Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира

(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 banish`ed 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 loath`ed 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

’Tis done by me, and ends in ’Margaret’.

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.