<SPEECH 1><ACT 2><SCENE 5><36%>
<MORTIMER>	<36%>
	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;
	Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
	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?
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 2><ACT 2><SCENE 5><37%>
<MORTIMER>	<37%>
	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.

</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 3><ACT 2><SCENE 5><37%>
<MORTIMER>	<38%>
	Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 4><ACT 2><SCENE 5><37%>
<MORTIMER>	<38%>
	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 despis'd?
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 5><ACT 2><SCENE 5><38%>
<MORTIMER>	<38%>
	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.
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 6><ACT 2><SCENE 5><38%>
<MORTIMER>	<38%>
	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,
	Finding his usurpation most unjust,
	Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.
	The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this
	Was, for that—young King Richard thus remov'd,
	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 laboured to plant the rightful heir,
	I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
	Long after this, when Henry the Fifth
	Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
	Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd
	From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
	Marrying my sister that thy mother was,
	Again in pity of my hard distress
	Levied an army, weening to redeem
	And have install'd me in the diadem;
	But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
	And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
	In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 7><ACT 2><SCENE 5><39%>
<MORTIMER>	<39%>
	True; and thou seest that I no issue have,
	And that my fainting words do warrant death:
	Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather:
	But yet be wary in thy studious care.
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 8><ACT 2><SCENE 5><39%>
<MORTIMER>	<40%>
	With silence, nephew, be thou politic:
	Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
	And like a mountain, not to be remov'd.
	But now thy uncle is removing hence,
	As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
	With long continuance in a settled place.
</MORTIMER>

<SPEECH 9><ACT 2><SCENE 5><40%>
<MORTIMER>	<40%>
	Thou dost then wrong me,—as the slaughterer doth,
	Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.—
	Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
	Only give order for my funeral:
	And so farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,
	And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!
</MORTIMER>

