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.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. Plan. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

Suf. 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 9 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?

2

9 i. e. Those who have no right to arms.

The temple, being a religious house, was a sanctuary. 2 Excluded.

His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;

And, till thou be restor'd, 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 partaker3 Poole, and you yourself, I'll note you in book of memory, my

To scourge you for this apprehension : 4

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 my grave,

Or flourish to the height of my degree.

Suf. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy am

bition!

And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

[Exit. Som. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambi

tious Richard.

[Exit.

Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce en

dure it!

War. This blot, that they object against your house, Shall be wip'd 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.
Mean time, in signal of my love to thee,
4 Opinion.

3 Confederate.

Against proud Somerset, and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
And here I prophecy,-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. [Exeunt,

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,5
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:6

Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief,

5 The heralds that, fore-running death, proclaim its ap6 End.

proach.

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 obscur'd,
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;
I would, his troubles likewise were expir'd,
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 us'd, Your nephew, late-despised Richard, comes. Mor. Direct mine arms, I may embrace his neck, And in his bosom spend my latter gasp:

7 i. e. He who terminates or concludes misery.

Lately-despised.

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 despis'd?
Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine

arm;

And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.9
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,
Depos'd 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,

Uneasiness, discontent.