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.
Richard
Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.
Anne
What black magician conjures up this fiendTo stop devoted charitable deeds?
Richard
Villains, set down the corpse, or by Saint Paul,I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.
Gentleman
My lord, stand back and let the coffin pass.
Richard
Unmannered dog, stand thou when I command.Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,Or by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my footAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
The bearers set down the hearse.
Anne
What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell.Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;His soul thou canst not have. Therefore be gone.
Richard
Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
Anne
Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and trouble us not,For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.O gentlemen, see, see, dead Henry’s woundsOpen their còngealed mouths and bleed afresh.Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,For ʼtis thy presence that exhales this bloodFrom cold and empty veins where no blood dwells.Thy deeds inhuman and unnaturalProvokes this deluge most unnatural.O God, which this blood madʼst, revenge his death.O earth, which this blood drinkʼstʼrevenge his death.Either heavʼn with lightning strike the murdʼrer dead,Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick,As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood,Which his hell-governed arm hath butcherèd.
Richard
Lady, you know no rules of charity,Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
Anne
Villain, thou knowʼst no law of God nor man.No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard
But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
Anne
Oh, wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
Richard
More wonderful, when angels are so angry.Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,Of these supposèd crimes to give me leaveBy circumstance but to acquit myself.
Anne
Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,Of these known evils but to give me leaveBy circumstance to curse thy cursèd self.
Richard
Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me haveSome patient leisure to excuse myself.
Anne
Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst makeNo èxcuse current but to hang thyself.
Richard
By such despair I should accuse myself.
Anne
And by despairing, shalst thou stand excusedFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
Richard
Say that I slew them not.
Anne
Then say they were not slain.But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
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 sawThy 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 tooThou 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 witsAnd fall something into a slower method,Is not the causer of the timeless deathsOf 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 sleepTo 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 unnaturalTo be revenged on him that loveth you.
Anne
It is a quarrel just and reasonableTo be revenged on him that killed my husband.
Richard
He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husbandDid 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 weptTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland madeWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him,Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,Told the sad story of my father’s deathAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,That all the standers-by had wet their cheeksLike trees bedashed with rain. In that sad timeMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear.And what these sorrows could not thence exhaleThy 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.
She looks scornfully at him.
Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was madeFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,Which if thou please to hide in this true breastAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,I lay it naked to the deadly strokeAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.
He lays his breast open; she offers at with his sword.
