London. A Room in the Tower. | |
| |
Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair by two Gaolers. | |
| Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, | |
| Let dying Mortimer here rest himself. | 4 |
| Even like a man new haled from the rack, | |
| So fare my limbs with long imprisonment; | |
| And these gray locks, the pursuivants of death, | |
| Nestor-like aged, in an age of care, | 8 |
| Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. | |
| These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, | |
| Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent; | |
| Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief, | 12 |
| And pithless arms, like to a wither’d vine | |
| That droops his sapless branches to the ground: | |
| Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb, | |
| Unable to support this lump of clay, | 16 |
| Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, | |
| As witting I no other comfort have. | |
| But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come? | |
| First Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come: | 20 |
| We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber. | |
| And answer was return’d that he will come. | |
| Mor. Enough: my soul shall then be satisfied. | |
| Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine. | 24 |
| Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign, | |
| Before whose glory I was great in arms, | |
| This loathsome sequestration have I had; | |
| And even since then hath Richard been obscur’d, | 28 |
| Depriv’d of honour and inheritance. | |
| But now the arbitrator of despairs, | |
| Just death, kind umpire of men’s miseries, | |
| With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence: | 32 |
| I would his troubles likewise were expir’d, | |
| That so he might recover what was lost. | |
| |
Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET. | |
| First Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is come. | 36 |
| Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come? | |
| Plan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us’d, | |
| Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes. | |
| Mor. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck, | 40 |
| And in his bosom spend my latter gasp: | |
| O! tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks, | |
| That I may kindly give one fainting kiss. | |
| And now declare, sweet stem from York’s great stock, | 44 |
| Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis’d? | |
| Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm; | |
| And in that ease, I’ll tell thee my disease. | |
| This day, in argument upon a case, | 48 |
| Some words there grew ’twixt Somerset and me; | |
| Among which terms he us’d a lavish tongue | |
| And did upbraid me with my father’s death: | |
| Which obloquy set bars before my tongue, | 52 |
| Else with the like I had requited him. | |
| Therefore, good uncle, for my father’s sake, | |
| In honour of a true Plantagenet, | |
| And for alliance sake, declare the cause | 56 |
| My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head. | |
| Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison’d me, | |
| And hath detain’d me all my flow’ring youth | |
| Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine, | 60 |
| Was cursed instrument of his decease. | |
| Plan. Discover more at large what cause that was, | |
| For I am ignorant and cannot guess. | |
| Mor. I will, if that my fading breath permit, | 64 |
| And death approach not ere my tale be done. | |
| Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king, | |
| Depos’d his nephew Richard, Edward’s son, | |
| The first-begotten, and the lawful heir | 68 |
| Of Edward king, the third of that descent: | |
| During whose reign the Percies of the North, | |
| Finding his usurpation most unjust, | |
| Endeavour’d my advancement to the throne. | 72 |
| The reason mov’d these warlike lords to this | |
| Was, for that—young King Richard thus remov’d, | |
| Leaving no heir begotten of his body— | |
| I was the next by birth and parentage; | 76 |
| For by my mother I derived am | |
| From Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son | |
| To King Edward the Third; whereas he | |
| From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree, | 80 |
| Being but fourth of that heroic line. | |
| But mark: as, in this haughty great attempt | |
| They laboured to plant the rightful heir, | |
| I lost my liberty, and they their lives. | 84 |
| Long after this, when Henry the Fifth | |
| Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign, | |
| Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv’d | |
| From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York, | 88 |
| Marrying my sister that thy mother was, | |
| Again in pity of my hard distress | |
| Levied an army, weening to redeem | |
| And have install’d me in the diadem; | 92 |
| But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl, | |
| And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers, | |
| In whom the title rested, were suppress’d. | |
| Plan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the last. | 96 |
| Mor. True; and thou seest that I no issue have, | |
| And that my fainting words do warrant death: | |
| Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather: | |
| But yet be wary in thy studious care. | 100 |
| Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me. | |
| But yet methinks my father’s execution | |
| Was nothing less than bloody tyranny. | |
| Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politic: | 104 |
| Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster, | |
| And like a mountain, not to be remov’d. | |
| But now thy uncle is removing hence, | |
| As princes do their courts, when they are cloy’d | 108 |
| With long continuance in a settled place. | |
| Plan. O uncle! would some part of my young years | |
| Might but redeem the passage of your age. | |
| Mor. Thou dost then wrong me,—as the slaughterer doth, | 112 |
| Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.— | |
| Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good; | |
| Only give order for my funeral: | |
| And so farewell; and fair be all thy hopes, | 116 |
| And prosperous be thy life in peace and war! [Dies. | |
| Plan. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul! | |
| In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage, | |
| And like a hermit overpass’d thy days. | 120 |
| Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast; | |
| And what I do imagine let that rest. | |
| Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself | |
| Will see his burial better than his life. [Exeunt Keepers, bearing out the body of MORTIMER. | 124 |
| Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer, | |
| Chok’d with ambition of the meaner sort: | |
| And, for those wrongs, those bitter injuries, | |
| Which Somerset hath offer’d to my house, | 128 |
| I doubt not but with honour to redress; | |
| And therefore haste I to the parliament, | |
| Either to be restored to my blood, | |
| Or make my ill the advantage of my good. [Exit. | 132 |