
With that, methought a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, 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 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 these thingsThat 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 wrath on 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.

Brak. I will, my lord; God give your grace good

rest!

[CLARENCE reposes himself on a chair. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,

Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.

1 Fleeting or flitting, in old language, was used for uncertain, inconstant, fluctuating.

2 The wife of Clarence died before he was apprehended and confined in the Tower.

« ZurückWeiter »