Mary Queen of Scots 9 A death 苏格兰玛丽女王9 死亡
Queen Mary stopped writing then. Yesterday afternoon,7th February 1587, we heard a horse outside our win-dow. Mary looked out. There was a man there, on the road from London. He had a letter from the Queen of England.
In the evening, an Englishman, Lord Shrewsbury,came to see Mary,‘I am sorry,my lady,'he said.‘But I have a letter from my Queen. You're going to die, tomorrow.'
‘At half past eight in the morning,'he said.‘I am very sorry, my lady.'He went away.
“早上8点半钟。”他说。“我十分抱歉,我的夫人。”他说完就离开了。
We did not sleep much that night.We talked and prayed to God, and she gave me her letter to her son, James.‘Give it to him, Bess, please,'she said.‘And tell him how I died.'
‘Yes, my lady,'I said. And so now I am going to tell you.King James.This is how your mother died.
“好的,夫人,”我说道。因此,现在就由我来告诉你,詹姆斯国王,你母亲是怎么死的吧。
At six o'clock she got up,prayed, and dressed. She put on a red petticoat first, then a black dress, and a white veil over the dress. The veil came from her head to her feet; she could see out through it, but we could not see her face. She looked like a woman on her wedding day.
When the Englishmen came we went downstairs with her.Her little dog walked beside her, under the veil, but the Eng-lishmen didn't see that. Six of us went into a big room with her. A hundred people stood and watched.
A Protestant churchman came to talk to her,‘My lady,'he said.‘Pray with me—'
一个新教教士走过来和她说话。“我的夫人,”他说道。“跟我一起祈祷——”
‘No,'she said.‘Thank you, but no. I was born a Catholic and I'm going to die a Catholic. I think God understands that.'she prayed for five minutes, and then stood up. The executioner came towards her. He was a big, strong man with an axe, and something black over his face.
Then she looked at me and her friends.‘Don't cry for me,ladies,'she said.‘Please, don't cry now.'
随后她看着我和她的朋友们。“不要为我而哭,夫人们,”她说。“现在请别哭了。”
She could not walk to the block, so the executioner helped her. He took off her white veil, and then he took off her black dress, and put it on the floor. She stood there, in her red pet-ticoat,with a smile on her face. Then the executioner put something over her eyes. Very slowly, Mary put her head on the block.
It was very quiet in the room after that. It is a little thing,a head—a very little thing. But there was so much blood—blood on her red petticoat, blood on her black dress and her white veil, blood on the executioner's shoes, blood all over the floor. Blood, blood everywhere.
We all looked, and said nothing. The executioner put down his axe and stood quietly. And then Mary's little dog came out from under her bloody dress and veil, and walked slowly, un-happily, through the blood towards her head.
My lord,the story of your poor mother's life finishes here.We, her friends, cry for her, but that is how your mother died. She died like a Queen. A good lady and a famous Queen.