Текст книги "Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира"

Автор книги: Уильям Шекспир

Уильям Шекспир
Ричард III
С параллельным английским текстом. Фрагмент
Перевод А. Величанский

Вступление Андрея Горбунова

Перед нами отрывок из перевода хроники Шекспира «Ричард III», который начал, но не успел закончить Александр Величанский (1940–1990). Имя этого тонкого, никогда не шедшего на компромиссы поэта, остро чувствовавшего трагическую природу жизни и считавшего поэзию откровением, а «каждое поэтическое слово – тайной», сейчас, уже после его смерти, стало известно ценителям поэзии, хотя, может быть, и не столь широкому кругу читателей в целом. При жизни Величанский почти не публиковался, хотя его заметил и высоко оценил И. Бродский, а «путевку в литературу» ему дал А. Твардовский, напечатавший подборку его стихов в «Новом мире». Но только в последние годы вышли два тома его стихов, которые позволили нам по достоинству оценить весь спектр его творческого диапазона (Александр Величанский. Пепел слов. – М.: Прогресс-Традиция, 2010).

Большую роль в жизни Величанского играли занятия поэтическим переводом. Он и свои любимые произведения тоже переводил «в стол», работая над ними долгие годы и постоянно совершенствуя их. При этом главными пристрастиями его жизни стали два очень мало похожих друг на друга поэта – Шекспир и Эмили Дикинсон, великий английский драматург эпохи Возрождения с его эпическим охватом жизни и американская «затворница из Амхерста» XIX века с ее интроспекцией и лиризмом. В них Величанский видел близких себе художников, которых он хотел сделать близкими и русскому читателю, по-своему разгадав тайну их таланта.

У Шекспира его привлекли две пьесы, может быть, не столь популярные, как великие трагедии («Гамлет», «Отелло», «Король Лир» и «Макбет») или «счастливые комедии» типа «Сна в летнюю ночь», «Много шума из ничего» или «Двенадцатой ночи», но, безусловно, очень значимые и театральные. Это «Юлий Цезарь» [134]134
  Перевод «Юлия Цезаря» опубликован в 1998 году.


[Закрыть]и «Ричард III». Между этими пьесами есть определенное сходство. Обе считаются ранними творениями Шекспира, обе являются трагедиями (так «Ричард III» назван в первом кварто), и обе они с их вниманием к событиям прошлого и историческим источникам, рассказавшим об этих событиях, близки к жанру хроники. Но в то же время это, конечно же, совершенно разные пьесы. Если «Юлий Цезарь» (1599) уже предвосхищает великие трагедии и, в частности, написанного вслед за ним «Гамлета», то «Ричард III» (1592–1593) еще тесно связан с ранними хрониками о короле «Генрихе VI» и в фолио причислен к этому жанру.

Главный герой «Ричарда III» – безобразный горбун Глостер, чье уродство на ренессансный манер отражает его внутреннюю сущность беспринципного, коварного и честолюбивого злодея, с помощью кровавых преступлений расчищающего себе путь к трону. Такой герой близок Пороку из моралите, которые еще ставились в те времена, и макиавеллистам из трагедий Кида и Марло, старших современников Шекспира. Но при всех своих злодейских наклонностях, лицемерии, жестокости, расчетливости и кровожадности, герой Шекспира не лишен и своеобразного обаяния. Он красноречив, храбр, у него есть сила воли и чувство юмора, и он с явным удовольствием художника-изобретателя творит свои преступления. Иными словами, он сложный, чисто шекспировский характер, дающий актерам блестящую возможность показать свое искусство. Именно таким мы и видим его в начале трагедии, в том отрывке, который публикуется ниже.

А. Величанский считал, что «прежде всего поэтический перевод должен быть поэтическим, а не версификационным явлением. Только в этом случае можно рассчитывать на передачу того сокровенного вне лексического содержания поэзии, которое, в сущности, и является ее глубинным содержанием. Здесь мы сталкиваемся с самым сложным вопросом, стоящим перед переводчиком. Природа вдохновения, без которого невозможен подлинно поэтический перевод, абсолютно индивидуальна, и проникнуть в область сокровенного можно лишь единственным, абсолютно индивидуальным путем. Поэтому в переводе неизбежно должна проявляться личность переводчика. Это неминуемо личное искажение подлинника, может быть, есть единственная гарантия определенного соответствия ему».

Язык Шекспира сильно отличается от современного английского языка, и потому он достаточно труден для англоязычных читателей и зрителей сегодняшнего дня, хотя англичане и читают шекспировские пьесы в школе. Величанский, в отличие от большинства наших знаменитых переводчиков XX века, например, Пастернака, старался сохранить этот ускользающий «исторический» аромат подлинника, вводя в свой текст архаизмы и литературные конструкции, не характерные для разговорного языка. В этом, быть может, одна из важнейших, сразу бросающихся в глаза сторон его «личного искажения подлинника». Но такова была его поэтическая воля.

Будем надеяться, что знакомство с этим новым, пусть и незаконченным, переводом «Ричарда III» поможет нашим читателям открыть новые сокровенные тайны неисчерпаемого таланта Шекспира.

Act I

Scene 1

^{Enter Richard Duke of Glouster, solus.}

Richard

 
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbèd steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I that am not shaped for sportive tricks
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass,
I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph,
I that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determinèd to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other.
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed up
About a prophecy which says that ʼG’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul, here Clarence comes.
 

^{Enter Clarence and Brakenbury, guarded.}

 
Brother, good day. What means this armèd guard
That waits upon your grace?
 

Clarence

 
                                                     His majesty,
Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
 

Richard

Upon what cause?

Clarence

 
                     Because my name is George.
 

Richard

 
Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours.
He should for that commit your godfathers.
Oh, belike his majesty hath some intent
That you shall be new christened in the Tower.
But what’s the matter, Clarence? May I know?
 

Clarence

 
Yea, Richard, when I know, but I protest
As yet I do not. But as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,
And from the cross-row plucks the letter ʼG’.
And says a wizard told him that by ʼG’
His issue disinherited should be.
And for my name of George begins with ʼG’,
It follows in his thought that I am he.
These, as I learn, and such like toys as these
Hath moved his highness to commit me now.
 

Richard

 
Why, this it is when men are ruled by women.
ʼTis not the king that sends you to the Tower.
My lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, ʼtis she
That tempts him to this harsh extremity.
Was it not she and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodville, her brother there,
That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
From whence this present day he is delivered?
We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe.
 

Clarence

 
By heaven, I think there is no man secure
But the queen’s kindred and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.
Heard you not what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was for her delivery?
 

Richard

 
Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.
I’ll tell you what, I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the king,
To be her men and wear her livery.
The jealous, o’er-worn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen,
Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
 

Brakenbury

 
I beseech your graces both to pardon me;
His majesty hath straitly given in charge
That no man shall have private conference,
Of what degree soever, with your brother.
 

Richard

 
Even so. And please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say.
We speak no treason, man. We say the king
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous.
We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue,
And that the queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks.
How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
 

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.
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell.
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;
His soul thou canst not have. Therefore be gone.
 

Richard

Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.

Anne

 
Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and trouble us not,
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
O gentlemen, see, see, dead Henry’s wounds
Open their còngealed mouths and bleed afresh.
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
For ʼtis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells.
Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural
Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
O God, which this blood madʼst, revenge his death.
O earth, which this blood drinkʼstʼrevenge his death.
Either heavʼn with lightning strike the murdʼrer dead,
Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick,
As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood,
Which his hell-governed arm hath butcherèd.
 

Richard

 
Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
 

Anne

 
Villain, thou knowʼst no law of God nor man.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
 

Richard

But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

Anne

Oh, wonderful, when devils tell the truth!

Richard

 
More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposèd crimes to give me leave
By circumstance but to acquit myself.
 

Anne

 
Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,
Of these known evils but to give me leave
By circumstance to curse thy cursèd self.
 

Richard

 
Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
 

Anne

 
Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No èxcuse current but to hang thyself.
 

Richard

By such despair I should accuse myself.

Anne

 
And by despairing, shalst thou stand excused
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
 

Richard

Say that I slew them not.

Anne

 
Then say they were not slain.
But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
 

Richard

I did not kill your husband.

Anne

Why, then he is alive.

Richard

Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward’s hands.

Anne

 
In thy foul throat thou liest. Queen Margaret saw
Thy murd’rous falchion smoking in his blood,
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
 

Richard

 
I was provokèd by her sland’rous tongue,
That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
 

Anne

 
Thou wast provokèd by thy bloody mind,
Which never dream’st on aught but butcheries.
Didst thou not kill this king?
 

Richard

I grant ye.

Anne

 
Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then God grant me too
Thou mayst be damnèd for that wicked deed.
Oh, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.
 

Richard

The better for the king of heaven that hath him.

Anne

He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.

Richard

 
Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither,
For he was fitter for that place than earth.
 

Anne

And thou unfit for any place but hell.

Richard

Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

Anne

Some dungeon.

Richard

Your bedchamber.

Anne

Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest.

Richard

So will it, madam, till I lie with you.

Anne

I hope so.

Richard

 
I know so. But gentle Lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our wits
And fall something into a slower method,
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?
 

Anne

Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.

Richard

 
Your beauty was the cause of that effect:
Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
 

Anne

 
If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
 

Richard

 
These eyes could never endure sweet beauty’s wreck.
You should not blemish it if I stood by.
As all the world is cheered by the sun,
So I by that. It is my day, my life.
 

Anne

Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.

Richard

Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

Anne

I would I were, to be revenged on thee.

Richard

 
It is a quarrel most unnatural
To be revenged on him that loveth you.
 

Anne

 
It is a quarrel just and reasonable
To be revenged on him that killed my husband.
 

Richard

 
He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband
Did it to help thee to a better husband.
 

Anne

His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

Richard

He lives that loves thee better than he could.

Anne

Name him.

Richard

 
                                        Plantagenet.
 

Anne

 
                                    Why, that was he.
 

Richard

The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

Anne

Where is he?

Richard

 
                                   Here.
 

^{[She] spits at him.}

 
                                 Why dost thou spit at me?
 

Anne

Would it were mortal poison for thy sake.

Richard

Never came poison from so sweet a place.

Anne

 
Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight. Thou dost infect mine eyes.
 

Richard

Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

Anne

Would they were basilisks’, to strike thee dead.

Richard

 
I would they were, that I might die at once,
For now they kill me with a living death.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Shamed their aspècts with store of childish drops.
These eyes, that never shed remorseful tear,
No, when my father York and Edward wept
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him,
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father’s death
And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
Like trees bedashed with rain. In that sad time
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear.
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
I never sued to friend nor enemy.
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word.
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,
My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to speak.
 

^{She looks scornfully at him.}

 
Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
 

^{He lays his breast open; she offers at with his sword.}

 
Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry,
But ’twas thy beauty that provokèd me.
Nay, now dispatch; ’twas I that stabbed young Edward,
But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
 

^{She falls the sword.}

Take up the sword again, or take up me.

Anne

 
Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,
I will not be the executioner.
 

Richard

Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

Anne

I have already.

Richard

 
                                     That was in thy rage.
Speak it again, and even with the word,
That hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,
Shall for thy love kill a far truer love.
To both their deaths shalt thou be àccessary.
 

Anne

I would I knew thy heart.

Richard

ʼTis figured in my tongue.

Anne

I fear me both are false.

Richard

Then never man was true.

Anne

Well, well, put up your sword.

Richard

Say then my peace is made.

Anne

That shalt thou know hereafter.

Richard

But shall I live in hope?

Anne

All men, I hope, live so.

Richard

Vouchsafe to wear this ring.

Anne

To take is not to give.

Richard

 
Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger.
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
And if thy poor devoted servant may
But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
 

Anne

What is it?

Richard

 
That it would please thee leave these sad designs
To him that hath more cause to be a mourner
And presently repair to Crosby House,
Where, after I have solemnly interred
At Chertsey monast’ry this noble king
And wet his grave with my repentant tears,
I will with all expedient duty see you.
For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,
Grant me this boon.
 

Anne

 
With all my heart, and much it joys me, too,
To see you are become so penitent.
Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
 

Richard

Bid me farewell.

Anne

 
                         ʼTis more than you deserve;
But since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewell already.
 

^{Exeunt two with Anne.}

Richard

Sirs, take up the corpse.

Gentlemen

Towards Chertsey, noble lord?

Richard

 
No, to Whitefriars; there attend my coming.
Exeunt all but Richard with the corpse.
Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What, I that killed her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I some three months since
Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewkesbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and (no doubt) right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford.
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince
And made her widow to a woeful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?
On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while.
Upon my life, she finds (although I cannot)
Myself to be a marv’lous proper man.
I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass
And entertain a score or two of tailors
To study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
 

^Exit.

Scene 3

^{Enter the queen Mother [Elizabeth], lord Rivers, and lord Grey [and the marquess of Dorset].}

Rivers

 
Have patience, madam. There’s no doubt his majesty
Will soon recover his accustomed health.
 

Grey

 
In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse.
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.
Thou kill’dst my husband, Henry, in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
 

Richard

 
Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends.
To royalise his blood I spent mine own.
 

Margaret( aside)

Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.

Richard

 
In all which time, you and your husband Grey
Were factious for the house of Lancaster,
And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
In Margaret’s battle at Saint Alban’s slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere this, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
 

Margaret( aside)