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