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

        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