Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира

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.}