tedious. Show
him our commission; talk no more.
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 my charge to you.
Do so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.
What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?
No; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.
When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till
the judgment-day.
Why, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.
The urging of that word 'judgment' hath bred a kind
of remorse in me.
What, art thou afraid?
Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be
damned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.
I thought thou hadst been resolute.
So I am, to let him live.
Back to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.
I pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour
will change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one
would tell twenty.
How dost thou feel thyself now?
'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet
within me.
Remember our reward, when the deed is done.
'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.
Where is thy conscience now?
In the Duke of Gloucester's purse.
So when he opens his purse to give us our reward,
thy conscience flies out.
Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it.
How if it come to thee again?
I'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it
makes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it
accuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;
he cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it
detects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that
mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of
obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold
that I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it
is turned out of all towns and cities for a
dangerous thing; and every man that means to live
well endeavours to trust to himself and to live
without it.
'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me
not to kill the duke.
Take the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he
would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.
Tut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail