Act 3. Scene V

SCENE V. The Tower-walls.

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured
GLOUCESTER
Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,
Murder thy breath in the middle of a word,
And then begin again, and stop again,
As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?

BUCKINGHAM
Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles;
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time, to grace my stratagems.
But what, is Catesby gone?

GLOUCESTER
He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.

Enter the Lord Mayor and CATESBY

BUCKINGHAM
Lord mayor,--

GLOUCESTER
Look to the drawbridge there!

BUCKINGHAM
Hark! a drum.

GLOUCESTER
Catesby, o'erlook the walls.

BUCKINGHAM
Lord mayor, the reason we have sent--

GLOUCESTER
Look back, defend thee, here are enemies.

BUCKINGHAM
God and our innocency defend and guard us!

GLOUCESTER
Be patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.

Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head

LOVEL
Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

GLOUCESTER
So dear I loved the man, that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless creature
That breathed upon this earth a Christian;
Made him my book wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts:
So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,
That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
I mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,
He lived from all attainder of suspect.

BUCKINGHAM
Well, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor
That ever lived.
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
Were't not that, by great preservation,
We live to tell it you, the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?

Lord Mayor
What, had he so?

GLOUCESTER
What, think You we are Turks or infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly to the villain's death,
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England and our persons' safety,
Enforced us to this execution?

Lord Mayor
Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death;
And you my good lords, both have well proceeded,
To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
I never look'd for better at his hands,
After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.

GLOUCESTER
Yet had not we determined he should die,
Until your