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| Enter the corse of Henry the Sixth, on a bier, with halberds to guard it, Lady ANNE being the mourner, accompanied by gentlemen |
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| The corpse of KING HENRY VI is carried in on a bier
, followed by Lady ANNE, dressed in mourning clothes, and armed guards. |
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| | ANNE |
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Set down, set down your honorable load, |
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If honor may be shrouded in a hearse, |
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Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament |
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Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster. |
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| ANNE |
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Set down your honorable load, men, if there is ever any honor in being dead. I want to mourn the cruel death of this good man. Look at the noble king's poor cold body—the measly remains of the Lancaster family. |
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Poor key-cold figure of a holy king, |
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Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster, |
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Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood, |
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Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost |
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To hear the lamentations of poor Anne, |
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Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son, |
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Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds. |
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Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life |
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I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes. |
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O, cursèd be the hand that made these holes; |
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Cursèd the heart that had the heart to do it; |
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Cursèd the blood that let this blood from hence. |
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More direful hap betide that hated wretch |
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That makes us wretched by the death of thee |
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Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads, |
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Or any creeping venomed thing that lives. |
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If ever he have child, abortive be it, |
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Prodigious, and untimely brought to light, |
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Whose ugly and unnatural aspect |
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May fright the hopeful mother at the view, |
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And that be heir to his unhappiness. |
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His royal blood has drained right out of him. I hope I can talk to your ghost, Henry, without breaking church laws. I want you to hear my sorrow. My husband
was murdered by the same man who stabbed you. My tears now fall into the holes where your life leaked out. I curse the man who made these holes. I curse the man's heart who had the heart to stab you. And I curse the man's blood who shed your blood. I want the man who made me suffer by killing you to face a more terrible end than I could wish on spiders, toads, and all the poisonous, venomous things things alive. If he ever has a child, let it be born prematurely, and let it look like a monster—so ugly and unnatural that the sight of it frightens its own mother. |
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