“Here, receive my crown. Receive it? No; these innocent hands of mine Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime: He of you all that most desires my blood, And will be called the murderer of a king, Take it. What, are you moved? Pity you me? Then send for unrelenting Mortimer, And Isabel, whose eyes, being turned to steel, Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear. Yet stay, for rather than I’ll look on them, Here, here!--Now, sweet God of Heaven, Make me despise this transitory pomp, And sit for aye enthronizèd in Heaven! Come, Death, and with thy fingers close my eyes, Or, if I live, let me forget myself.” Surely one might fancy that to be from the prentice hand of Shakespeare. It is no small distinction that this can be said of Marlowe, for it can be said of no other. What follows is still finer. The ruffian who is to murder Edward, in order to evade his distrust, pretends to weep. The king exclaims:-- “Weep’st thou already? List awhile to me, And then thy heart, were it as Gurney’s is, Or as Matrevis’, hewn from the Caucasus, Yet will it melt ere I have done my tale. This dungeon where they keep me is the sink Wherein the filth of all the castle falls, And there in mire and puddle have I stood This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum; They give me bread and water, being a king; So that, for want of sleep and sustenance, My mind’s distempered and my body numbed, And whether I have limbs or no I know not. O, would my blood dropt out from every vein, As doth this water from my tattered robes! Tell Isabel the queen I looked not thus, When, for her sake, I ran at tilt in France, And there unhorsed the Duke of Clerëmont.”