А. Величанский считал, что «прежде всего поэтический перевод должен быть поэтическим, а не версификационным явлением. Только в этом случае можно рассчитывать на передачу того сокровенного вне лексического содержания поэзии, которое, в сущности, и является ее глубинным содержанием. Здесь мы сталкиваемся с самым сложным вопросом, стоящим перед переводчиком. Природа вдохновения, без которого невозможен подлинно поэтический перевод, абсолютно индивидуальна, и проникнуть в область сокровенного можно лишь единственным, абсолютно индивидуальным путем. Поэтому в переводе неизбежно должна проявляться личность переводчика. Это неминуемо личное искажение подлинника, может быть, есть единственная гарантия определенного соответствия ему».
Язык Шекспира сильно отличается от современного английского языка, и потому он достаточно труден для англоязычных читателей и зрителей сегодняшнего дня, хотя англичане и читают шекспировские пьесы в школе. Величанский, в отличие от большинства наших знаменитых переводчиков XX века, например, Пастернака, старался сохранить этот ускользающий «исторический» аромат подлинника, вводя в свой текст архаизмы и литературные конструкции, не характерные для разговорного языка. В этом, быть может, одна из важнейших, сразу бросающихся в глаза сторон его «личного искажения подлинника». Но такова была его поэтическая воля.
Будем надеяться, что знакомство с этим новым, пусть и незаконченным, переводом «Ричарда III» поможет нашим читателям открыть новые сокровенные тайны неисчерпаемого таланта Шекспира.
Act I
Scene 1
Enter Richard Duke of Glouster, solus.
Richard
Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this son of York,And all the clouds that loured upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front,And now, instead of mounting barbèd steedsTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamberTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.But I that am not shaped for sportive tricksNor made to court an amorous looking-glass,I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majestyTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph,I that am curtailed of this fair proportion,Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,Deformed, unfinished, sent before my timeInto this breathing world scarce half made up,And that so lamely and unfashionableThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them,Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,Have no delight to pass away the time,Unless to spy my shadow in the sunAnd descant on mine own deformity.And therefore, since I cannot prove a loverTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,I am determinèd to prove a villainAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreamsTo set my brother Clarence and the kingIn deadly hate the one against the other.And if King Edward be as true and justAs I am subtle, false, and treacherous,This day should Clarence closely be mewed upAbout a prophecy which says that ʼG’Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.Dive, thoughts, down to my soul, here Clarence comes.
Enter Clarence and Brakenbury, guarded.
Brother, good day. What means this armèd guardThat waits upon your grace?
Clarence
His majesty,Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointedThis conduct to convey me to the Tower.
Richard
Upon what cause?
Clarence
Because my name is George.
Richard
Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours.He should for that commit your godfathers.Oh, belike his majesty hath some intentThat you shall be new christened in the Tower.But what’s the matter, Clarence? May I know?
Clarence
Yea, Richard, when I know, but I protestAs yet I do not. But as I can learn,He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,And from the cross-row plucks the letter ʼG’.And says a wizard told him that by ʼG’His issue disinherited should be.And for my name of George begins with ʼG’,It follows in his thought that I am he.These, as I learn, and such like toys as theseHath moved his highness to commit me now.
Richard
Why, this it is when men are ruled by women.ʼTis not the king that sends you to the Tower.My lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, ʼtis sheThat tempts him to this harsh extremity.Was it not she and that good man of worship,Anthony Woodville, her brother there,That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,From whence this present day he is delivered?We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe.
Clarence
By heaven, I think there is no man secureBut the queen’s kindred and night-walking heraldsThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.Heard you not what an humble suppliantLord Hastings was for her delivery?
Richard
Humbly complaining to her deityGot my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.I’ll tell you what, I think it is our way,If we will keep in favour with the king,To be her men and wear her livery.The jealous, o’er-worn widow and herself,Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen,Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
Brakenbury
I beseech your graces both to pardon me;His majesty hath straitly given in chargeThat no man shall have private conference,Of what degree soever, with your brother.
Richard
Even so. And please your worship, Brakenbury,You may partake of any thing we say.We speak no treason, man. We say the kingIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queenWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous.We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue,And that the queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks.How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
Brakenbury
With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.
Richard
Naught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,He that doth naught with her (excepting one)Were best to do it secretly alone.
Brakenbury
What one, my lord?
Richard
Her husband, knave. Wouldst thou betray me?
Brakenbury
I do beseech your grace to pardon me, and withalForbear your conference with the noble duke.
Clarence
We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
Richard
We are the queen’s abjects and must obey.Brother, farewell. I will unto the king,And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,I will perform it to enfranchise you.Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhoodTouches me deeper than you can imagine.
Clarence
I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
Richard
Well, your imprisonment shall not be long.I will deliver you or else Lie for you.Meantime, have patience.
Clarence
I must perforce. Farewell.
Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbury, and guards.
Richard
Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee soThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,If heaven will take the present at our hands.But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?
Enter Lord Hastings.
Hastings
Good time of day unto my gracious lord.
Richard
As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain.Well are you welcome to this open air.How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment?
Hastings
With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must.But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanksThat were the cause of my imprisonment.
Richard
No doubt, no doubt, and so shall Clarence too,For they that were your enemies are hisAnd have prevailed as much on him as you.
Hastings
More pity that the eagles should be mewedWhile kites and buzzards play at liberty.
Richard
What news abroad?
Hastings
No news so bad abroad as this at home:The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,And his physicians fear him mightily.
Richard
Now by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.Oh, he hath kept an evil diet longAnd over-much consumed his royal person.ʼTis very grievous to be thought upon.Where is he, in his bed?
Hastings
He is.
Richard
Go you before, and I will follow you.
Exit Hastings.
He cannot live, I hope, and must not dieTill George be packed with post-horse up to heaven.I’ll in to urge his hatred more to ClarenceWith lies well steeled with weighty arguments,And if I fail not in my deep intent,Clarence hath not another day to live:Which done, God take King Edward to his mercyAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.What though I killed her husband and her father?The readiest way to make the wench amendsIs to become her husband and her father,The which will I, not all so much for loveAs for another secret close intentBy marrying her which I must reach unto.But yet I run before my horse to market.Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
Exit.
Scene 2Enter the corpse of Henry the Sixth, Halberds to guard it, lady Anne being the mourner [attended by Tressel, Berkeley, and other Gentlemen].
Anne
Set down, set down your honourable load,If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,Whilst I awhile obsequiously lamentTh’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
The bearers set down the hearse.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood,Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghostTo hear the lamentations of poor Anne,Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.Oh, cursèd be the hand that made these holes,Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it,Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.More direful hap betide that hated wretchThat makes us wretched by the death of theeThan I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.If ever he have child, abortive be it,Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,Whose ugly and unnatural aspèctMay fright the hopeful mother at the view,And that be heir to his unhappiness.If ever he have wife, let her be madeMore miserable by the death of himThan I am made by my young lord and thee.Come now towards Chertsey with your holy load,Taken from Paul’s to be interrèd there.And still as you are weary of this weight,Rest you while I lament King Henry’s corpse.
Enter Richard duke of Gloucester.
