Clarence
My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.
First Murderer
Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy faults
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
Clarence
If you do 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
Oh, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
Go you to him from me.
First Murderer
Ay, so we will.
Clarence
Tell him, when that our princely father York
Blessed his three sons with his victorious arm,
He little thought of this divided friendship.
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
First Murderer
Ay, millstones, as he lessoned us to weep.
Clarence
Oh, do not slander him, for he is kind.
First Murderer
Right, as snow in harvest.
Come, you deceive yourself,
ʼTis he that sent us to destroy you here.
Clarence
It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune,
He hugged me in his arms, and swore with sobs
That he would labour my delivery.
First Murderer
Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
From this earth’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.
Second Murderer
Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.
Clarence
Have you that holy feeling in your souls,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And are you yet to your own souls so blind.
That you will war with God by murdering me?
O sirs, consider, they 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,
Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
Being pent from liberty, as am I now,
If two such murderers as yourself came to you,
Would not entreat for life as you would beg,
Were you in my distress?
First Murderer
Relent? No. ʼTis cowardly and womanish.
Clarence
Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks.
Oh, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side and entreat for me;
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
Second Murderer
Look behind you, my lord.
First Murderer
Take that, and that.
(Stabs him.)
If all this will not do,
I’ll drown you in the malmsey butt within.
>Exit [with Clarence’s body].
Second Murderer
A bloody deed, and desperately dispatched.
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous murder.
>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 you have been.