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

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.

Nor no one here, for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

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.

What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?

Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

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.

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.

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.

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

So do I ever, being well-advised.
( Speaks to himself. ) For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

Madam, his majesty doth call for you,
And for your grace, and you, my gracious lord.

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.

But, soft, here come my executioners —
How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates,
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.