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 burthening 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?
Kind jailers of my frail and fading years, Let dying Mortimer rest here. Like a man just dragged from the rack, So feel my limbs after long imprisonment. And these gray hairs, the messengers of death, Like Nestor, aged by years of worry, Show the end of Edmund Mortimer’s life. These eyes, like lamps whose oil is spent, Grow dim, as they near their final purpose; Weak shoulders, burdened with sorrow, And lifeless arms, like a withered vine Drooping its dry branches to the ground; Yet these feet, too weak to support this heavy body, Are swift with the desire to reach a grave, For I know no other comfort. But tell me, jailer, will my nephew come?
Edmund Mortimer · Act 2, Scene 5
Mortimer, ancient and dying in the Tower, summons his nephew Richard to pass on the secret of his bloodline before death claims him. The speech lands because it transforms a prison into a deathbed—Mortimer's long confinement is ending, and with it goes the knowledge of York's rightful claim. It shows how the play encodes history as a secret waiting to explode.
