Читать книгу Richard II - Уильям Шекспир, William Szekspir, the Simon Studio - Страница 2

  Gaunt. Alas, the part I had in Glousters blood,

Doth more solicite me then your exclaimes,

To stirre against the Butchers of his life.

But since correction lyeth in those hands

Which made the fault that we cannot correct,

Put we our quarrell to the will of heauen,

Who when they see the houres ripe on earth,

Will raigne hot vengeance on offenders heads

   Dut. Findes brotherhood in thee no sharper spurre?

Hath loue in thy old blood no liuing fire?

Edwards seuen sonnes (whereof thy selfe art one)

Were as seuen violles of his Sacred blood,

Or seuen faire branches springing from one roote:

Some of those seuen are dride by natures course,

Some of those branches by the destinies cut:

But Thomas, my deere Lord, my life, my Glouster,

One Violl full of Edwards Sacred blood,

One flourishing branch of his most Royall roote

Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;

Is hackt downe, and his summer leafes all vaded

By Enuies hand, and Murders bloody Axe.

Ah Gaunt! His blood was thine, that bed, that wombe,

That mettle, that selfe-mould that fashion'd thee,

Made him a man: and though thou liu'st, and breath'st,

Yet art thou slaine in him: thou dost consent

In some large measure to thy Fathers death,

In that thou seest thy wretched brother dye,

Who was the modell of thy Fathers life.

Call it not patience (Gaunt) it is dispaire,

In suffring thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,

Thou shew'st the naked pathway to thy life,

Teaching sterne murther how to butcher thee:

That which in meane men we intitle patience

Is pale cold cowardice in noble brests:

What shall I say, to safegard thine owne life,

The best way is to venge my Glousters death

   Gaunt. Heauens is the quarrell: for heauens substitute

His Deputy annointed in his sight,

Hath caus'd his death, the which if wrongfully

Let heauen reuenge: for I may neuer lift

An angry arme against his Minister

   Dut. Where then (alas may I) complaint my selfe?

  Gau. To heauen, the widdowes Champion to defence

  Dut. Why then I will: farewell old Gaunt.

Thou go'st to Couentrie, there to behold

Our Cosine Herford, and fell Mowbray fight:

O sit my husbands wrongs on Herfords speare,

That it may enter butcher Mowbrayes brest:

Or if misfortune misse the first carreere,

Be Mowbrayes sinnes so heauy in his bosome,

That they may breake his foaming Coursers backe,

And throw the Rider headlong in the Lists,

A Caytiffe recreant to my Cosine Herford:

Farewell old Gaunt, thy sometimes brothers wife

With her companion Greefe, must end her life

   Gau. Sister farewell: I must to Couentree,

As much good stay with thee, as go with mee

   Dut. Yet one word more: Greefe boundeth where it falls,

Not with the emptie hollownes, but weight:

I take my leaue, before I haue begun,

For sorrow ends not, when it seemeth done.

Commend me to my brother Edmund Yorke.

Loe, this is all: nay, yet depart not so,

Though this be all, do not so quickly go,

I shall remember more. Bid him, Oh, what?

With all good speed at Plashie visit mee.

Alacke, and what shall good old Yorke there see

But empty lodgings, and vnfurnish'd walles,

Vn-peopel'd Offices, vntroden stones?

And what heare there for welcome, but my grones?

Therefore commend me, let him not come there,

To seeke out sorrow, that dwels euery where:

Desolate, desolate will I hence, and dye,

The last leaue of thee, takes my weeping eye.