Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира - [54]

Brakenbury

With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.

Richard

Naught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,

He that doth naught with her (excepting one)

Were best to do it secretly alone.

Brakenbury

What one, my lord?

Richard

Her husband, knave. Wouldst thou betray me?

Brakenbury

I do beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal

Forbear your conference with the noble duke.

Clarence

We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.

Richard

We are the queen’s abjects and must obey.

Brother, farewell. I will unto the king,

And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,

I will perform it to enfranchise you.

Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood

Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

Clarence

I know it pleaseth neither of us well.

Richard

Well, your imprisonment shall not be long.

I will deliver you or else Lie for you.

Meantime, have patience.

Clarence

I must perforce. Farewell.

^{Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbury, and guards.}

Richard

Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.

Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so

That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,

If heaven will take the present at our hands.

But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?

^{Enter Lord Hastings.}

Hastings

Good time of day unto my gracious lord.

Richard

As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain.

Well are you welcome to this open air.

How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment?

Hastings

With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must.

But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks

That were the cause of my imprisonment.

Richard

No doubt, no doubt, and so shall Clarence too,

For they that were your enemies are his

And have prevailed as much on him as you.

Hastings

More pity that the eagles should be mewed

While kites and buzzards play at liberty.

Richard

What news abroad?

Hastings

No news so bad abroad as this at home:

The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily.

Richard

Now by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.

Oh, he hath kept an evil diet long

And over-much consumed his royal person.

ʼTis very grievous to be thought upon.

Where is he, in his bed?

Hastings

He is.

Richard

Go you before, and I will follow you.

^{Exit Hastings.}

He cannot live, I hope, and must not die

Till George be packed with post-horse up to heaven.

I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence

With lies well steeled with weighty arguments,

And if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy

And leave the world for me to bustle in!

For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.

What though I killed her husband and her father?

The readiest way to make the wench amends

Is to become her husband and her father,

The which will I, not all so much for love

As for another secret close intent

By marrying her which I must reach unto.

But yet I run before my horse to market.

Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;

When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

^Exit.

Scene 2

^{Enter the corpse of Henry the Sixth, Halberds to guard it, lady Anne being the mourner [attended by Tressel, Berkeley, and other Gentlemen].}

Anne

Set down, set down your honourable load,

If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,

Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament

Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

^{The bearers set down the hearse.}

Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,

Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,

Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood,

Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost

To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,

Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,

Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.

Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,

I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.

Oh, cursèd be the hand that made these holes,

Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it,

Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.

More direful hap betide that hated wretch

That makes us wretched by the death of thee

Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,

Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.

If ever he have child, abortive be it,

Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,

Whose ugly and unnatural aspèct

May fright the hopeful mother at the view,

And that be heir to his unhappiness.

If ever he have wife, let her be made

More miserable by the death of him

Than I am made by my young lord and thee.

Come now towards Chertsey with your holy load,

Taken from Paul’s to be interrèd there.

And still as you are weary of this weight,

Rest you while I lament King Henry’s corpse.

^{Enter Richard duke of Gloucester.}

Richard

Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.

Anne

What black magician conjures up this fiend

To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Richard

Villains, set down the corpse, or by Saint Paul,

I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.

Gentleman

My lord, stand back and let the coffin pass.

Richard

Unmannered dog, stand thou when I command.

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,

Or by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot

And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

^{The bearers set down the hearse.}

Anne

What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?

Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,

And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.