George, Duke of Clarence's nightmare premonition of death by drowning in Richard III does more than foreshadow his demise in a butt of Malmsey wine. The dream showcases watery thinking by displaying myriad ways that water supplies both metaphors about and the matter of thought. As a medium of sensory experience, water in Clarence's dream provides a material baseline, with “dreadful noise,” “sights of ugly death,” and the imagined feel of the “slimy bottom of the deep” (1.4.22, 1.4.23, 1.4.32). As a means of chthonic transport, “the envious flood” of the ocean carries Clarence to death's “melancholy flood” beside the “sour ferryman” Charon at the River Styx (1.4.37, 1.4.45–6). Beyond the infernal river, Clarence voyages to hell to meet Warwick, Prince Edward, and a “legion of foul fiends” that “environed” him in torments (1.4.37, 1.4.45–6, 1.4.58–9). Water carries Clarence's imagined body and sweeps away his imagination. As a type and material substance of environment, water in these passages enables and frustrates movement in both the literal and figurative senses. The fluid medium provides the passage of Clarence's ship to nearby Burgundy, connecting him to the wider shipping paths of the growing (and lucrative) global early modern trade.