David Reed
Page: 23

Lawyer. And so will I

Yorke. Thankes gentle.
Come, let vs foure to Dinner: I dare say,
This Quarrell will drinke Blood another day.

Exeunt.

Enter Mortimer, brought in a Chayre, and Iaylors.

Mort. Kind Keepers of my weake decaying Age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himselfe.
Euen like a man new haled from the Wrack,
So fare my Limbes with long Imprisonment:
And these gray Locks, the Pursuiuants of death,
Nestor-like aged, in an Age of Care,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
These Eyes like Lampes, whose wasting Oyle is spent,
Waxe dimme, as drawing to their Exigent.
Weake Shoulders, ouer-borne with burthening Griefe,
And pyth-lesse Armes, like to a withered Vine,
That droupes his sappe-lesse Branches to the ground.
Yet are these Feet, whose strength-lesse stay is numme,
(Vnable to support this Lumpe of Clay)
Swift-winged with desire to get a Graue,
As witting I no other comfort haue.
But tell me, Keeper, will my Nephew come?
Keeper. Richard Plantagenet, my Lord, will come:
We sent vnto the Temple, vnto his Chamber,
And answer was return'd, that he will come

Mort. Enough: my Soule shall then be satisfied.
Poore Gentleman, his wrong doth equall mine.
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reigne,
Before whose Glory I was great in Armes,
This loathsome sequestration haue I had;
And euen since then, hath Richard beene obscur'd,
Depriu'd of Honor and Inheritance.
But now, the Arbitrator of Despaires,
Iust Death, kinde Vmpire of mens miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismisse me hence:
I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,
That so he might recouer what was lost.
Enter Richard.

Keeper. My Lord, your louing Nephew now is come

Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
Rich. I, Noble Vnckle, thus ignobly vs'd,
Your Nephew, late despised Richard, comes

Mort. Direct mine Armes, I may embrace his Neck,
And in his Bosome spend my latter gaspe.
Oh tell me when my Lippes doe touch his Cheekes,
That I may kindly giue one fainting Kisse.
And now declare sweet Stem from Yorkes great Stock,
Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?