Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира - [59]

Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,

Thou loathèd issue of thy father’s loins,

Thou rag of honour, thou detested —

Richard

               Margaret.

Margaret

Richard.

Richard

Ha?

Margaret

I call thee not.

Richard

I cry thee mercy then, for I did think

That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.

Margaret

Why so I did, but looked for no reply.

Oh, let me make the period to my curse.

Richard

ʼTis done by me, and ends in ʼMargaret’.

Elizabeth

Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.

Margaret

Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,

Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider

Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.

The time will come that thou shalt wish for me

To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad.

Hastings

False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,

Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

Margaret

Foul shame upon you. You have all moved mine.

Rivers

Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.

Margaret

To serve me well, you all should do me duty,

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects;

Oh, serve me well and teach yourselves that duty.

Dorset

Dispute not with her. She is lunatic.

Margaret

Peace, master marquess, you are malapert.

Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.

Oh, that your young nobility could judge

What ’twere to lose it and be miserable.

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,

And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Richard

Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, marquess.

Dorset

It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.

Richard

Ay, and much more. But I was born so high.

Our aerie buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

Margaret

And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas.

Witness my son, now in the shade of death,

Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath

Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aerie buildeth in our aerie’s nest.

O God that seest it, do not suffer it;

As it was won with blood, lost be it so.

Buckingham

Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.

Margaret

Urge neither charity nor shame to me.

Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.

My charity is outrage, life my shame,

And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.

Buckingham

Have done, have done.

Margaret

O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand

In sign of league and amity with thee.

Now fair befall thee and thy noble house.

Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,

Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buckingham

Nor no one here, for curses never pass

The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Margaret

I will not think but they ascend the sky

And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.

O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog.

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,

His venom tooth will rankle to the death.

Have not to do with him; beware of him.

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,

And all their ministers attend on him.

Richard

What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?

Buckingham

Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

Margaret

What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel

And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?

Oh, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,

And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.

Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.

^Exit.

Hastings

My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

Rivers

And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.

Richard

I cannot blame her, by God’s holy mother,

She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof that I have done to her.

Elizabeth

I never did her any to my knowledge.

Richard

Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.

I was too hot to do somebody good

That is too cold in thinking of it now.

Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;

He is franked up to fatting for his pains.

God pardon them that are the cause thereof.

Rivers

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,

To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

Richard

So do I ever, being well-advised.

(Speaks to himself.) For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

^{Enter Catesby.}

Catesby

Madam, his majesty doth call for you,

And for your grace, and you, my gracious lord.

Queen Elizabeth

Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?

Rivers

We wait upon your grace.

^{Exeunt all but Glouceter.}

Richard

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach

I lay unto the grievous charge of others.

Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,

I do beweep to many simple gulls,

Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham,

And tell them ʼtis the queen and her allies

That stir the king against the duke my brother.

Now they believe it, and withal whet me

To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.

But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

^{Enter two Murderers.}

But, soft, here come my executioners —

How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates,

Are you now going to dispatch this thing?