On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour thou detested -
Glou. Margaret.

Q. Mar.

Glou.

Q. Mar.

Richard!

Ha!

1 call thee not.

Glou. I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
Q. Mar. Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.

O, let me make the period to my curse!

Glou. 'T is done by me, and ends in "Margaret."

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Q. Eliz. Thus have you breath'd your curse against yourself. Q. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune! Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,

Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come when thou shalt wish for me

To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-back'd toad.
Hast. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

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Q. Mar. Foul shame upon you! you have all mov'd mine.
Riv. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your duty.
Q. Mar. To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
Dor. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

Q. Mar. Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge

What 't were to lose it, and be miserable!

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

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Glou. Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.

Dor. It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.

Glou. Yea, and much more: but I was born so high, Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

Q. Mar. And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death;
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

Buck. Have done! for shame, if not for charity.
Q. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame;

And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!

Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy hand,

In sign of league and amity with thee:

Now fair befal 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.

[Aside to Buck.] O Buckingham, take heed 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.

Glou. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?

Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

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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!

Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
Riv. And so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.
Glou. I cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,

264 aery=brood of young eagles or hawks.

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(Exit

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.
Glou. But 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;
He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains:
God pardon them that are the cause of it!

Riv. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
Το pray for them that have done scathe to us.
Glou. So do I ever: [Aside] being well advis'd.
For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

Enter CATESBY.

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

Q. Eliz. Catesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?

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Riv. Madam, we will attend your grace. [Exeunt all but Gloucester. Glou. 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, Derby, 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 stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
But, soft! here come my executioners.

Enter two Murderers.

How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!

Are you now going to dispatch this deed?

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

rant,

That we may be admitted where he is.

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

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.

314 frank'd styed: a franka sty.

[Gives the warrant

337 ends = verbal formulas; so called because letters, sermons and speeches were ended with them.

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.
First Murd. Tush!

Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers: be assur'd

We come to use our hands and not our tongues.

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Glou. Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears: I like you, lads; about your business straight;

Go, go, dispatch.

First Murd. We will, my noble lord.

SCENE IV. London. The Tower.

Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.

Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night,

Though 't were to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time.

[Exeunt.

Brak. What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it. Clar. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Glou'ster;

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches: thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful 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 Glou'ster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears !
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wracks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
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,

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As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which 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 flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul,

Who 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 squeak'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, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me about, and howled 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 the dream.

Brak. No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;

I promise you, I am afraid to hear you tell it.

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 aveng'd 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.

46 grim ferryman Charon, who ferried ghosts across the Styx to Hader
though if, that.

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