Shakespeare · Soliloquies & Solo Speeches
Production Notes
Clarence, imprisoned in the Tower by his brother Richard, recounts a vivid dream of drowning — a journey through dark water filled with the sunken relics of war and betrayal. The speech anticipates his own murder, though he does not know it. It is one of Shakespeare’s great dream speeches: specific, aquatic, and terrible.
The imagery is extraordinarily visual. Players who can make the audience see — skulls with gems in their eye-sockets, scattered gold among bones — will find this speech expands the playing space beyond the stage.
Script
CLARENCE
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower And was embarked to cross to Burgundy, And in my company my brother Gloucester, Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster, That had befall’n us. As we paced along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown, What dreadful noise of waters in my ears, What sights of ugly death within my eyes. Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks, A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon, Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept — As ’twere in scorn of eyes — reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
Facilitator Notes
Warm-up: Explore physical memory — ask Players to recall a moment of sudden fear (safe context). Let that embodied memory inform the speech’s opening.
Debrief prompts:
- Clarence says “Methoughts” and “Methought” — the past tense of a dream. How does that grammatical distancing shape the Player’s relationship to the imagery?
- The speech is technically a report of a dream to another character — it is not a soliloquy addressed to the audience. How does knowing you are speaking to someone change the delivery?
- Gloucester pushes Clarence overboard in the dream. How much does Clarence know, consciously, about what that means?
- The final image — gems mocking dead bones — is grotesque and beautiful at once. Where in the speech does beauty tip into horror?