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Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument? Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that, Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit our

roses;

For pale they look with fear, as witnessing

The truth on our side.

No, Plantagenet,

Som.
'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 faction,' 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, Som

erset!

His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,2
Third son to the third Edward, king of England;
Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?

1 Theobald altered fashion, which is the reading of the old copy, to faction. Warburton contends that “by fashion is meant the badge of the red rose."

2 The Poet mistakes. Plantagenet's paternal grandfather was Edmund of Langley, duke of York. His maternal grandfather was Roger Mortimer, earl of March, who was the son of Philippa, the daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence. The duke, therefore, was his maternal great great grandfather.

Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege,1 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 day?
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;
Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripened to my will.
For your partaker3 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 warned.
Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;
And know us, by these colors, 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 forever, and my faction, wear;
Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.

[Exit.

Suff. Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition!

And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

Som. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambitious

Richard.

[Exit.

Plan. How I am braved, and must perforce endure it!

War. This blot, that they object against your house,

1 It does not appear that the Temple had any privilege of sanctuary at this time, being then, as now, the residence of law students. The author might imagine it to have derived some such privilege from the knights templars, or knights hospitallers, both religious orders, its former inhabitants.

2 Exempt for excluded.

3 Partaker, in ancient language, signifies one who takes part with another; an accomplice, a confederate.

Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,
Called 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,
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.

[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 gray 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;2
Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
And pithless arms, like to a withered vine

1 This is at variance with the strict truth of history. Edmund Mortimer, who was trusted and employed by Henry V. throughout his reign, died of the plague in his own castle at Trim, in Ireland, in 1424-5; being then only thirty-two years old.

2 Exigent is here used for end.

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 returned 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 honor 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.1 This day, in argument upon a case,

1 Disease for uneasiness, trouble, or grief. It is used in this sense by other ancient writers.

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 honor 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 imprisoned me,
And hath detained me, all my flowering 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,

Endeavored 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 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 labored to plant the rightful heir,
I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the Fifth—

1 Nephew has sometimes the power of the Latin nepos, signifying grandchild, and is used with great laxity among our ancient English writers. It is here used instead of cousin.

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