Беспокойное бессмертие: 450 лет со дня рождения Уильяма Шекспира - Казавчинская Тамара Яковлевна - Страница 39

39

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.