Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/21

Richard the Third, I. ii

The readiest way to make the wench amends

Is to become her husband and her father:

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:

Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:

When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

Exit.

Anne. Set down, set down your honourable load,

If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,

Whilst I a while obsequiously lament

Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

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 ghost,

To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,

Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,

Stabb'd by the self-same 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!

 1 Anne; cf. n.

3 obsequiously: mournfully, as befits a funeral

5 key-cold: cold in death

8 invocate: invoke

12 windows: i.e. wounds

13 helpless: useless

