No More Learning

What likelihood of his amendment,
Lords?
BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks
cheerfully.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer
with him?
BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement
Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will
never be.
I fear our happiness is at the height.

Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET

GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.
Who is it that complains unto the King
That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,
Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-
Whom God preserve better than you would wish! -
Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the
matter.
The King, on his own royal disposition
And not provok'd by any suitor else-
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred
That in your outward action shows itself
Against my children, brothers, and myself-
Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.
GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,
brother Gloucester:
You envy my advancement and my friends';
God grant we never may have need of you!
GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.
Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility
Held in contempt; while great promotions
Are daily given to ennoble those
That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful
height
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
I never did incense his Majesty
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean
Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.
RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-
GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows
not so?
She may do more, sir, than denying that:
She may help you to many fair preferments
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-
RIVERS. What, marry, may she?
GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
Iwis your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long
borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen with this condition-
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.

Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind

Small joy have I in being England's Queen.
QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I
beseech Him!
Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the
King?
Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said
I will avouch't in presence of the King.
I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.
'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to
well:
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband
King,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends;
To royalize his blood I spent mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or
thine.
GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey
Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere this, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.
GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,
Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon! -
QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!
GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,
Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this
world,
Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.
RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.
So should we you, if you should be our king.
GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy were you this country's king,
As little joy you may suppose in me
That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient. [Advancing]
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!
GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my
sight?
QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,
That will I make before I let thee go.
GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in
banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;
And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.
This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,
And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-
His curses then from bitterness of soul
Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.
HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!
RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,
Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,
And see another, as I see thee now,
Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many length'ned hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,
That none of you may live his natural age,
But by some unlook'd accident cut off!
GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd
hag.
QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou
shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw 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 while 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 heavy mother's womb,
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,
Thou rag of honour, thou detested-
GLOUCESTER. Margaret!
QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!
GLOUCESTER. Ha?
QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.
GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse
against yourself.
QUEEN MARGARET. 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 day will come that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.
HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all
mov'd mine.
RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your
duty.
QUEEN MARGARET. 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!
DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge
What 'twere 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.
GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.
DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
GLOUCESTER. Ay, 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.
QUEEN MARGARET. 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 is won with blood, lost be it so!
BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!
QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame;
And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!
BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy
hand
In sign of league and amity with thee.
Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
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.
GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
QUEEN MARGARET. 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! Exit
BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.
RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.
GLOUCESTER. 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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.
GLOUCESTER. 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;
He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us!
GLOUCESTER. So do I ever- [Aside] being well advis'd;
For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

Enter CATESBY

CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,
And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go
with me?
RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.
Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER. 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, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls;
Namely, to Derby, 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 reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, 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 villainy
With odd old ends stol'n 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 dispatch this thing?
FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the
warrant,
That we may be admitted where he is.
GLOUCESTER. 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.
FIRST MURDERER. 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.
GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall
tears.
I like you, lads; about your business straight;
Go, go, dispatch.
FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord. Exeunt




SCENE 4.

London. The Tower

Enter CLARENCE and KEEPER

KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?
CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd 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!
KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you
tell me.
CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,
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 Gloucester 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 waters in my ears,
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;
Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the 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 scatt'red by.
KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?
CLARENCE. No, 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 sour 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 spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence? '
And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
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 unto torment! '
With that, methoughts, 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.
KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, 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 in me alone;
O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
KEEPER, I prithee sit by me awhile;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.
[CLARENCE sleeps]

Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant

BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning and the noontide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And for unfelt imaginations
They often feel a world of restless cares,
So that between their tides and low name
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

Enter the two MURDERERS

FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?
BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st
thou hither?
FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came
hither on my legs.
BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?
SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let
him see our commission and talk no more.
[BRAKENBURY reads it]
BRAKENBURY. 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 from the meaning.
There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.
I'll to the King and signify to him
That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.
FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare
you well. Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER
SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?
FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when
he wakes.
SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great
judgment-day.
FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him
sleeping.
SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath
bred a kind of remorse in me.
FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?
SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to
be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can
defend me.
FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.
SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.
FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and
tell him so.
SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this
passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to
hold me but while one tells twenty.
FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?
SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience
are yet within me.
FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's
done.
SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.
FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?
SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!
FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our
reward, thy conscience flies out.
SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or
none will entertain it.
FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?
SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man
coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man
cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his
neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-
fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man
full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold
that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.
It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;
and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust
to himself and live without it.
FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,
persuading me not to kill the Duke.
SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe
him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the
sigh.
FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with
me.
SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy
reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?
FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of
thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the
next room.
SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of
him.
FIRST MURDERER. Soft!