Richard The Third, Act I, Scene 4

Abstract

The chief source of Shakespeare's tragedy of Richard the Third has long been acknowledged to be either Hall's or Holinshed's prose Chronicle. In addition, some echoes have been discovered in it of the Latin tragedy, Richardus Tertius, of the anonymous English True Tragedie of Richard the Third, and of Marlowe's play, Edward the Second. But for one of the longest and most impressive scenes in Shakespeare's drama, that in which Clarence in prison meets his death at the hands of two ruffians hired for the deed by his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, no source is generally known. For the basis of the entire scene, Hall's Chronicle, which is so close akin to most situations in the play, contains of Clarence's death merely the statement that “attainted was he by parliament and iudged to death, and there vpon hastely drowned in a butte of malmesey within the towre of London.” Mr. P. A. Daniel expresses the common opinion of Shakespearian scholars to-day in saying, “Shakespeare seems to have been indebted to his own imagination only, for the scene of Clarence in prison, his beautiful narrative of his dream, and the less happy dialogue of the murderers.”