Shakespeare on Concience
“conscience is a word that cowards use, devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe…”
Richard III
dismisses his own self-pity, his moment of weakness (lines 201-204). When Ratcliff wakes him, he blurts out that he has had “a fearful dream,” that “shadows” have frightened him more than ten thousand soldiers could. A little later, ordering Norfolk to ready his men for battle, he says:
Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls
For conscience is a word that cowards use,
Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
That “babbling dreams” is a clue that he still hears the “thousand tongues,” and the reference to “conscience” twice in four lines shows that he is still hearing the voices of his victims, the voice of his own conscience. Still later, when he is addressing his troops before battle, delivering what is supposed to be a “pep talk,” there is another echo of his dream: