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

Автор книги: Уильям Шекспир

A murderous villain, and so still thou art.

Richard

 
Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,
Ay, and forswore himself, which Jesu pardon.
 

Margaret( aside)

Which God revenge.

Richard

 
To fight on Edward’s party for the crown.
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
 

Margaret( aside)

 
Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,
Thou cacodemon. There thy kingdom is.
 

Rivers

 
My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.
So should we you, if you should be our king.
 

Richard

 
If I should be? I had rather be a pedlar.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.
 

Elizabeth

 
As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy were you this country’s king.
As little joy may you suppose in me
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
 

Margaret( aside)

 
A little joy enjoys the queen thereof,
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient —
 

(Advancing.)

 
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pilled from me.
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not that I am queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that by you deposed, you quake like rebels.
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.
 

Richard

Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?

Margaret

 
But repetition of what thou hast marred,
That will I make before I let thee go.
 

Richard

Wert thou not banishèd on pain of death?

Margaret

 
I was. But I do find more pain in banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son thou ow’st to me —
And thou a kingdom – all of you allegiance.
This sorrow that I have by right is yours,
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
 

Richard

 
The curse my noble father laid on thee
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper
And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
And then to dry them gav’st the duke a clout
Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland —
His curses then, from bitterness of soul
Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,
And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
 

Elizabeth

So just is God, to right the innocent.

Hastings

 
 O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.
 

Rivers

Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.

Dorset

No man but prophesied revenge for it.

Buckingham

Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.

Margaret

 
 What? Were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven?
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses.
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder to make him a king.
Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death
And see another, as I see thee now,
Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine.
Long die thy happy days before thy death,
And after many lengthened hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray him,
That none of you may live his natural age,
But by some unlooked accident cut off.
 

Richard

Have done thy charm, thou hateful, withered hag.

Margaret

 
 And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
Oh, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee the troubler of the poor world’s peace.
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.
Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell.
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?
 

First Murderer

 
We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant
That we may be admitted where he is.
 

Richard

 
Well thought upon, I have it here about me.
When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate. Do not hear him plead,
For Clarence is well spoken and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
 

First Murderer

 
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
 

Richard

 
Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes fall tears.
I like you, lads. About your business straight.
Go, go, dispatch.
 

Murderers

We will, my noble lord.

^Exeunt.

Scene 4

^{Enter Clarence and Keeper.}

Keeper

Why looks your grace so heavily today?

Clarence

 
Oh, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.
 

Keeper

What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.

Clarence

 
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And, in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. There we looked toward England
And cited up a thousand heavy times
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears,
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As ʼtwere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
 

Keeper

 
 Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?
 

Clarence

 
 Methought I had, and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Stopped in my soul and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
 

Keeper

Awaked you not in this sore agony?

Clarence

 
 No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.
Oh, then began the tempest to my soul.
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger-soul
Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick,
Who spake aloud, ʼWhat scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud,
ʼClarence is come: false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury.
Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment.’
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howlèd in mine ears
Such hideous cries that with the very noise
I trembling waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made my dream.
 

Keeper

 
 No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you.
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
 

Clarence

 
Ah keeper, keeper, I have done these things
Which now bear evidence against my soul
For Edward’s sake, and see how he requites me.
O God, if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath in me alone.
Oh, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children.
Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile.
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
 

Keeper

I will, my lord. God give your grace good rest.

^{Enter Brakenbury, the Lieutenant.}

Brakenbury

 
Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil,
And for unfelt imaginations
They often feel a world of restless cares;
So that between their titles and low name
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.
 

^{Enter two Murderers.}

First Murderer

Ho, who’s here?

Brakenbury

What wouldst thou, fellow? And how cam’st thou hither?

Second Murderer

I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.

Brakenbury

What, so brief?

First Murderer

 
ʼTis better, sir, than to be tedious.
Let him see our commission, and talk no more.
 

^{Brakenbury reads.}

Brakenbury

 
I am in this commanded to deliver
The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.
I will not reason what is meant hereby,
Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.
There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys.
I’ll to the king and signify him
That thus I have resigned to you my charge.
 

First Murderer

You may, sir, ʼtis a point of wisdom. Fare you well.

^{Exeunt Brakenbury and Keeper.}

Second Murderer

What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

First Murderer

No. He’ll say ʼtwas done cowardly, when he wakes.

Second Murderer

Why, he shall never wake until the great judgement day.

First Murderer

Why, then he’ll say we stabbed him sleeping.

Second Murderer

The urging of that word judgment hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

First Murderer

What? Art thou afraid?

Second Murderer

 
Not to kill him, having a warrant,
But to be damned for killing him, from the which
No warrant can defend me.
 

First Murderer

I thought thou hadst been resolute.

Second Murderer

So I am, to let him live.

First Murderer

I’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester and tell him so.

Second Murderer

 
Nay, I prithee, stay a little.
I hope this passionate humour of mine will change.
It was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.
 

First Murderer

How dost thou feel thyself now?

Second Murderer

Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

First Murderer

Remember our reward when the deed’s done.

Second Murderer

Come, he dies. I had forgot the reward.

First Murderer

Where’s thy conscience now?

Second Murderer

In the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.

First Murderer

So when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

Second Murderer

ʼTis no matter, let it go. There’s few or none will entertain it.

First Murderer

What if it come to thee again?

Second Murderer

I’ll not meddle with it; it makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal but it accuseth him. A man cannot swear but it checks him. A man cannot lie with his neighbour’s wife, but it detects him. ’Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust to himself and to live without it.

First Murderer

ʼTis even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

Second Murderer

Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not. He would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.

First Murderer

I am strong framed, he cannot prevail with me.

Second Murderer

Spoke like a tall man that respects thy reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?

First Murderer

Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey butt in the next room.

Second Murderer

Oh, excellent devise. And make a sop of him.

First Murderer

Soft, he wakes.

Second Murderer

Strike!

First Murderer

No, we’ll reason with him.

Clarence

Where art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine.

Second Murderer

You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.

Clarence

In God’s name, what art thou?

Second Murderer

A man, as you are.

Clarence

But not, as I am, royal.

Second Murderer

Nor you, as we are, loyal.

Clarence

Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

Second Murderer

My voice is now the king’s, my looks mine own.

Clarence

 
How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!
Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?
Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
 

Second Murderer

 
To, to, to —
 

Clarence

To murder me?

Both

Ay, ay.

Clarence

 
You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
 

First Murderer

Offended us you have not, but the king.

Clarence

I shall be reconciled to him again.

Second Murderer

Never, my lord. Therefore prepare to die.

Clarence

 
 Are you drawn forth among a world of men
To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
Where are the evidence that doth accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? Or who pronounced
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death
Before I be convict by course of law?
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
I charge you, as you hope for any goodness,
By Christ’s dear blood shed for our grievous sins,
That you depart and lay no hands on me.
The deed you undertake is damnable.
 

First Murderer

What we will do, we do upon command.

Second Murderer

And he that hath commanded is our king.

Clarence

 
Erroneous vassals! The great King of kings
Hath in the table of his law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then
Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man’s?
Take heed, for he holds vengeance in his hand
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
 

Second Murderer

 
And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee
For false forswearing and for murder, too.
Thou didst receive the holy sacrament to fight
In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
 

First Murderer

 
And, like a traitor to the name of God,
Didst break that vow, and with thy treacherous blade
Unripped’st the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.
 

Second Murderer

Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.

First Murderer

 
How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law to us
When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?
 

Clarence

 
Alas! For whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.
He sends you not to murder me for this,
For in that sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be avengèd for the deed,
Oh, know you yet, he doth it publicly.
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm.
He needs no indirect nor lawless course
To cut off those that have offended him.
 

First Murderer

 
Who made thee, then, a bloody minister
When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?
 

Clarence

My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.

First Murderer

 
Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy faults
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
 

Clarence

 
If you do love my brother, hate not me.
I am his brother, and I love him well.
If you be hired for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
Who shall reward you better for my life
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
 

Second Murderer

You are deceived. Your brother Gloucester hates you.

Clarence

 
Oh, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
Go you to him from me.
 

First Murderer

Ay, so we will.

Clarence

 
Tell him, when that our princely father York
Blessed his three sons with his victorious arm,
He little thought of this divided friendship.
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
 

First Murderer

Ay, millstones, as he lessoned us to weep.

Clarence

Oh, do not slander him, for he is kind.

First Murderer

 
Right, as snow in harvest.
Come, you deceive yourself,
ʼTis he that sent us to destroy you here.
 

Clarence

 
It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune,
He hugged me in his arms, and swore with sobs
That he would labour my delivery.
 

First Murderer

 
Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
From this earth’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.
 

Second Murderer

Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.

Clarence

 
Have you that holy feeling in your souls,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And are you yet to your own souls so blind.
That you will war with God by murdering me?
O sirs, consider, they that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
 

Second Murderer

What shall we do?

Clarence

 
                  Relent, and save your souls,
Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
Being pent from liberty, as am I now,
If two such murderers as yourself came to you,
Would not entreat for life as you would beg,
Were you in my distress?
 

First Murderer

Relent? No. ʼTis cowardly and womanish.

Clarence

 
Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks.
Oh, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side and entreat for me;
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
 

Second Murderer

Look behind you, my lord.

First Murderer

 
Take that, and that.
( Stabs him.)
                    If all this will not do,
I’ll drown you in the malmsey butt within.
 

^{Exit [with Clarence’s body].}

Second Murderer

 
A bloody deed, and desperately dispatched.
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous murder.
 

^{Enter First Murderer.}

First Murderer

 
How now? what mean’st thou, that thou help’st me not?
By heavens, the duke shall know how slack you have been.
 

Second Murderer

 
I would he knew that I had saved his brother.
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say,
For I repent me that the duke is slain.
 

^Exit.

First Murderer

 
So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.
Well, I’ll go hide the body in some hole
Till that the duke take order for his burial;
And when I have my meed, I must away,
For this will out, and then I must not stay.