The First Part Of Henry The Sixth

1 Enter Mortimer, brought in a chair, and Jailers.
2 MORTIMER.
3 Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
4 Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
5 Even like a man new haled from the rack,
6 So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
7 And these gray locks, the pursuivants of death,
8 Nestor-like aged in an age of care,
9 Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
10 These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
11 Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
12 Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
13 And pithless arms, like to a wither’d vine
14 That droops his sapless branches to the ground.
15 Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
16 Unable to support this lump of clay,
17 Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
18 As witting I no other comfort have.
19 But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
20 FIRST JAILER.
21 Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
22 We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber,
23 And answer was return’d that he will come.
24 MORTIMER.
25 Enough. My soul shall then be satisfied.
26 Poor gentleman, his wrong doth equal mine.
27 Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
28 Before whose glory I was great in arms,
29 This loathsome sequestration have I had;
30 And even since then hath Richard been obscured,
31 Deprived of honour and inheritance.
32 But now the arbitrator of despairs,
33 Just Death, kind umpire of men’s miseries,
34 With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
35 I would his troubles likewise were expired,
36 That so he might recover what was lost.
37 Enter Richard Plantagenet.
38 FIRST JAILER.
39 My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
40 MORTIMER.
41 Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
42 PLANTAGENET.
43 Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly used,
44 Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
45 MORTIMER.
46 Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck
47 And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.
48 O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
49 That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
50 And now declare, sweet stem from York’s great stock,
51 Why didst thou say of late thou wert despised?
52 PLANTAGENET.
53 First, lean thine aged back against mine arm,
54 And, in that ease, I’ll tell thee my disease.
55 This day, in argument upon a case,
56 Some words there grew ’twixt Somerset and me;
57 Among which terms he used his lavish tongue
58 And did upbraid me with my father’s death;
59 Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
60 Else with the like I had requited him.
61 Therefore, good uncle, for my father’s sake,
62 In honour of a true Plantagenet,
63 And for alliance’ sake, declare the cause
64 My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
65 MORTIMER.
66 That cause, fair nephew, that imprison’d me
67 And hath detain’d me all my flowering youth
68 Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
69 Was cursed instrument of his decease.
70 PLANTAGENET.
71 Discover more at large what cause that was,
72 For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
73 MORTIMER.
74 I will, if that my fading breath permit
75 And death approach not ere my tale be done.
76 Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
77 Deposed his nephew Richard, Edward’s son,
78 The first-begotten and the lawful heir
79 Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
80 During whose reign the Percies of the north,
81 Finding his usurpation most unjust,
82 Endeavour’d my advancement to the throne.
83 The reason moved these warlike lords to this
84 Was, for that—young King Richard thus removed,
85 Leaving no heir begotten of his body—
86 I was the next by birth and parentage;
87 For by my mother I derived am
88 From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son
89 To King Edward the Third; whereas he
90 From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
91 Being but fourth of that heroic line.
92 But mark: as in this haughty great attempt
93 They labored to plant the rightful heir,
94 I lost my liberty and they their lives.
95 Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,
96 Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
97 Thy father, Earl of Cambridge then, derived
98 From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
99 Marrying my sister that thy mother was,
100 Again, in pity of my hard distress.
101 Levied an army, weening to redeem
102 And have install’d me in the diadem.
103 But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl
104 And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
105 In whom the title rested, were suppress’d.
106 PLANTAGENET.
107 Of which, my lord, your honour is the last.
108 MORTIMER.
109 True; and thou seest that I no issue have,
110 And that my fainting words do warrant death.
111 Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather.
112 But yet be wary in thy studious care.
113 PLANTAGENET.
114 Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.
115 But yet methinks, my father’s execution
116 Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.
117 MORTIMER.
118 With silence, nephew, be thou politic;
119 Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
120 And like a mountain, not to be removed.
121 But now thy uncle is removing hence,
122 As princes do their courts when they are cloy’d
123 With long continuance in a settled place.
124 PLANTAGENET.
125 O uncle, would some part of my young years
126 Might but redeem the passage of your age!
127 MORTIMER.
128 Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth
129 Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
130 Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
131 Only give order for my funeral.
132 And so farewell, and fair be all thy hopes,
133 And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!
134 [_Dies._]
135 PLANTAGENET.
136 And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
137 In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
138 And like a hermit overpass’d thy days.
139 Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
140 And what I do imagine, let that rest.
141 Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
142 Will see his burial better than his life.
143 [_Exeunt Jailers, bearing out the body of Mortimer._]
144 Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
145 Choked with ambition of the meaner sort.
146 And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
147 Which Somerset hath offer’d to my house,
148 I doubt not but with honour to redress;
149 And therefore haste I to the Parliament,
150 Either to be restored to my blood,
151 Or make mine ill th’ advantage of my good.
152 [_Exit._]