Page 1109 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1
P. 1109

The which will I, not all so much for love
As for another secret close intent,
By marrying her which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market: [160]
Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

                                                         Exit.

                                  Scene II IT

   Enter the corse of Henry the Sixth with 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 lament
   Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
   Poor key-cold Figure of a holy king, [5]
   Pale ashes of the House of Lancaster,
   Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood:
   Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
   To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
   Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter’d son, [10]
   Stabb’d 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.
   O, cursed be the hand that made these holes;
   Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it; [15]
   Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.
   More direful hap betide that hated wretch
   That makes us wretched by the death of thee
   Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
   Or any creeping venom’d thing that lives. [20]
   If ever he have child, abortive be it:
   Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
   Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
   May fright the hopeful mother at the view,
   And that be heir to his unhappiness. [25]
   If ever he have wife, let her be made
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