The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/02/02_05

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 6KB | 155 lines

London. The Tower.
 Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair by two GAOLERS.

Mortimer    Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
    Even like a man new hald from the rack,
    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
    Nestor-like agd 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 burdening grief,
    And pithless arms, like to a withered 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-wingd with desire to get a grave,
    As witting I no other comfort have.
    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?

1st Gaoler    Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;
    And answer was returned that he will come.

Mortimer    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.

1st Gaoler    My lord, your loving nephew now is come.

Mortimer    Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?

Plantagenet    Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly used,
    Your nephew, late despisd Richard, comes.

Mortimer    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?

Plantagenet    First, lean thine agd 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.

Mortimer    That cause, fair nephew, that imprisoned me
    And hath detained me all my flowering youth
    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
    Was cursd instrument of his decease.

Plantagenet    Discover more at large what cause that was,
    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.

Mortimer    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 Percys of the north,
    Finding his usurpation most unjust,
    Endeavoured 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-
    I was the next by birth and parentage;
    For by my mother I derivd am
    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, 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 labourd 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 installed 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 suppressed.

Plantagenet    Of which, my lord, your honour is the last.

Mortimer    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.

Plantagenet    Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.
    But yet methinks my father's execution
    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

Mortimer    With silence, nephew, be thou politic:
    Strong fixd 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 cloyed
    With long continuance in a settled place.

Plantagenet    O uncle, would some part of my young years
    Might but redeem the passage of your age!

Mortimer    Thou dost then wrong me, as that 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 befall thy hopes,
    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!
                                                    [Dies.
Plantagenet    And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
    And like a hermit overpassed 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 GAOLERS, bearing out the body of 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 offered to my house,
    I doubt not but with honour to redress;
    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,
    Either to be restord to my blood,
    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.
                                                    [Exit.