Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира - [57]

Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,

And cheer his grace with quick and merry eyes.

Elizabeth

If he were dead, what would betide on me?

Rivers

No other harm but loss of such a lord.

Elizabeth

The loss of such a lord includes all harms.

Grey

The heavens have blessed you with a goodly son

To be your comforter when he is gone.

Elizabeth

Ah, he is young, and his minority

Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,

A man that loves not me nor none of you.

Rivers

Is it concluded that he shall be Protector?

Elizabeth

It is determined, not concluded yet,

But so it must be if the king miscarry.

^{Enter Buckingham and Stanley Earl of Derby.}

Grey

Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.

Buckingham

Good time of day unto your royal grace.

Stanley

God make your majesty joyful, as you have been.

Elizabeth

The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby,

To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.

Yet Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife

And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured

I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stanley

I do beseech you, either not believe

The envious slanders of her false accusers,

Or if she be accused on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds

From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.

Rivers

Saw you the king today, my lord of Derby?

Elizabeth

But now the Duke of Buckingham and I

Are come from visiting his majesty.

Elizabeth

What likelihood of his amendment, lords?

Buckingham

Madam, good hope. His grace speaks cheerfully.

Elizabeth

God grant him health. Did you confer with him?

Buckingham

Ay, madam. He desires to make atonement

Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,

And between them and my Lord Chamberlain,

And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Elizabeth

Would all were well, but that will never be.

I fear our happiness is at the hight.

^{Enter Richard and Hastings.}

Richard

They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.

Who is it that complain unto the king

That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?

By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly

That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.

Because I cannot flatter and look fair,

Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,

Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,

I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,

But thus his simple truth must be abused

By silken, sly, insinuating jacks?

Grey

To who in all this presence speaks your grace?

Richard

To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.

When have I injured thee? When done thee wrong?

Or thee? Or thee? Or any of your faction?

A plague upon you all. His royal grace,

Whom God preserve better than you would wish,

Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.

Elizabeth

Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.

The king, of his own royal disposition,

And not provoked by any suitor else,

Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,

That in your outward actions shows itself

Against my children, brothers, and myself,

Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground.

Richard

I cannot tell. The world is grown so bad

That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

Since every jack became a gentleman,

There’s many a gentle person made a jack.

Elizabeth

Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester.

You envy my advancement and my friends’.

God grant we never may have need of you.

Richard

Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.

Your brother is imprisoned by your means,

My self disgraced, and the nobility

Held in contempt, while great promotions

Are daily given to ennoble those

That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.

Elizabeth

By Him that raised me to this careful height

From that contented hap which I enjoyed,

I never did incense his majesty

Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been

An earnest advocate to plead for him.

My lord, you do me shameful injury

Falsely to draw me in these vile suspècts.

Richard

You may deny that you were not the mean

Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.

Rivers

She may, my lord, for —

Richard

She may, Lord Rivers, why, who knows not so?

She may do more, sir, than denying that.

She may help you to many fair preferments,

And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may she.

Rivers

What, marry, may she?

Richard

What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,

A bachelor, a handsome stripling too.

I wis your grandam had a worser match.

Elizabeth

My lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne

Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.

By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty

Of those gross taunts that oft I have endured.

I had rather be a country servant maid

Than a great queen, with this condition,

To be so baited, scorned, and stormèd at.

Small joy have I in being England’s queen.

^{Enter old queen Margaret.}

Margaret (aside)

And lessened be that small, God I beseech him.

Thy honour, state and seat is due to me.

Richard

What? Threat you me with telling of the king?

I will avouch’t in presence of the king.

I dare adventure to be sent to th’Tower.

ʼTis time to speak. My pains are quite forgot.

Margaret (aside)

Out, devil. I do remember them too well.