Plan. Then say at once, If I maintain'd the truth;
Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error?

Suf. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law;
And never yet could frame my will to it;
And, therefore, frame the law unto my will.

Som. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then be

tween us.

War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,

6

Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two horses, which doth bear him best,
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment:
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
The truth appears so naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.
Som. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,

So clear, so shining, and so evident,

That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye. Plan. Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loath to speak,

In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:

Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

Som. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
War. I love no colours; and, without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery,

I pluck this white rose, with Plantagenet.

6

· bear him best,] i. e. regulate his motions most adroitly. I love no colours;] Colours is here used ambiguously for tints

and deceits.

Suf. I pluck this red rose, with young Somerset; And say withal, I think he held the right.

Ver. Stay, lords, and gentlemen; and pluck no more, Till conclude that he, upon whose side you The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree,

Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good master Vernon, it is well objected;

If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

8

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,

Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off;
Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
And fall on my side so against your will.

Ver. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,
And keep me on the side where still I am.

Som. Well, well, come on: Who else?

Law. Unless my study and my books be false, The argument you held, was wrong in you;

[TO SOMERSET.

In sign whereof, I pluck a white rose too.

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that,

Shall die 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.

Som.

No, Plantagenet,

'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?

--- 8

well objected;] Properly thrown in our way, justly pro

posed.

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 fashiont, peevish boy.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. Plan. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

Suf. 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, So

merset ;

His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,
Third son to the third Edward king of England;
Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?
Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege,'
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:

2

Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
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 restor'd, thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attached, not attainted;
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;

+"faction,”- MALONE.

9

— crestless yeomen—] i. e. those who have no right to arms. 1 He bears him on the place's privilege,] The Temple, being a religious house, was an asylum, a place of exemption from violence, revenge, and bloodshed. JOHNSON.

2 Corrupted, and exempt-] Exempt for excluded.

And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker Poole3, and you yourself,
I'll note you in book of memory,
my

To scourge you for this apprehension:*
Look to it well; and say you are well warn'd.

Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still:
And know us, by these colours, 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 for ever, and my faction, wear;

Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.

Suf. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition! And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

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

Richard.

[Exit.

Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce en

dure 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:

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 prophecy, 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.

3 For your partaker Poole,] Partaker in ancient language signifies one who takes part with another, an accomplice, a confederate.

To scourge you for this apprehension:] Apprehension, i. c. opinion.

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.

SCENE V.

The same. A Room in the Tower.

[Exeunt.

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 grey 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 burd'ning 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?

1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber;
And answer was return'd, 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,

-pursuivants of death,] Pursuivants, The heralds that, forerunning death, proclaim its approach.

6 — as drawing to their exigent:] Exigent, end.