Читать книгу King Richard III (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography: The Life of William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Страница 17

[Enter RATCLIFF, with Guard, conducting RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN to execution.]

RIVERS

Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this,—

To-day shalt thou behold a subject die

For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.

GREY

God bless the prince from all the pack of you!

A knot you are of damnèd blood-suckers.

VAUGHAN

You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter

.

RATCLIFF

Despatch; the limit of your lives is out.

RIVERS

O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,

Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

Within the guilty closure of thy walls

Richard the Second here was hack’d to death:

And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,

We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.

GREY

Now Margaret’s curse is fallen upon our heads,

When she exclaim’d on Hastings, you, and I,

For standing by when Richard stabb’d her son.

RIVERS

Then curs’d she Richard, then curs’d she Buckingham,

Then curs’d she Hastings:—O, remember, God,

To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!

And for my sister, and her princely sons,

Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,

Which, as Thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.

RATCLIFF

Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.

RIVERS

Come, Grey;—come, Vaughan;—let us here embrace.

Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.

[Exeunt.]