Som. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambitious Richard. [Exit. Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure 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; 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. Shall be WIP'D out-] So the second folio: the first has "whipt out." Thanks, gentle SIR.] "Sir" is from the second folio: it is obviously necessary, though, as Malone remarks, it does not complete the line commenced by "And so will I." Even like a man new haled from the rack, Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief, 1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come: We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber, And answer was return'd that he will come. Mor. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.- But now, the arbitrator of despairs, Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, That so he might recover what was lost. 2 Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET. 1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is come. to their EXIGENT :] i.e. To their extremity or end; an unusual application of the word, though somewhat countenanced by the following line from the comedy of "The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll," 1600 :— "Hath driven her to some desperate exigent." 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, O! tell me, when my lips do touch his cheeks, And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock, 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; And for alliance' sake, declare the cause Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me, 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, Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne. The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this, I was the next by birth and parentage; From Lionel duke of Clarence, the third son1 But mark: as, in this haughty great attempt Plan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the last. 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, 3 KING Richard thus remov'd,] The first folio omits "king," inserted by the editor of the second folio, to complete the line; and we may presume that it had dropped out in the press. 4 THE third son] "The" is also from the second folio. And, like a mountain, not to be remov'd. As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd Plan. O, 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. And so farewell; and fair be all thy hopes, And prosperous be thy life, in peace, and war! [Dies. [Exeunt Keepers, bearing out MORTIMER. Or make my ill th' advantage of my good3. [Exit. 5 Or make my ILL th' advantage of my good.] The old editions read, “Or make my will," &c. But we adopt Theobald's amendment, which clears the sense, and preserves the antithesis. Malone properly understands by “ill,” ill usage. Some modern editors have printed "ill" for will of the folios, without any information that it was not the ancient reading. It is necessary to mark these variations, if only to test the general value of the old copies, as representing the language of the poet. |