Complete Plays, The (299 page)

A man, as you are.

Clarence

But not, as I am, royal.

Second Murderer

Nor you, as we are, loyal.

Clarence

Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

Second Murderer

My voice is now the king’s, my looks mine own.

Clarence

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

To, to, to —

Clarence

To murder me?

Both

Ay, ay.

Clarence

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?

First Murderer

Offended us you have not, but the king.

Clarence

I shall be reconciled to him again.

Second Murderer

Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.

Clarence

Are you call’d forth from out a world of men
To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
Where are the evidence that do accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounced
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death?
Before I be convict by course of law,
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
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.

First Murderer

What we will do, we do upon command.

Second Murderer

And he that hath commanded is the king.

Clarence

Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings
Hath in the tables of his law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,
Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man’s?
Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

Second Murderer

And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,
For false forswearing and for murder too:
Thou didst receive the holy sacrament,
To fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.

First Murderer

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

Second Murderer

Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.

First Murderer

How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law to us,
When thou hast broke it in so dear degree?

Clarence

Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,
He sends ye not to murder me for this
For in this sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be revenged for this deed.
O, know you yet, he doth it publicly,
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm;
He needs no indirect nor lawless course
To cut off those that have offended him.

First Murderer

Who made thee, then, a bloody minister,
When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?

Clarence

My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.

First Murderer

Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy fault,
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.

Clarence

Oh, if you love my brother, hate not me;
I am his brother, and I love him well.
If you be hired for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
Who shall reward you better for my life
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.

Second Murderer

You are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.

Clarence

O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:
Go you to him from me.

Both

Ay, so we will.

Clarence

Tell him, when that our princely father York
Bless’d his three sons with his victorious arm,
And charged us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided friendship:
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.

First Murderer

Ay, millstones; as be lesson’d us to weep.

Clarence

O, do not slander him, for he is kind.

First Murderer

Right,
As snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:
’Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.

Clarence

It cannot be; for when I parted with him,
He hugg’d me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,
That he would labour my delivery.

Second Murderer

Why, so he doth, now he delivers thee
From this world’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.

First Murderer

Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.

Clarence

Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,
That thou wilt war with God by murdering me?
Ah, sirs, consider, he that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.

Second Murderer

What shall we do?

Clarence

 
Relent, and save your souls.

First Murderer

Relent! ’tis cowardly and womanish.

Clarence

Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
Would not entreat for life?
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress
A begging prince what beggar pities not?

Second Murderer

Look behind you, my lord.

First Murderer

Take that, and that: if all this will not do,

Stabs him

I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.

Exit, with the body

Second Murderer

A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch’d!
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous guilty murder done!

Re-enter First Murderer

First Murderer

How now! what mean’st thou, that thou help’st me not?
By heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!

Second Murderer

I would he knew that I had saved his brother!
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;
For I repent me that the duke is slain.

Exit

First Murderer

So do not I: go, coward as thou art.
Now must I hide his body in some hole,
Until the duke take order for his burial:
And when I have my meed, I must away;
For this will out, and here I must not stay.

A
CT
II

S
CENE
I. L
ONDON
. T
HE
PALACE
.

Flourish. Enter King Edward IV sick, Queen Elizabeth, Dorset, Rivers, Hastings, Buckingham, Grey, and others

King Edward IV

Why, so: now have I done a good day’s work:
You peers, continue this united league:
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;
And now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,
Since I have set my friends at peace on earth.
Rivers and Hastings, take each other’s hand;
Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.

Rivers

By heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:
And with my hand I seal my true heart’s love.

Hastings

So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!

King Edward IV

Take heed you dally not before your king;
Lest he that is the supreme King of kings
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
Either of you to be the other’s end.

Hastings

So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!

Rivers

And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!

King Edward IV

Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,
Nor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;
You have been factious one against the other,
Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
And what you do, do it unfeignedly.

Queen Elizabeth

Here, Hastings; I will never more remember
Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!

King Edward IV

Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.

Dorset

This interchange of love, I here protest,
Upon my part shall be unviolable.

Hastings

And so swear I, my lord

They embrace

King Edward IV

Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league
With thy embracements to my wife’s allies,
And make me happy in your unity.

Buckingham

Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
On you or yours,

To the Queen

but with all duteous love
Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most love!
When I have most need to employ a friend,
And most assured that he is a friend
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he unto me! this do I beg of God,
When I am cold in zeal to yours.

King Edward IV

A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,
To make the perfect period of this peace.

Buckingham

And, in good time, here comes the noble duke.

Enter Gloucester

Gloucester

Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen:
And, princely peers, a happy time of day!

King Edward IV

Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
Brother, we done deeds of charity;
Made peace enmity, fair love of hate,
Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.

Gloucester

A blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:
Amongst this princely heap, if any here,
By false intelligence, or wrong surmise,
Hold me a foe;
If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
’Tis death to me to be at enmity;
I hate it, and desire all good men’s love.
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my duteous service;
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
If ever any grudge were lodged between us;
Of you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;
That without desert have frown’d on me;
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.
I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds
More than the infant that is born to-night
I thank my God for my humility.

Queen Elizabeth

A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.

Gloucester

Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this
To be so bouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the noble duke is dead?

They all start

You do him injury to scorn his corse.

Rivers

Who knows not he is dead! who knows he is?

Queen Elizabeth

All seeing heaven, what a world is this!

Buckingham

Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?

Dorset

Ay, my good lord; and no one in this presence
But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.

King Edward IV

Is Clarence dead? the order was reversed.

Gloucester

But he, poor soul, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear:
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
That came too lag to see him buried.
God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion!

Enter Derby

Dorset

A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!

King Edward IV

I pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.

Dorset

I will not rise, unless your highness grant.

King Edward IV

Then speak at once what is it thou demand’st.

Dorset

The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant’s life;
Who slew to-day a righteous gentleman
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.

King Edward IV

Have a tongue to doom my brother’s death,
And shall the same give pardon to a slave?
My brother slew no man; his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was cruel death.
Who sued to me for him? who, in my rage,
Kneel’d at my feet, and bade me be advised
Who spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field by Tewksbury
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me,
And said, ‘Dear brother, live, and be a king’?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his own garments, and gave himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck’d, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defaced
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I unjustly too, must grant it you
But for my brother not a man would speak,
Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholding to him in his life;
Yet none of you would once plead for his life.
O God, I fear thy justice will take hold
On me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.
Oh, poor Clarence!