Act 2, Scene 5

The Tower of London.

[Enter Mortimer, brought in a chair, and Jailers.]
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
973 Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
974 Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
975 Even like a man new haled from the rack,
976 So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
977 And these gray locks, the pursuivants of death,
978 Nestor-like aged in an age of care,
979 Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
980 These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
981 Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
982 Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
983 And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine
984 That droops his sapless branches to the ground:
985 Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
986 Unable to support this lump of clay,
987 Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
988 As witting I no other comfort have.
989 But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
Jailer
990 Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come:
991 We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;
992 And answer was return'd that he will come.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
993 Enough: my soul shall then be satisfied.
994 Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
995 Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
996 Before whose glory I was great in arms,
997 This loathsome sequestration have I had;
998 And even since then hath Richard been obscured,
999 Deprived of honour and inheritance.
1000 But now the arbitrator of despairs,
1001 Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,
1002 With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence:
1003 I would his troubles likewise were expired,
1004 That so he might recover what was lost.
[Enter Richard Plantagenet.]
Jailer
1005 My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1006 Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1007 Aye, noble uncle, thus ignobly used,
1008 Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1009 Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck,
1010 And in his bosom spend my latter gasp:
1011 O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
1012 That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
1013 And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,
1014 Why didst thou say of late thou wert despised?
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1015 First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;
1016 And, in that case, I'll tell thee my disease.
1017 This day, in argument upon a case,
1018 Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;
1019 Among which terms he used his lavish tongue
1020 And did upbraid me with my father's death:
1021 Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
1022 Else with the like I had requited him.
1023 Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,
1024 In honor of a true Plantagenet
1025 And for alliance sake, declare the cause
1026 My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1027 That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me
1028 And hath detain'd me all my flowering youth
1029 Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
1030 Was cursed instrument of his decease.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1031 Discover more at large what cause that was,
1032 For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1033 I will, if that my fading breath permit,
1034 And death approach not ere my tale be done.
1035 Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
1036 Deposed his nephew Richard, Edward's son,
1037 The first-begotten and the lawful heir
1038 Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
1039 During whose reign the Percies of the north,
1040 Finding his usurpation most unjust,
1041 Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.
1042 The reason moved these warlike lords to this
1043 Was, for that—young King Richard thus removed,
1044 Leaving no heir begotten of his body—
1045 I was the next by birth and parentage;
1046 For by my mother I derived am
1047 From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son
1048 To King Edward the Third; whereas he
1049 From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
1050 Being but fourth of that heroic line.
1051 But mark: as in this haughty great attempt
1052 They labored to plant the rightful heir,
1053 I lost my liberty and they their lives.
1054 Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,
1055 Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
1056 Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then derived
1057 From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
1058 Marrying my sister that thy mother was,
1059 Again in pity of my hard distress.
1060 Levied an army, weening to redeem
1061 And have install'd me in the diadem:
1062 But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl
1063 And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
1064 In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1065 Of which, my lord, your honor is the last.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1066 True; and thou seest that I no issue have,
1067 And that my fainting words do warrant death:
1068 Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather:
1069 But yet be wary in thy studious care.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1070 Thy grave admonishments prevail with me:
1071 But yet, methinks, my father's execution
1072 Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1073 With silence, nephew, be thou politic:
1074 Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
1075 And like a mountain not to be removed.
1076 But now thy uncle is removing hence;
1077 As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
1078 With long continuance in a settled place.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1079 O, uncle, would some part of my young years
1080 Might but redeem the passage of your age!
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
1081 Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth
1082 Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
1083 Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
1084 Only give order for my funeral:
1085 And so farewell, and fair be all thy hopes,
1086 And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!
[Dies.]
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1087 And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
1088 In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
1089 And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.
1090 Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
1091 And what I do imagine let that rest.
1092 Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
1093 Will see his burial better than his life.
[Exeunt Jailers, bearing out the body of Mortimer.]
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
1094 Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
1095 Choked with ambition of the meaner sort:
1096 And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
1097 Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,
1098 I doubt not but with honour to redress;
1099 And therefore haste I to the parliament,
1100 Either to be restored to my blood,
1101 Or make my ill the advantage of my good.
[Exit.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 977archaic vocab
“these gray locks, the pursuivants of death”
A pursuivant was a royal herald or official messenger — an officer sent ahead to announce an important arrival. Mortimer calls his gray hair 'pursuivants of death,' meaning they are death's advance heralds, messengers sent ahead to announce that death is coming.
TLN 978classical allusion
“Nestor-like aged in an age of care”
Nestor was the oldest of the Greek heroes at Troy — Homer says he had already outlived two generations of fighting men and was ruling among a third — so his name became a byword for extreme old age. Mortimer compares his gray hair to Nestor's, linking his long imprisonment to drawn-out suffering.
TLN 980archaic vocab
“like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent”
'Exigent' means an extreme crisis, urgent necessity, or final end — here, death. The image compares Mortimer's failing eyes to oil lamps flickering out as their fuel is exhausted, dimming toward their last moment.
TLN 985biblical allusion
“strengthless stay is numb, Unable to support this lump of clay”
Mortimer calls his own body a 'lump of clay,' the standard biblical phrase for the human body as dust or clay returned to the earth at death. God forms Adam from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7, Geneva 1599), and Ecclesiastes 12:7 says the body 'shall turne againe unto the earth.' The phrase captures Mortimer's sense that his body is already barely more than dead matter.
TLN 995historical topical
“Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign, Before whose glory I was great in arms, This loathsome sequestration have I had”
'Henry Monmouth' is Henry V, named for his birthplace, Monmouth Castle in Wales (born 1386). Mortimer says he was a powerful military lord before Henry V's reign began, and that ever since Henry V's accession he has been held in 'sequestration' — forcible isolation and removal from public life, here meaning lifelong imprisonment. This establishes the timeline: Mortimer has been locked away throughout Henry V's glorious reign and into Henry VI's.
TLN 1000rhetorical device
“the arbitrator of despairs, Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries, With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence”
Mortimer apostrophizes Death as both 'arbitrator' — a legal judge who settles disputes — and 'umpire,' an arbiter of contests, welcoming it as a just referee who ends suffering impartially. 'Enlargement' here means release from imprisonment or confinement, not physical growth: death is his liberation from the Tower. The legal and sporting metaphors dignify a dying prisoner's only escape.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)
TLN 1021archaic vocab
“Which obloquy set bars before my tongue, Else with the like I had requited him”
'Obloquy' means public disgrace, reproach, or defamatory speech. Richard says that Somerset's taunt — bringing up his father's execution — heaped such public shame on him that it silenced him in return: he could not strike back with an equal insult without exposing himself to further dishonor. The word underscores how the attainder (legal conviction for treason) against his father has hobbled Richard's ability to defend himself.
TLN 1035historical topical
“Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king, Deposed his nephew Richard, Edward's son”
Mortimer sketches the Yorkist genealogical claim in compressed form. Henry IV (Bolingbroke) deposed Richard II, who was the son of Edward the Black Prince (Edward III's eldest son). Mortimer's own superior claim comes through Lionel of Clarence, Edward III's third surviving son — one step senior to Henry IV's father, John of Gaunt, who was the fourth. Because Mortimer's maternal line descends from Lionel, it ranks above the Lancastrian line, making him and, after his death, Richard Plantagenet the rightful heirs.
historical Edward III and his seven sonshistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 1039historical topical
“the Percies of the north, Finding his usurpation most unjust, Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne”
The Percies — the great northern noble family headed by the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur — rebelled against Henry IV in 1403, championing Edmund Mortimer as the rightful king. They saw Henry IV as a usurper whose seizure of the crown from Richard II was illegitimate, and argued that the crown should pass to Mortimer's line through Lionel of Clarence. The rebellion ended at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403), where Hotspur was killed.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 1056historical topical
“Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then derived From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York, Marrying my sister that thy mother was”
Richard, Earl of Cambridge (executed 1415), was the son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York — Edward III's fourth son and the founder of the house of York. By marrying Mortimer's sister Anne (the granddaughter of Lionel of Clarence), Cambridge merged the York and Mortimer lines, giving Richard Plantagenet a double claim: through his father from Edmund of Langley (York) and through his mother from Lionel of Clarence (senior to Lancaster). Cambridge's beheading for the Southampton plot on the eve of Agincourt (1415) is the family disgrace that the attainder wiped on Richard Plantagenet.
historical Edward III and his seven sonshistorical The Southampton plot
TLN 1073historical topical
“With silence, nephew, be thou politic: Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster, And like a mountain not to be removed”
Mortimer's dying advice is political: keep quiet and wait. 'Politic' means prudently calculating — managing a dangerous situation by concealment rather than open action. The image of Lancaster as an immovable mountain underlines how impossible an immediate challenge would be: Henry V has just died, but his son Henry VI holds a realm, a French empire, and powerful nobles. Mortimer counsels long patience over hasty revenge.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 1094rhetorical device
“Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer, Choked with ambition of the meaner sort”
Richard eulogizes Mortimer with an extended metaphor: his uncle was a 'torch' — a flame of royal lineage — that has been snuffed out, made 'dusky' (dark, dimmed) by 'ambition of the meaner sort.' The phrase 'meaner sort' means those of lower rank and worth — the Lancastrians who imprisoned him rather than honor his superior claim. The torch image echoes the lamp/wasting oil metaphor Mortimer used of his own eyes at the scene's opening, giving the whole scene a coherent imagery of light guttering toward darkness.