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.

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 assur'd,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues. Glo. Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears 27:

I like
you, lads-about
Go, go, despatch.

1 Murd.

your

business straight;

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 pass'd a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,

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

'Men's eyes must millstones drop, when fools shed tears.'

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 embark'd to cross to Burgundy1;
And, in my company, my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward Eng-
land,

And cited up a thousand heavy 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 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 2:
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;

1 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, 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.

2 See a note on Milton's Lycidas, v. 157. Milton's Minor Poems, by T. Warton, ed. 1791.

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued3 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
(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 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 wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk 5,
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!

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 cry'd aloud,- What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by

3 Unvalued for invaluable, not to be valued, inestimable. Thus Spenser, sonnet lxxvii. :

'Two golden apples of unvalew'd price.'

And Milton, speaking of Shakspeare :

each heart

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book

Those Delphick lines with deep impression took.'

4 Vast is waste, desolate. Vastum per inane.

5 Bulk, i. e. breast. See note on Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 1.

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair

-

Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud, -
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd 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 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 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 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 aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:

O, spare my guiltless wife,

8 and my poor I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;

children!

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.

Lee has transplanted this image into his Mithridates, Act iv. Sc. 1.

7 Fleeting or flitting, in old language, was used for uncertain, inconstant, fluctuating. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra :

now the fleeting moon

No planet is of mine."

Clarence broke his oath with the earl of Warwick, and joined the army of his brother Edward. See King Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 1.

8 The wife of Clarence died before he was apprehended and confined in the Tower. See note on p. 39.

Princes have but their titles for their glories 9,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,

They often feel a world of restless cares 10:
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 would'st thou, fellow? and how cam'st thou hither?

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

Brak. What, so brief?

2 Murd. O, sir, 'tis better to be brief than tedious:

Let him see our commission; talk no more.

[A Paper is 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.
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 well.
[Exit BRAKENBURY.
2 Murd. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

9 This line may be thus understood, The glories of princes are nothing more than empty titles:' but it would impress the purpose of the speaker, and correspond better with the following lines, if it were read :

'Princes have but their titles for their troubles.'

JOHNSON.

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