"Tis not for fear; but anger,-that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses;
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.
Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
That shall maintain what I have said is true,
Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,
I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.
Suff. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
Plan. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee
Suff. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.
Som. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole !
We grace the yeoman, by conversing with him.
War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;
His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,
Third son to the third Edward king of England;
Spring crestless yeomen* from so deep a root?
Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege,†
Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus.
Som. By him that made me, I'll maintain my words
On any plot of ground in Christendom:
Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted,
Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attached, not attainted;
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker § Poole, and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this apprehension:||
Look to it well; and say you are well warn'd.
Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still:
And know us, by these colours, for thy foes:
For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall wear.
Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
Will I for ever, and my faction, wear;
Until it wither with me to the grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.
Suff. Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition!
And so farewell, until I meet thee next.
*I. e. those who have no right to arms.
+ The Temple, being a religious house, was a sanctuary.
Excluded.
§ Confederate.
Som. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambitious Richard.
Plan. How I am braved, and must perforce endure it! War. This blot, that they object against your house, Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,
Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloster:
And, if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset, and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
And here I prophesy. This brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
Plan. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
Ver. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Law. And so will I.
Plan. Thanks, gentle Sir.
Come let us four to dinner: I dare say,
This quarrel will drink blood another day.
SCENE V-The same. A room in the Tower.
Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair by two Keepers.
Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
Even like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment:
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
Nestor-like aged: in an age of care,
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 burd'ning grief;
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,—
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
As witting I no other comfort have.-
But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come:
We sent unto the Temple, to 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.
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 obscured,
Deprived 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;
I would, his troubles likewise were expired,
That so he might recover what was lost.
Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET.
1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is come. Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend? Is he come? Plan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly used,
Your nephew, late-despised Richard, comes.
Mor. Direct mine arms, I may embrace his neck,
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,
Why didst thou say-of late thou wert despised?
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,
Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me:
Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,
And did upbraid me with my father's death;
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
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
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,
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,
And death approach not ere my tale be done.
Henry the fourth, grandfather to this king,
Deposed his nephew Richard; Edward's son,
The first-begotten and the lawful heir
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
The reason moved these warlike lords to this.
Was-for that (young king Richard thus removed,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body)
* Uneasiness, discontent.
I was the next by birth and parentage;
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,
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.
Long after this, when Henry the fifth,-
Succeeding his father Bolingbroke,-did reign,
Thy father, earl of Cambridge, then derived
From famous Edmund Langley, duke of York,―
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:
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.
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.
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;
Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
And, like a mountain, not to be removed.
But now thy uncle is removing hence;
As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd
With long continuance in a settled place.
Plan. Ŏ, 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,
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!
And prosperous be thy life, in peace, and war!
Plan. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.-
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 MORTIMER.
Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
Choked with ambition of the meaner sort:-
And, for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,―
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.
SCENE I.-The same. The Parliament-house.
Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, GLOSTER, WARWICK,
SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK; the Bishop of WINCHESTER,
RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others. GLOSTER offers to put
up a Bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears it.
Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,
With written pamphlets studiously devised,
Humphrey of Gloster? if thou canst accuse,
Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,
Do it without invention suddenly;
As I with sudden and extemporal speech
Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience,
Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.
Think not, although in writing I preferr'd
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
That therefore I have forged, or am not able
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen:
No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
As very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer;
Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession, and degree;
And for thy treachery, What's more manifest?
In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
As well at London-bridge, as at the Tower?
Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
Win. Gloster, I do defy thee.-Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, How am I so poor?
Or how haps it, I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling:
I.e. articles of accusation.
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