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89 lines
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Plaintext
89 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
[align: right][
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[bold][Scene 5: _The Tower of London_]
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[italic][Enter Mortimer, brought in a chair, and Gaolers.]
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*Mortimer.* Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
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Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
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Even like a man new haled from the rack,
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So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
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And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
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Nestor-like aged in an age of care,
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Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
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These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
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Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
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Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
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And pithless arms, like to a withered vine
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That droops his sapless branches to the ground.
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Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
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Unable to support this lump of clay,
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Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
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As witting I no other comfort have.
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But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
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*First Keeper.* Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
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We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;
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And answer was return'd that he will come.
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*Mortimer.* Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.
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Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
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Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
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Before whose glory I was great in arms,
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This loathsome sequestration have I had;
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And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,
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Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.
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But now the arbitrator of despairs,
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Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,
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With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
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I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,
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That so he might recover what was lost.
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[italic][Enter Richard Plantagenet]
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*First Keeper.* My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
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*Mortimer.* Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
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*Plantagenet.* Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,
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Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
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*Mortimer.* Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck
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And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.
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O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
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That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
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And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,
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Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?
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*Plantagenet.* First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;
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And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.
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This day, in argument upon a case,
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Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;
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Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue
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And did upbraid me with my father's death;
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Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
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Else with the like I had requited him.
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Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,
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In honour of a true Plantagenet,
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And for alliance sake, declare the cause
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My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
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*Mortimer.* That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me
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And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth
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Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
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Was cursed instrument of his decease.
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*Plantagenet.* Discover more at large what cause that was,
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For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
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*Mortimer.* I will, if that my fading breath permit
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And death approach not ere my tale be done.
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Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
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Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,
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The first-begotten and the lawful heir
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Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
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During whose reign the Percies of the north,
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Finding his usurpation most unjust,
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Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne ...
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]
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