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 murd’ring 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.
FIRST MURDERER.
Relent? No, ’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? Ay, you would beg,
Were you in my distress.
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;
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 the body.]
SECOND MURDERER.
A bloody deed, and desperately dispatched.
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous murder.