Shakespeare Plays and Sonnets
King Lear
Players:
- King Lear of Britain
- King of France
- Duke of Burgundy
- Duke of Cornwall
- Duke of Albany
- Earl of Kent
- Earl of Gloucester
- Edgar, son of Gloucester
- Edmund, bastard son of Gloucester
- Curan, a courtier
- Oswald, steward to Goneril
- Goneril, daughter of Lear
- Regan, daughter of Lear
- Cordelia, daughter of Lear
- Old Man, Gloucester's tenant
- Doctor
- Fool
- An Officer
- A Herald
- A Gentleman
- Servants to Cornwall
- Knights, Officers, Soldiers
- Messengers and Attendants
ACT I, SCENE I.
King Lear's palace.
[Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND]
KENT:
I thought the king had more affected the Duke of
- Albany than Cornwall.
GLOUCESTER:
It did always seem so to us: but now, in the
- division of the kingdom, it appears not which of
- the dukes he values most; for equalities are so
- weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice
- of either's moiety.
KENT:
Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER:
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have
- so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am
- brazed to it.
KENT:
I cannot conceive you.
GLOUCESTER:
Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon
- she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son
- for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed.
- Do you smell a fault?
KENT:
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it
- being so proper.
GLOUCESTER:
But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year
- elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account:
- though this knave came something saucily into the
- world before he was sent for, yet was his mother
- fair; there was good sport at his making, and the
- whoreson must be acknowledged. Do you know this
- noble gentleman, Edmund?
GLOUCESTER:
My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my
- honourable friend.
EDMUND:
My services to your lordship.
KENT:
I must love you, and sue to know you better.
EDMUND:
Sir, I shall study deserving.
GLOUCESTER:
He hath been out nine years, and away he shall
- again. The king is coming.
-
[Sennet. Enter KING LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL,
REGAN, CORDELIA, and Attendants]
KING LEAR:
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
KING LEAR:
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
- Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
- In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
- To shake all cares and business from our age;
- Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
- Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
- And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
- We have this hour a constant will to publish
- Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
- May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
- Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
- Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
- And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters,--
- Since now we will divest us both of rule,
- Interest of territory, cares of state,--
- Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
- That we our largest bounty may extend
- Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
- Our eldest-born, speak first.
GONERIL:
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
- Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
- Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
- No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
- As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
- A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
- Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA:
[Aside]
- What shall Cordelia do?
- Love, and be silent.
LEAR:
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
- With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
- With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
- We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
- Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
- Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
REGAN:
Sir, I am made
- Of the self-same metal that my sister is,
- And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
- I find she names my very deed of love;
- Only she comes too short: that I profess
- Myself an enemy to all other joys,
- Which the most precious square of sense possesses;
- And find I am alone felicitate
- In your dear highness' love.
CORDELIA:
[Aside]
- Then poor Cordelia!
- And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
- More richer than my tongue.
KING LEAR:
To thee and thine hereditary ever
- Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
- No less in space, validity, and pleasure,
- Than that conferr'd on Goneril. Now, our joy,
- Although the last, not least; to whose young love
- The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
- Strive to be interess'd; what can you say to draw
- A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA:
Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR:
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA:
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
- My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
- According to my bond; nor more nor less.
KING LEAR:
How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a little,
- Lest it may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA:
Good my lord,
- You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
- Return those duties back as are right fit,
- Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
- Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
- They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
- That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
- Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
- Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
- To love my father all.
KING LEAR:
But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA:
Ay, good my lord.
KING LEAR:
So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA:
So young, my lord, and true.
KING LEAR:
Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
- For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
- The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
- By all the operation of the orbs
- From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
- Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
- Propinquity and property of blood,
- And as a stranger to my heart and me
- Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
- Or he that makes his generation messes
- To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
- Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved,
- As thou my sometime daughter.
KING LEAR:
Peace, Kent!
- Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
- I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
- On her kind nursery. Hence, and avoid my sight!
- So be my grave my peace, as here I give
- Her father's heart from her! Call France; who stirs?
- Call Burgundy. Cornwall and Albany,
- With my two daughters' dowers digest this third:
- Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
- I do invest you jointly with my power,
- Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
- That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
- With reservation of an hundred knights,
- By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
- Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
- The name, and all the additions to a king;
- The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
- Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
- This coronet part betwixt you.
-
[Giving the crown]
KENT:
Royal Lear,
- Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
- Loved as my father, as my master follow'd,
- As my great patron thought on in my prayers,--
KING LEAR:
The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft.
KENT:
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
- The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly,
- When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man?
- Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
- When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound,
- When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom;
- And, in thy best consideration, cheque
- This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment,
- Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
- Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
- Reverbs no hollowness.
KING LEAR:
Kent, on thy life, no more.
KENT:
My life I never held but as a pawn
- To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,
- Thy safety being the motive.
KING LEAR:
Out of my sight!
KENT:
See better, Lear; and let me still remain
- The true blank of thine eye.
KING LEAR:
Now, by Apollo,--
KENT:
Now, by Apollo, king,
- Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.
ALBANY and CORNWALL:
Dear sir, forbear.
KENT:
Do:
- Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
- Upon thy foul disease. Revoke thy doom;
- Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
- I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
KING LEAR:
Hear me, recreant!
- On thine allegiance, hear me!
- Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,
- Which we durst never yet, and with strain'd pride
- To come between our sentence and our power,
- Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
- Our potency made good, take thy reward.
- Five days we do allot thee, for provision
- To shield thee from diseases of the world;
- And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
- Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
- Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,
- The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
- This shall not be revoked.
GLOUCESTER:
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
KING LEAR:
My lord of Burgundy.
- We first address towards you, who with this king
- Hath rivall'd for our daughter: what, in the least,
- Will you require in present dower with her,
- Or cease your quest of love?
BURGUNDY:
Most royal majesty,
- I crave no more than what your highness offer'd,
- Nor will you tender less.
KING LEAR:
Right noble Burgundy,
- When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
- But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands:
- If aught within that little seeming substance,
- Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,
- And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
- She's there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY:
I know no answer.
KING LEAR:
Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
- Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
- Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,
- Take her, or leave her?
BURGUNDY:
Pardon me, royal sir;
- Election makes not up on such conditions.
KING LEAR:
Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
- I tell you all her wealth.
-
[To KING OF FRANCE]
- For you, great king,
- I would not from your love make such a stray,
- To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
- To avert your liking a more worthier way
- Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
- Almost to acknowledge hers.
KING OF FRANCE:
This is most strange,
- That she, that even but now was your best object,
- The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
- Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
- Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
- So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence
- Must be of such unnatural degree,
- That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection
- Fall'n into taint: which to believe of her,
- Must be a faith that reason without miracle
- Could never plant in me.
CORDELIA:
I yet beseech your majesty,--
- If for I want that glib and oily art,
- To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
- I'll do't before I speak,--that you make known
- It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
- No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step,
- That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
- But even for want of that for which I am richer,
- A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
- As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
- Hath lost me in your liking.
KING LEAR:
Better thou
- Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.
KING OF FRANCE:
Is it but this,--a tardiness in nature
- Which often leaves the history unspoke
- That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
- What say you to the lady? Love's not love
- When it is mingled with regards that stand
- Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
- She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY:
Royal Lear,
- Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
- And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
- Duchess of Burgundy.
KING LEAR:
Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
BURGUNDY:
I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
- That you must lose a husband.
CORDELIA:
Peace be with Burgundy!
- Since that respects of fortune are his love,
- I shall not be his wife.
KING OF FRANCE:
Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
- Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
- Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
- Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
- Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
- My love should kindle to inflamed respect.
- Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
- Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
- Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
- Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
- Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
- Thou losest here, a better where to find.
KING OF FRANCE:
Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA:
The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes
- Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
- And like a sister am most loath to call
- Your faults as they are named. Use well our father:
- To your professed bosoms I commit him
- But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
- I would prefer him to a better place.
- So, farewell to you both.
REGAN:
Prescribe not us our duties.
GONERIL:
Let your study
- Be to content your lord, who hath received you
- At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,
- And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
CORDELIA:
Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides:
- Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
- Well may you prosper!
GONERIL:
Sister, it is not a little I have to say of what
- most nearly appertains to us both. I think our
- father will hence to-night.
REGAN:
That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.
GONERIL:
You see how full of changes his age is; the
- observation we have made of it hath not been
- little: he always loved our sister most; and
- with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off
- appears too grossly.
REGAN:
'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever
- but slenderly known himself.
GONERIL:
The best and soundest of his time hath been but
- rash; then must we look to receive from his age,
- not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed
- condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness
- that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
REGAN:
Such unconstant starts are we like to have from
- him as this of Kent's banishment.
GONERIL:
There is further compliment of leavetaking
- between France and him. Pray you, let's hit
- together: if our father carry authority with
- such dispositions as he bears, this last
- surrender of his will but offend us.
REGAN:
We shall further think on't.
GONERIL:
We must do something, and i' the heat.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE II.
The Earl of Gloucester's castle.
[Enter EDMUND, with a letter]
EDMUND:
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
- My services are bound. Wherefore should I
- Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
- The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
- For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
- Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
- When my dimensions are as well compact,
- My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
- As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
- With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
- Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
- More composition and fierce quality
- Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
- Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
- Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
- Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
- Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
- As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
- Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
- And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
- Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
- Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
-
[Enter GLOUCESTER]
GLOUCESTER:
Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted!
- And the king gone to-night! subscribed his power!
- Confined to exhibition! All this done
- Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?
EDMUND:
So please your lordship, none.
-
[Putting up the letter]
GLOUCESTER:
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
EDMUND:
I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER:
What paper were you reading?
EDMUND:
Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER:
No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch of
- it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath
- not such need to hide itself. Let's see: come,
- if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.
EDMUND:
I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter
- from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read;
- and for so much as I have perused, I find it not
- fit for your o'er-looking.
GLOUCESTER:
Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND:
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The
- contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.
GLOUCESTER:
Let's see, let's see.
EDMUND:
I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote
- this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.
GLOUCESTER:
[Reads]
- 'This policy and reverence of age makes
- the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps
- our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish
- them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage
- in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not
- as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to
- me, that of this I may speak more. If our father
- would sleep till I waked him, you should half his
- revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your
- brother, EDGAR.'
- Hum--conspiracy!--'Sleep till I waked him,--you
- should enjoy half his revenue,'--My son Edgar!
- Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain
- to breed it in?--When came this to you? who
- brought it?
EDMUND:
It was not brought me, my lord; there's the
- cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the
- casement of my closet.
GLOUCESTER:
You know the character to be your brother's?
EDMUND:
If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear
- it were his; but, in respect of that, I would
- fain think it were not.
EDMUND:
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
- not in the contents.
GLOUCESTER:
Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?
EDMUND:
Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft
- maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age,
- and fathers declining, the father should be as
- ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
GLOUCESTER:
O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
- letter! Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested,
- brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, sirrah,
- seek him; I'll apprehend him: abominable villain!
- Where is he?
EDMUND:
I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please
- you to suspend your indignation against my
- brother till you can derive from him better
- testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain
- course; where, if you violently proceed against
- him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great
- gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the
- heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life
- for him, that he hath wrote this to feel my
- affection to your honour, and to no further
- pretence of danger.
GLOUCESTER:
Think you so?
EDMUND:
If your honour judge it meet, I will place you
- where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an
- auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and
- that without any further delay than this very evening.
GLOUCESTER:
He cannot be such a monster--
EDMUND:
Nor is not, sure.
GLOUCESTER:
To his father, that so tenderly and entirely
- loves him. Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him
- out: wind me into him, I pray you: frame the
- business after your own wisdom. I would unstate
- myself, to be in a due resolution.
EDMUND:
I will seek him, sir, presently: convey the
- business as I shall find means and acquaint you withal.
GLOUCESTER:
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
- no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can
- reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself
- scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
- friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
- cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
- palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
- and father. This villain of mine comes under the
- prediction; there's son against father: the king
- falls from bias of nature; there's father against
- child. We have seen the best of our time:
- machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all
- ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our
- graves. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall
- lose thee nothing; do it carefully. And the
- noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his
- offence, honesty! 'Tis strange.
-
[Exit]
EDMUND:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
- when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
- of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
- disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
- if we were villains by necessity; fools by
- heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
- treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
- liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
- planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
- by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
- of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
- disposition to the charge of a star! My
- father compounded with my mother under the
- dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
- major; so that it follows, I am rough and
- lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
- had the maidenliest star in the firmament
- twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar--
-
[Enter EDGAR]
- And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old
- comedy: my cue is villanous melancholy, with a
- sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do
- portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.
EDGAR:
How now, brother Edmund! what serious
- contemplation are you in?
EDMUND:
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read
- this other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR:
Do you busy yourself about that?
EDMUND:
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed
- unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child
- and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of
- ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
- maledictions against king and nobles; needless
- diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation
- of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.
EDGAR:
How long have you been a sectary astronomical?
EDMUND:
Come, come; when saw you my father last?
EDGAR:
Why, the night gone by.
EDMUND:
Spake you with him?
EDGAR:
Ay, two hours together.
EDMUND:
Parted you in good terms? Found you no
- displeasure in him by word or countenance?
EDMUND:
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended
- him: and at my entreaty forbear his presence
- till some little time hath qualified the heat of
- his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth
- in him, that with the mischief of your person it
- would scarcely allay.
EDGAR:
Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND:
That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent
- forbearance till the spied of his rage goes
- slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my
- lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to
- hear my lord speak: pray ye, go; there's my key:
- if you do stir abroad, go armed.
EDMUND:
Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed: I
- am no honest man if there be any good meaning
- towards you: I have told you what I have seen
- and heard; but faintly, nothing like the image
- and horror of it: pray you, away.
EDGAR:
Shall I hear from you anon?
EDMUND:
I do serve you in this business.
-
[Exit EDGAR]
- A credulous father! and a brother noble,
- Whose nature is so far from doing harms,
- That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty
- My practises ride easy! I see the business.
- Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:
- All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.
-
[Exit]
ACT I, SCENE III.
The Duke of Albany's palace.
[Enter GONERIL, and OSWALD, her steward]
GONERIL:
Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?
GONERIL:
By day and night he wrongs me; every hour
- He flashes into one gross crime or other,
- That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it:
- His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
- On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,
- I will not speak with him; say I am sick:
- If you come slack of former services,
- You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
OSWALD:
He's coming, madam; I hear him.
-
[Horns within]
GONERIL:
Put on what weary negligence you please,
- You and your fellows; I'll have it come to question:
- If he dislike it, let him to our sister,
- Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
- Not to be over-ruled. Idle old man,
- That still would manage those authorities
- That he hath given away! Now, by my life,
- Old fools are babes again; and must be used
- With cheques as flatteries,--when they are seen abused.
- Remember what I tell you.
GONERIL:
And let his knights have colder looks among you;
- What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so:
- I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
- That I may speak: I'll write straight to my sister,
- To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE IV.
A hall in the same.
[Enter KENT, disguised]
KING LEAR:
Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.
-
[Exit an Attendant]
- How now! what art thou?
KING LEAR:
What dost thou profess? what wouldst thou with us?
KENT:
I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve
- him truly that will put me in trust: to love him
- that is honest; to converse with him that is wise,
- and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I
- cannot choose; and to eat no fish.
KING LEAR:
What art thou?
KENT:
A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.
KING LEAR:
If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a
- king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KING LEAR:
Who wouldst thou serve?
KING LEAR:
Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT:
No, sir; but you have that in your countenance
- which I would fain call master.
KING LEAR:
What services canst thou do?
KENT:
I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious
- tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message
- bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am
- qualified in; and the best of me is diligence.
KING LEAR:
How old art thou?
KENT:
Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor
- so old to dote on her for any thing: I have years
- on my back forty eight.
KING LEAR:
Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no
- worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.
- Dinner, ho, dinner! Where's my knave? my fool?
- Go you, and call my fool hither.
-
[Exit an Attendant;]
-
[Enter OSWALD]
- You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
OSWALD:
So please you,--
-
[Exit]
KING LEAR:
What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.
-
[Exit a Knight]
- Where's my fool, ho? I think the world's asleep.
-
[Re-enter Knight]
- How now! where's that mongrel?
Knight:
He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.
KING LEAR:
Why came not the slave back to me when I called him.
Knight:
Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would
- not.
Knight:
My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my
- judgment, your highness is not entertained with that
- ceremonious affection as you were wont; there's a
- great abatement of kindness appears as well in the
- general dependants as in the duke himself also and
- your daughter.
KING LEAR:
Ha! sayest thou so?
Knight:
I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken;
- for my duty cannot be silent when I think your
- highness wronged.
KING LEAR:
Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception: I
- have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I
- have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity
- than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness:
- I will look further into't. But where's my fool? I
- have not seen him this two days.
Knight:
Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the
- fool hath much pined away.
KING LEAR:
No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you, and
- tell my daughter I would speak with her.
-
[Exit an Attendant]
- Go you, call hither my fool.
-
[Exit an Attendant;]
-
[Re-enter OSWALD]
- O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir: who am I,
- sir?
OSWALD:
My lady's father.
KING LEAR:
'My lady's father'! my lord's knave: your
- whoreson dog! you slave! you cur!
OSWALD:
I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.
KING LEAR:
Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
-
[Striking him]
OSWALD:
I'll not be struck, my lord.
KENT:
Nor tripped neither, you base football player.
-
[Tripping up his heels]
KING LEAR:
I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I'll
- love thee.
KENT:
Come, sir, arise, away! I'll teach you differences:
- away, away! if you will measure your lubber's
- length again, tarry: but away! go to; have you
- wisdom? so.
-
[Pushes OSWALD out]
KING LEAR:
Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's
- earnest of thy service.
-
[Giving KENT money]
-
[Enter Fool]
FOOL:
Let me hire him too: here's my coxcomb.
-
[Offering KENT his cap]
KING LEAR:
How now, my pretty knave! how dost thou?
FOOL:
Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
FOOL:
Why, for taking one's part that's out of favour:
- nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits,
- thou'lt catch cold shortly: there, take my coxcomb:
- why, this fellow has banished two on's daughters,
- and did the third a blessing against his will; if
- thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.
- How now, nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!
FOOL:
If I gave them all my living, I'ld keep my coxcombs
- myself. There's mine; beg another of thy daughters.
KING LEAR:
Take heed, sirrah; the whip.
FOOL:
Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped
- out, when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink.
KING LEAR:
A pestilent gall to me!
FOOL:
Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.
FOOL:
Mark it, nuncle:
- Have more than thou showest,
- Speak less than thou knowest,
- Lend less than thou owest,
- Ride more than thou goest,
- Learn more than thou trowest,
- Set less than thou throwest;
- Leave thy drink and thy whore,
- And keep in-a-door,
- And thou shalt have more
- Than two tens to a score.
KENT:
This is nothing, fool.
FOOL:
Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you
- gave me nothing for't. Can you make no use of
- nothing, nuncle?
KING LEAR:
Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.
FOOL:
[To KENT]
- Prithee, tell him, so much the rent of
- his land comes to: he will not believe a fool.
KING LEAR:
A bitter fool!
FOOL:
Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a
- bitter fool and a sweet fool?
KING LEAR:
No, lad; teach me.
FOOL:
That lord that counsell'd thee
- To give away thy land,
- Come place him here by me,
- Do thou for him stand:
- The sweet and bitter fool
- Will presently appear;
- The one in motley here,
- The other found out there.
KING LEAR:
Dost thou call me fool, boy?
FOOL:
All thy other titles thou hast given away; that
- thou wast born with.
KENT:
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
FOOL:
No, faith, lords and great men will not let me; if
- I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't:
- and ladies too, they will not let me have all fool
- to myself; they'll be snatching. Give me an egg,
- nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns.
KING LEAR:
What two crowns shall they be?
FOOL:
Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle, and eat
- up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou
- clovest thy crown i' the middle, and gavest away
- both parts, thou borest thy ass on thy back o'er
- the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,
- when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak
- like myself in this, let him be whipped that first
- finds it so.
-
[Singing]
- Fools had ne'er less wit in a year;
- For wise men are grown foppish,
- They know not how their wits to wear,
- Their manners are so apish.
KING LEAR:
When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?
FOOL:
I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy
- daughters thy mothers: for when thou gavest them
- the rod, and put'st down thine own breeches,
-
[Singing]
- Then they for sudden joy did weep,
- And I for sorrow sung,
- That such a king should play bo-peep,
- And go the fools among.
- Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach
- thy fool to lie: I would fain learn to lie.
KING LEAR:
An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipped.
FOOL:
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:
- they'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt
- have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am
- whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any
- kind o' thing than a fool: and yet I would not be
- thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides,
- and left nothing i' the middle: here comes one o'
- the parings.
-
[Enter GONERIL]
KING LEAR:
How now, daughter! what makes that frontlet on?
- Methinks you are too much of late i' the frown.
FOOL:
Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to
- care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a
- figure: I am better than thou art now; I am a fool,
- thou art nothing.
-
[To GONERIL]
- Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so your face
- bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum,
- He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
- Weary of all, shall want some.
-
[Pointing to KING LEAR]
- That's a shealed peascod.
GONERIL:
Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool,
- But other of your insolent retinue
- Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
- In rank and not-to-be endured riots. Sir,
- I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
- To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,
- By what yourself too late have spoke and done.
- That you protect this course, and put it on
- By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
- Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
- Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
- Might in their working do you that offence,
- Which else were shame, that then necessity
- Will call discreet proceeding.
FOOL:
For, you trow, nuncle,
- The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
- That it's had it head bit off by it young.
- So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
KING LEAR:
Are you our daughter?
GONERIL:
Come, sir,
- I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
- Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
- These dispositions, that of late transform you
- From what you rightly are.
FOOL:
May not an ass know when the cart
- draws the horse? Whoop, Jug! I love thee.
KING LEAR:
Doth any here know me? This is not Lear:
- Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
- Either his notion weakens, his discernings
- Are lethargied--Ha! waking? 'tis not so.
- Who is it that can tell me who I am?
KING LEAR:
I would learn that; for, by the
- marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason,
- I should be false persuaded I had daughters.
FOOL:
Which they will make an obedient father.
KING LEAR:
Your name, fair gentlewoman?
GONERIL:
This admiration, sir, is much o' the savour
- Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
- To understand my purposes aright:
- As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
- Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
- Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd and bold,
- That this our court, infected with their manners,
- Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
- Make it more like a tavern or a brothel
- Than a graced palace. The shame itself doth speak
- For instant remedy: be then desired
- By her, that else will take the thing she begs,
- A little to disquantity your train;
- And the remainder, that shall still depend,
- To be such men as may besort your age,
- And know themselves and you.
KING LEAR:
Darkness and devils!
- Saddle my horses; call my train together:
- Degenerate bastard! I'll not trouble thee.
- Yet have I left a daughter.
GONERIL:
You strike my people; and your disorder'd rabble
- Make servants of their betters.
-
[Enter ALBANY]
KING LEAR:
Woe, that too late repents,--
-
[To ALBANY]
- O, sir, are you come?
- Is it your will? Speak, sir. Prepare my horses.
- Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
- More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child
- Than the sea-monster!
ALBANY:
Pray, sir, be patient.
KING LEAR:
[To GONERIL]
- Detested kite! thou liest.
- My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
- That all particulars of duty know,
- And in the most exact regard support
- The worships of their name. O most small fault,
- How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
- That, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature
- From the fix'd place; drew from heart all love,
- And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
- Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in,
-
[Striking his head]
- And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people.
ALBANY:
My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
- Of what hath moved you.
KING LEAR:
It may be so, my lord.
- Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
- Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
- To make this creature fruitful!
- Into her womb convey sterility!
- Dry up in her the organs of increase;
- And from her derogate body never spring
- A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
- Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
- And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
- Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
- With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
- Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
- To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
- How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
- To have a thankless child! Away, away!
-
[Exit]
ALBANY:
Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?
GONERIL:
Never afflict yourself to know the cause;
- But let his disposition have that scope
- That dotage gives it.
-
[Re-enter KING LEAR]
KING LEAR:
What, fifty of my followers at a clap!
- Within a fortnight!
ALBANY:
What's the matter, sir?
GONERIL:
Do you mark that, my lord?
ALBANY:
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
- To the great love I bear you,--
GONERIL:
Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!
-
[To the Fool]
- You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.
FOOL:
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry and take the fool
- with thee.
- A fox, when one has caught her,
- And such a daughter,
- Should sure to the slaughter,
- If my cap would buy a halter:
- So the fool follows after.
-
[Exit]
GONERIL:
This man hath had good counsel:--a hundred knights!
- 'Tis politic and safe to let him keep
- At point a hundred knights: yes, that, on every dream,
- Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
- He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
- And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!
ALBANY:
Well, you may fear too far.
GONERIL:
Safer than trust too far:
- Let me still take away the harms I fear,
- Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.
- What he hath utter'd I have writ my sister
- If she sustain him and his hundred knights
- When I have show'd the unfitness,--
-
[Re-enter OSWALD]
- How now, Oswald!
- What, have you writ that letter to my sister?
GONERIL:
Take you some company, and away to horse:
- Inform her full of my particular fear;
- And thereto add such reasons of your own
- As may compact it more. Get you gone;
- And hasten your return.
-
[Exit OSWALD]
- No, no, my lord,
- This milky gentleness and course of yours
- Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
- You are much more attask'd for want of wisdom
- Than praised for harmful mildness.
ALBANY:
How far your eyes may pierce I can not tell:
- Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
ALBANY:
Well, well; the event.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE V.
Court before the same.
[Enter KING LEAR, KENT, and Fool]
KING LEAR:
Go you before to Gloucester with these letters.
- Acquaint my daughter no further with any thing you
- know than comes from her demand out of the letter.
- If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.
KENT:
I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered
- your letter.
-
[Exit]
FOOL:
If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in
- danger of kibes?
FOOL:
Then, I prithee, be merry; thy wit shall ne'er go
- slip-shod.
FOOL:
Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly;
- for though she's as like this as a crab's like an
- apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.
KING LEAR:
Why, what canst thou tell, my boy?
FOOL:
She will taste as like this as a crab does to a
- crab. Thou canst tell why one's nose stands i'
- the middle on's face?
FOOL:
Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose; that
- what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.
KING LEAR:
I did her wrong--
FOOL:
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
FOOL:
Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
FOOL:
Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his
- daughters, and leave his horns without a case.
KING LEAR:
I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my
- horses ready?
FOOL:
Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the
- seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
KING LEAR:
Because they are not eight?
FOOL:
Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.
KING LEAR:
To take 't again perforce! Monster ingratitude!
FOOL:
If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten
- for being old before thy time.
FOOL:
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst
- been wise.
KING LEAR:
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven
- Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!
-
[Enter Gentleman]
- How now! are the horses ready?
Gentleman:
Ready, my lord.
FOOL:
She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
- Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT II, SCENE I.
GLOUCESTER's castle.
[Enter EDMUND, and CURAN meets him]
EDMUND:
Save thee, Curan.
CURAN:
And you, sir. I have been with your father, and
- given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan
- his duchess will be here with him this night.
CURAN:
Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad;
- I mean the whispered ones, for they are yet but
- ear-kissing arguments?
EDMUND:
Not I pray you, what are they?
CURAN:
Have you heard of no likely wars toward, 'twixt the
- Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
CURAN:
You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.
-
[Exit]
EDMUND:
The duke be here to-night? The better! best!
- This weaves itself perforce into my business.
- My father hath set guard to take my brother;
- And I have one thing, of a queasy question,
- Which I must act: briefness and fortune, work!
- Brother, a word; descend: brother, I say!
-
[Enter EDGAR]
- My father watches: O sir, fly this place;
- Intelligence is given where you are hid;
- You have now the good advantage of the night:
- Have you not spoken 'gainst the Duke of Cornwall?
- He's coming hither: now, i' the night, i' the haste,
- And Regan with him: have you nothing said
- Upon his party 'gainst the Duke of Albany?
- Advise yourself.
EDGAR:
I am sure on't, not a word.
GLOUCESTER:
Now, Edmund, where's the villain?
EDMUND:
Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
- Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
- To stand auspicious mistress,--
GLOUCESTER:
But where is he?
EDMUND:
Look, sir, I bleed.
GLOUCESTER:
Where is the villain, Edmund?
EDMUND:
Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could--
GLOUCESTER:
Pursue him, ho! Go after.
-
[Exeunt some Servants]
- By no means what?
EDMUND:
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;
- But that I told him, the revenging gods
- 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;
- Spoke, with how manifold and strong a bond
- The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine,
- Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
- To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion,
- With his prepared sword, he charges home
- My unprovided body, lanced mine arm:
- But when he saw my best alarum'd spirits,
- Bold in the quarrel's right, roused to the encounter,
- Or whether gasted by the noise I made,
- Full suddenly he fled.
GLOUCESTER:
Let him fly far:
- Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;
- And found--dispatch. The noble duke my master,
- My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night:
- By his authority I will proclaim it,
- That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,
- Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
- He that conceals him, death.
EDMUND:
When I dissuaded him from his intent,
- And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
- I threaten'd to discover him: he replied,
- 'Thou unpossessing bastard! dost thou think,
- If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
- Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee
- Make thy words faith'd? No: what I should deny,--
- As this I would: ay, though thou didst produce
- My very character,--I'ld turn it all
- To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practise:
- And thou must make a dullard of the world,
- If they not thought the profits of my death
- Were very pregnant and potential spurs
- To make thee seek it.'
CORNWALL:
How now, my noble friend! since I came hither,
- Which I can call but now, I have heard strange news.
REGAN:
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
- Which can pursue the offender. How dost, my lord?
GLOUCESTER:
O, madam, my old heart is crack'd, it's crack'd!
REGAN:
What, did my father's godson seek your life?
- He whom my father named? your Edgar?
GLOUCESTER:
O, lady, lady, shame would have it hid!
REGAN:
Was he not companion with the riotous knights
- That tend upon my father?
GLOUCESTER:
I know not, madam: 'tis too bad, too bad.
EDMUND:
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
REGAN:
No marvel, then, though he were ill affected:
- 'Tis they have put him on the old man's death,
- To have the expense and waste of his revenues.
- I have this present evening from my sister
- Been well inform'd of them; and with such cautions,
- That if they come to sojourn at my house,
- I'll not be there.
CORNWALL:
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
- Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
- A child-like office.
EDMUND:
'Twas my duty, sir.
GLOUCESTER:
He did bewray his practise; and received
- This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.
GLOUCESTER:
Ay, my good lord.
CORNWALL:
If he be taken, he shall never more
- Be fear'd of doing harm: make your own purpose,
- How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,
- Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
- So much commend itself, you shall be ours:
- Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;
- You we first seize on.
EDMUND:
I shall serve you, sir,
- Truly, however else.
GLOUCESTER:
For him I thank your grace.
CORNWALL:
You know not why we came to visit you,--
REGAN:
Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night:
- Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,
- Wherein we must have use of your advice:
- Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
- Of differences, which I least thought it fit
- To answer from our home; the several messengers
- From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
- Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow
- Your needful counsel to our business,
- Which craves the instant use.
GLOUCESTER:
I serve you, madam:
- Your graces are right welcome.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT II, SCENE II.
Before Gloucester's castle.
[Enter KENT and OSWALD, severally]
OSWALD:
Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?
OSWALD:
Where may we set our horses?
OSWALD:
Prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me.
OSWALD:
Why, then, I care not for thee.
KENT:
If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee
- care for me.
OSWALD:
Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
KENT:
Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD:
What dost thou know me for?
KENT:
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
- base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
- hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
- lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
- glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
- one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
- bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
- the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
- and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
- will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
- the least syllable of thy addition.
OSWALD:
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail
- on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!
KENT:
What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou
- knowest me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up
- thy heels, and beat thee before the king? Draw, you
- rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon
- shines; I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you:
- draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw.
-
[Drawing his sword]
OSWALD:
Away! I have nothing to do with thee.
KENT:
Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the
- king; and take vanity the puppet's part against the
- royalty of her father: draw, you rogue, or I'll so
- carbonado your shanks: draw, you rascal; come your ways.
OSWALD:
Help, ho! murder! help!
KENT:
Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat
- slave, strike.
-
[Beating him]
OSWALD:
Help, ho! murder! murder!
-
[Enter EDMUND, with his rapier drawn,
CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOUCESTER, and Servants]
EDMUND:
How now! What's the matter?
KENT:
With you, goodman boy, an you please: come, I'll
- flesh ye; come on, young master.
GLOUCESTER:
Weapons! arms! What 's the matter here?
CORNWALL:
Keep peace, upon your lives:
- He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?
REGAN:
The messengers from our sister and the king.
CORNWALL:
What is your difference? speak.
OSWALD:
I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT:
No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour. You
- cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee: a
- tailor made thee.
CORNWALL:
Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?
KENT:
Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone-cutter or painter could
- not have made him so ill, though he had been but two
- hours at the trade.
CORNWALL:
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
OSWALD:
This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared
- at suit of his gray beard,--
KENT:
Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My
- lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this
- unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of
- a jakes with him. Spare my gray beard, you wagtail?
CORNWALL:
Peace, sirrah!
- You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
KENT:
Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.
CORNWALL:
Why art thou angry?
KENT:
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
- Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
- Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
- Which are too intrinse t' unloose; smooth every passion
- That in the natures of their lords rebel;
- Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
- Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
- With every gale and vary of their masters,
- Knowing nought, like dogs, but following.
- A plague upon your epileptic visage!
- Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
- Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
- I'ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
CORNWALL:
Why, art thou mad, old fellow?
GLOUCESTER:
How fell you out? say that.
KENT:
No contraries hold more antipathy
- Than I and such a knave.
CORNWALL:
Why dost thou call him a knave? What's his offence?
KENT:
His countenance likes me not.
CORNWALL:
No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers.
KENT:
Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain:
- I have seen better faces in my time
- Than stands on any shoulder that I see
- Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL:
This is some fellow,
- Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
- A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
- Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
- An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
- An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.
- These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
- Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
- Than twenty silly ducking observants
- That stretch their duties nicely.
KENT:
Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,
- Under the allowance of your great aspect,
- Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
- On flickering Phoebus' front,--
CORNWALL:
What mean'st by this?
KENT:
To go out of my dialect, which you
- discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no
- flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain
- accent was a plain knave; which for my part
- I will not be, though I should win your displeasure
- to entreat me to 't.
CORNWALL:
What was the offence you gave him?
OSWALD:
I never gave him any:
- It pleased the king his master very late
- To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
- When he, conjunct and flattering his displeasure,
- Tripp'd me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd,
- And put upon him such a deal of man,
- That worthied him, got praises of the king
- For him attempting who was self-subdued;
- And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
- Drew on me here again.
KENT:
None of these rogues and cowards
- But Ajax is their fool.
CORNWALL:
Fetch forth the stocks!
- You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart,
- We'll teach you--
KENT:
Sir, I am too old to learn:
- Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king;
- On whose employment I was sent to you:
- You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
- Against the grace and person of my master,
- Stocking his messenger.
CORNWALL:
Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,
- There shall he sit till noon.
REGAN:
Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night too.
KENT:
Why, madam, if I were your father's dog,
- You should not use me so.
REGAN:
Sir, being his knave, I will.
CORNWALL:
This is a fellow of the self-same colour
- Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!
- Stocks brought out
GLOUCESTER:
Let me beseech your grace not to do so:
- His fault is much, and the good king his master
- Will cheque him for 't: your purposed low correction
- Is such as basest and contemned'st wretches
- For pilferings and most common trespasses
- Are punish'd with: the king must take it ill,
- That he's so slightly valued in his messenger,
- Should have him thus restrain'd.
CORNWALL:
I'll answer that.
GLOUCESTER:
I am sorry for thee, friend; 'tis the duke's pleasure,
- Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
- Will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd: I'll entreat for thee.
KENT:
Pray, do not, sir: I have watched and travell'd hard;
- Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle.
- A good man's fortune may grow out at heels:
- Give you good morrow!
GLOUCESTER:
The duke's to blame in this; 'twill be ill taken.
-
[Exit]
KENT:
Good king, that must approve the common saw,
- Thou out of heaven's benediction comest
- To the warm sun!
- Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
- That by thy comfortable beams I may
- Peruse this letter! Nothing almost sees miracles
- But misery: I know 'tis from Cordelia,
- Who hath most fortunately been inform'd
- Of my obscured course; and shall find time
- From this enormous state, seeking to give
- Losses their remedies. All weary and o'erwatch'd,
- Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
- This shameful lodging.
- Fortune, good night: smile once more: turn thy wheel!
-
[Sleeps]
ACT II, SCENE III.
A wood.
[Enter EDGAR]
EDGAR:
I heard myself proclaim'd;
- And by the happy hollow of a tree
- Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place,
- That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
- Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may 'scape,
- I will preserve myself: and am bethought
- To take the basest and most poorest shape
- That ever penury, in contempt of man,
- Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
- Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
- And with presented nakedness out-face
- The winds and persecutions of the sky.
- The country gives me proof and precedent
- Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
- Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
- Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
- And with this horrible object, from low farms,
- Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
- Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
- Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!
- That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
-
[Exit]
ACT II, SCENE IV.
Before GLOUCESTER's castle. KENT in the stocks.
[Enter KING LEAR, Fool, and Gentleman]
KING LEAR:
'Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
- And not send back my messenger.
Gentleman:
As I learn'd,
- The night before there was no purpose in them
- Of this remove.
KENT:
Hail to thee, noble master!
KING LEAR:
Ha!
- Makest thou this shame thy pastime?
FOOL:
Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied
- by the heads, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by
- the loins, and men by the legs: when a man's
- over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden
- nether-stocks.
KING LEAR:
What's he that hath so much thy place mistook
- To set thee here?
KENT:
It is both he and she;
- Your son and daughter.
KING LEAR:
No, no, they would not.
KING LEAR:
By Jupiter, I swear, no.
KENT:
By Juno, I swear, ay.
KING LEAR:
They durst not do 't;
- They could not, would not do 't; 'tis worse than murder,
- To do upon respect such violent outrage:
- Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
- Thou mightst deserve, or they impose, this usage,
- Coming from us.
KENT:
My lord, when at their home
- I did commend your highness' letters to them,
- Ere I was risen from the place that show'd
- My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
- Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
- From Goneril his mistress salutations;
- Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission,
- Which presently they read: on whose contents,
- They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse;
- Commanded me to follow, and attend
- The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
- And meeting here the other messenger,
- Whose welcome, I perceived, had poison'd mine,--
- Being the very fellow that of late
- Display'd so saucily against your highness,--
- Having more man than wit about me, drew:
- He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
- Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
- The shame which here it suffers.
FOOL:
Winter's not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.
- Fathers that wear rags
- Do make their children blind;
- But fathers that bear bags
- Shall see their children kind.
- Fortune, that arrant whore,
- Ne'er turns the key to the poor.
- But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours
- for thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.
KING LEAR:
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
- Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,
- Thy element's below! Where is this daughter?
KENT:
With the earl, sir, here within.
KING LEAR:
Follow me not;
- Stay here.
-
[Exit]
Gentleman:
Made you no more offence but what you speak of?
KENT:
None.
- How chance the king comes with so small a train?
FOOL:
And thou hadst been set i' the stocks for that
- question, thou hadst well deserved it.
FOOL:
We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee
- there's no labouring i' the winter. All that follow
- their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and
- there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him
- that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel
- runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with
- following it: but the great one that goes up the
- hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man
- gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I
- would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
- That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
- And follows but for form,
- Will pack when it begins to rain,
- And leave thee in the storm,
- But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
- And let the wise man fly:
- The knave turns fool that runs away;
- The fool no knave, perdy.
KENT:
Where learned you this, fool?
KING LEAR:
Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?
- They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches;
- The images of revolt and flying off.
- Fetch me a better answer.
GLOUCESTER:
My dear lord,
- You know the fiery quality of the duke;
- How unremoveable and fix'd he is
- In his own course.
KING LEAR:
Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!
- Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,
- I'ld speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
GLOUCESTER:
Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.
KING LEAR:
Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man?
GLOUCESTER:
Ay, my good lord.
KING LEAR:
The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father
- Would with his daughter speak, commands her service:
- Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!
- Fiery? the fiery duke? Tell the hot duke that--
- No, but not yet: may be he is not well:
- Infirmity doth still neglect all office
- Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves
- When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
- To suffer with the body: I'll forbear;
- And am fall'n out with my more headier will,
- To take the indisposed and sickly fit
- For the sound man. Death on my state! wherefore
- Looking on KENT
- Should he sit here? This act persuades me
- That this remotion of the duke and her
- Is practise only. Give me my servant forth.
- Go tell the duke and 's wife I'ld speak with them,
- Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
- Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum
- Till it cry sleep to death.
GLOUCESTER:
I would have all well betwixt you.
-
[Exit]
KING LEAR:
O me, my heart, my rising heart! but, down!
KING LEAR:
Good morrow to you both.
CORNWALL:
Hail to your grace!
-
[KENT is set at liberty]
REGAN:
I am glad to see your highness.
KING LEAR:
Regan, I think you are; I know what reason
- I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,
- I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,
- Sepulchring an adultress.
-
[To KENT]
- O, are you free?
- Some other time for that. Beloved Regan,
- Thy sister's naught: O Regan, she hath tied
- Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here:
-
[Points to his heart]
- I can scarce speak to thee; thou'lt not believe
- With how depraved a quality--O Regan!
REGAN:
I pray you, sir, take patience: I have hope.
- You less know how to value her desert
- Than she to scant her duty.
KING LEAR:
Say, how is that?
REGAN:
I cannot think my sister in the least
- Would fail her obligation: if, sir, perchance
- She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,
- 'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
- As clears her from all blame.
KING LEAR:
My curses on her!
REGAN:
O, sir, you are old.
- Nature in you stands on the very verge
- Of her confine: you should be ruled and led
- By some discretion, that discerns your state
- Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you,
- That to our sister you do make return;
- Say you have wrong'd her, sir.
KING LEAR:
Ask her forgiveness?
- Do you but mark how this becomes the house:
- 'Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;
-
[Kneeling]
- Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg
- That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.'
REGAN:
Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks:
- Return you to my sister.
KING LEAR:
[Rising]
- Never, Regan:
- She hath abated me of half my train;
- Look'd black upon me; struck me with her tongue,
- Most serpent-like, upon the very heart:
- All the stored vengeances of heaven fall
- On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,
- You taking airs, with lameness!
KING LEAR:
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
- Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,
- You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
- To fall and blast her pride!
REGAN:
O the blest gods! so will you wish on me,
- When the rash mood is on.
KING LEAR:
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse:
- Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
- Thee o'er to harshness: her eyes are fierce; but thine
- Do comfort and not burn. 'Tis not in thee
- To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,
- To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,
- And in conclusion to oppose the bolt
- Against my coming in: thou better know'st
- The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
- Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;
- Thy half o' the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
- Wherein I thee endow'd.
REGAN:
Good sir, to the purpose.
KING LEAR:
Who put my man i' the stocks?
-
[Tucket within]
CORNWALL:
What trumpet's that?
REGAN:
I know't, my sister's: this approves her letter,
- That she would soon be here.
-
[Enter OSWALD]
- Is your lady come?
KING LEAR:
This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride
- Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.
- Out, varlet, from my sight!
CORNWALL:
What means your grace?
KING LEAR:
Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope
- Thou didst not know on't. Who comes here? O heavens,
-
[Enter GONERIL]
- If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
- Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
- Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!
-
[To GONERIL]
- Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?
- O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
GONERIL:
Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?
- All's not offence that indiscretion finds
- And dotage terms so.
KING LEAR:
O sides, you are too tough;
- Will you yet hold? How came my man i' the stocks?
CORNWALL:
I set him there, sir: but his own disorders
- Deserved much less advancement.
REGAN:
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
- If, till the expiration of your month,
- You will return and sojourn with my sister,
- Dismissing half your train, come then to me:
- I am now from home, and out of that provision
- Which shall be needful for your entertainment.
KING LEAR:
Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?
- No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
- To wage against the enmity o' the air;
- To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,--
- Necessity's sharp pinch! Return with her?
- Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
- Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
- To knee his throne, and, squire-like; pension beg
- To keep base life afoot. Return with her?
- Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
- To this detested groom.
-
[Pointing at OSWALD]
GONERIL:
At your choice, sir.
KING LEAR:
I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad:
- I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
- We'll no more meet, no more see one another:
- But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
- Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
- Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
- A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,
- In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee;
- Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:
- I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
- Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:
- Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure:
- I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
- I and my hundred knights.
REGAN:
Not altogether so:
- I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided
- For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
- For those that mingle reason with your passion
- Must be content to think you old, and so--
- But she knows what she does.
KING LEAR:
Is this well spoken?
REGAN:
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
- Is it not well? What should you need of more?
- Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
- Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house,
- Should many people, under two commands,
- Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible.
GONERIL:
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
- From those that she calls servants or from mine?
REGAN:
Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,
- We could control them. If you will come to me,--
- For now I spy a danger,--I entreat you
- To bring but five and twenty: to no more
- Will I give place or notice.
KING LEAR:
I gave you all--
REGAN:
And in good time you gave it.
KING LEAR:
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
- But kept a reservation to be follow'd
- With such a number. What, must I come to you
- With five and twenty, Regan? said you so?
REGAN:
And speak't again, my lord; no more with me.
KING LEAR:
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,
- When others are more wicked: not being the worst
- Stands in some rank of praise.
-
[To GONERIL]
- I'll go with thee:
- Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
- And thou art twice her love.
GONERIL:
Hear me, my lord;
- What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,
- To follow in a house where twice so many
- Have a command to tend you?
CORNWALL:
Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm.
REGAN:
This house is little: the old man and his people
- Cannot be well bestow'd.
GONERIL:
'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest,
- And must needs taste his folly.
REGAN:
For his particular, I'll receive him gladly,
- But not one follower.
GONERIL:
So am I purposed.
- Where is my lord of Gloucester?
CORNWALL:
Follow'd the old man forth: he is return'd.
-
[Re-enter GLOUCESTER]
GLOUCESTER:
The king is in high rage.
CORNWALL:
Whither is he going?
GLOUCESTER:
He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.
CORNWALL:
'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.
GONERIL:
My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
GLOUCESTER:
Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
- Do sorely ruffle; for many miles a bout
- There's scarce a bush.
REGAN:
O, sir, to wilful men,
- The injuries that they themselves procure
- Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
- He is attended with a desperate train;
- And what they may incense him to, being apt
- To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL:
Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night:
- My Regan counsels well; come out o' the storm.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE I.
A heath.
[Storm still. Enter KENT and a Gentleman, meeting]
KENT:
Who's there, besides foul weather?
Gentleman:
One minded like the weather, most unquietly.
KENT:
I know you. Where's the king?
Gentleman:
Contending with the fretful element:
- Bids the winds blow the earth into the sea,
- Or swell the curled water 'bove the main,
- That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
- Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
- Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
- Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
- The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
- This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
- The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
- Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
- And bids what will take all.
KENT:
But who is with him?
Gentleman:
None but the fool; who labours to out-jest
- His heart-struck injuries.
KENT:
Sir, I do know you;
- And dare, upon the warrant of my note,
- Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
- Although as yet the face of it be cover'd
- With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;
- Who have--as who have not, that their great stars
- Throned and set high?--servants, who seem no less,
- Which are to France the spies and speculations
- Intelligent of our state; what hath been seen,
- Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes,
- Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
- Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
- Whereof perchance these are but furnishings;
- But, true it is, from France there comes a power
- Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
- Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
- In some of our best ports, and are at point
- To show their open banner. Now to you:
- If on my credit you dare build so far
- To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
- Some that will thank you, making just report
- Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
- The king hath cause to plain.
- I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
- And, from some knowledge and assurance, offer
- This office to you.
Gentleman:
I will talk further with you.
KENT:
No, do not.
- For confirmation that I am much more
- Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take
- What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,--
- As fear not but you shall,--show her this ring;
- And she will tell you who your fellow is
- That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
- I will go seek the king.
Gentleman:
Give me your hand: have you no more to say?
KENT:
Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet;
- That, when we have found the king,--in which your pain
- That way, I'll this,--he that first lights on him
- Holla the other.
-
[Exeunt severally]
ACT III, SCENE II.
Another part of the heath. Storm still.
[Enter KING LEAR and Fool]
KING LEAR:
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
- You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
- Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
- You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
- Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
- Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
- Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
- Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
- That make ingrateful man!
FOOL:
O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry
- house is better than this rain-water out o' door.
- Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing:
- here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.
KING LEAR:
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
- Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
- I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
- I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
- You owe me no subscription: then let fall
- Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
- A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
- But yet I call you servile ministers,
- That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
- Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
- So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!
FOOL:
He that has a house to put's head in has a good
- head-piece.
- The cod-piece that will house
- Before the head has any,
- The head and he shall louse;
- So beggars marry many.
- The man that makes his toe
- What he his heart should make
- Shall of a corn cry woe,
- And turn his sleep to wake.
- For there was never yet fair woman but she made
- mouths in a glass.
KING LEAR:
No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
- I will say nothing.
-
[Enter KENT]
FOOL:
Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise
- man and a fool.
KENT:
Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night
- Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
- Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
- And make them keep their caves: since I was man,
- Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
- Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
- Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry
- The affliction nor the fear.
KING LEAR:
Let the great gods,
- That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
- Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
- That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
- Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
- Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue
- That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
- That under covert and convenient seeming
- Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts,
- Rive your concealing continents, and cry
- These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
- More sinn'd against than sinning.
KENT:
Alack, bare-headed!
- Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
- Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest:
- Repose you there; while I to this hard house--
- More harder than the stones whereof 'tis raised;
- Which even but now, demanding after you,
- Denied me to come in--return, and force
- Their scanted courtesy.
KING LEAR:
My wits begin to turn.
- Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?
- I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
- The art of our necessities is strange,
- That can make vile things precious. Come,
- your hovel.
- Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
- That's sorry yet for thee.
FOOL:
[Singing]
- He that has and a little tiny wit--
- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,--
- Must make content with his fortunes fit,
- For the rain it raineth every day.
FOOL:
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.
- I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:
- When priests are more in word than matter;
- When brewers mar their malt with water;
- When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
- No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
- When every case in law is right;
- No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
- When slanders do not live in tongues;
- Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
- When usurers tell their gold i' the field;
- And bawds and whores do churches build;
- Then shall the realm of Albion
- Come to great confusion:
- Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
- That going shall be used with feet.
- This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.
-
[Exit]
ACT III, SCENE III.
Gloucester's castle.
[Enter GLOUCESTER and EDMUND]
GLOUCESTER:
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural
- dealing. When I desire their leave that I might
- pity him, they took from me the use of mine own
- house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual
- displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for
- him, nor any way sustain him.
EDMUND:
Most savage and unnatural!
GLOUCESTER:
Go to; say you nothing. There's a division betwixt
- the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have
- received a letter this night; 'tis dangerous to be
- spoken; I have locked the letter in my closet:
- these injuries the king now bears will be revenged
- home; there's part of a power already footed: we
- must incline to the king. I will seek him, and
- privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with
- the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived:
- if he ask for me. I am ill, and gone to bed.
- Though I die for it, as no less is threatened me,
- the king my old master must be relieved. There is
- some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.
-
[Exit]
EDMUND:
This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
- Instantly know; and of that letter too:
- This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
- That which my father loses; no less than all:
- The younger rises when the old doth fall.
-
[Exit]
ACT III, SCENE IV.
The heath. Before a hovel.
[Enter KING LEAR, KENT, and Fool]
KENT:
Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
- The tyranny of the open night's too rough
- For nature to endure.
-
[Storm still]
KENT:
Good my lord, enter here.
KING LEAR:
Wilt break my heart?
KENT:
I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
KING LEAR:
Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
- Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;
- But where the greater malady is fix'd,
- The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'ldst shun a bear;
- But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
- Thou'ldst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the
- mind's free,
- The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
- Doth from my senses take all feeling else
- Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
- Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
- For lifting food to't? But I will punish home:
- No, I will weep no more. In such a night
- To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.
- In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
- Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,--
- O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
- No more of that.
KENT:
Good my lord, enter here.
KING LEAR:
Prithee, go in thyself: seek thine own ease:
- This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
- On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.
-
[To the Fool]
- In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,--
- Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
-
[Fool goes in]
- Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
- That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
- How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
- Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
- From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
- Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
- Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
- That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
- And show the heavens more just.
FOOL:
Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit
- Help me, help me!
KENT:
Give me thy hand. Who's there?
FOOL:
A spirit, a spirit: he says his name's poor Tom.
EDGAR:
Away! the foul fiend follows me!
- Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.
- Hum! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
KING LEAR:
Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?
- And art thou come to this?
EDGAR:
Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul
- fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and
- through ford and whirlipool e'er bog and quagmire;
- that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters
- in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made film
- proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over
- four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a
- traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold,--O, do
- de, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds,
- star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some
- charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: there could I
- have him now,--and there,--and there again, and there.
-
[Storm still]
KING LEAR:
What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
- Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?
FOOL:
Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.
KING LEAR:
Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air
- Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters!
KENT:
He hath no daughters, sir.
KING LEAR:
Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature
- To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
- Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
- Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
- Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
- Those pelican daughters.
EDGAR:
Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:
- Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!
FOOL:
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
EDGAR:
Take heed o' the foul fiend: obey thy parents;
- keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with
- man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud
- array. Tom's a-cold.
KING LEAR:
What hast thou been?
EDGAR:
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
- my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
- my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
- her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
- broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
- slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
- wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
- out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
- ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
- wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
- Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
- silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
- out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
- from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
- Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
- Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
- Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
-
[Storm still]
EDGAR:
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins
- at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives
- the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the
- hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the
- poor creature of earth.
- S. Withold footed thrice the old;
- He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
- Bid her alight,
- And her troth plight,
- And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
KENT:
How fares your grace?
KENT:
Who's there? What is't you seek?
GLOUCESTER:
What are you there? Your names?
EDGAR:
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad,
- the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in
- the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages,
- eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and
- the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the
- standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to
- tithing, and stock- punished, and imprisoned; who
- hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his
- body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear;
- But mice and rats, and such small deer,
- Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
- Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin; peace, thou fiend!
GLOUCESTER:
What, hath your grace no better company?
EDGAR:
The prince of darkness is a gentleman:
- Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.
GLOUCESTER:
Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord,
- That it doth hate what gets it.
EDGAR:
Poor Tom's a-cold.
GLOUCESTER:
Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer
- To obey in all your daughters' hard commands:
- Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
- And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
- Yet have I ventured to come seek you out,
- And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
KING LEAR:
First let me talk with this philosopher.
- What is the cause of thunder?
KENT:
Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.
KING LEAR:
I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
- What is your study?
EDGAR:
How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.
KING LEAR:
Let me ask you one word in private.
KENT:
Importune him once more to go, my lord;
- His wits begin to unsettle.
GLOUCESTER:
Canst thou blame him?
-
[Storm still]
- His daughters seek his death: ah, that good Kent!
- He said it would be thus, poor banish'd man!
- Thou say'st the king grows mad; I'll tell thee, friend,
- I am almost mad myself: I had a son,
- Now outlaw'd from my blood; he sought my life,
- But lately, very late: I loved him, friend;
- No father his son dearer: truth to tell thee,
- The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night's this!
- I do beseech your grace,--
KING LEAR:
O, cry your mercy, sir.
- Noble philosopher, your company.
GLOUCESTER:
In, fellow, there, into the hovel: keep thee warm.
KING LEAR:
Come let's in all.
KING LEAR:
With him;
- I will keep still with my philosopher.
KENT:
Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.
GLOUCESTER:
Take him you on.
KENT:
Sirrah, come on; go along with us.
KING LEAR:
Come, good Athenian.
GLOUCESTER:
No words, no words: hush.
EDGAR:
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
- His word was still,--Fie, foh, and fum,
- I smell the blood of a British man.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE V.
Gloucester's castle.
[Enter CORNWALL and EDMUND]
CORNWALL:
I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.
EDMUND:
How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus
- gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think
- of.
CORNWALL:
I now perceive, it was not altogether your
- brother's evil disposition made him seek his death;
- but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reprovable
- badness in himself.
EDMUND:
How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to
- be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which
- approves him an intelligent party to the advantages
- of France: O heavens! that this treason were not,
- or not I the detector!
CORNWALL:
o with me to the duchess.
EDMUND:
If the matter of this paper be certain, you have
- mighty business in hand.
CORNWALL:
True or false, it hath made thee earl of
- Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he
- may be ready for our apprehension.
EDMUND:
[Aside]
- If I find him comforting the king, it will
- stuff his suspicion more fully.--I will persevere in
- my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore
- between that and my blood.
CORNWALL:
I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a
- dearer father in my love.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE VI.
A chamber in a farmhouse adjoining the castle.
[Enter GLOUCESTER, KING LEAR, KENT, Fool, and EDGAR]
GLOUCESTER:
Here is better than the open air; take it
- thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what
- addition I can: I will not be long from you.
KENT:
All the power of his wits have given way to his
- impatience: the gods reward your kindness!
-
[Exit GLOUCESTER]
EDGAR:
Frateretto calls me; and tells me
- Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness.
- Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.
FOOL:
Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a
- gentleman or a yeoman?
KING LEAR:
A king, a king!
FOOL:
No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son;
- for he's a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman
- before him.
KING LEAR:
To have a thousand with red burning spits
- Come hissing in upon 'em,--
EDGAR:
The foul fiend bites my back.
FOOL:
He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a
- horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.
KING LEAR:
It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.
-
[To EDGAR]
- Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer;
-
[To the Fool]
- Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she foxes!
EDGAR:
Look, where he stands and glares!
- Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?
- Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me,--
FOOL:
Her boat hath a leak,
- And she must not speak
- Why she dares not come over to thee.
EDGAR:
The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a
- nightingale. Hopdance cries in Tom's belly for two
- white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no
- food for thee.
KENT:
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amazed:
- Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
KING LEAR:
I'll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.
-
[To EDGAR]
- Thou robed man of justice, take thy place;
-
[To the Fool]
- And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity,
- Bench by his side:
-
[To KENT]
- you are o' the commission,
- Sit you too.
EDGAR:
Let us deal justly.
- Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
- Thy sheep be in the corn;
- And for one blast of thy minikin mouth,
- Thy sheep shall take no harm.
- Pur! the cat is gray.
KING LEAR:
Arraign her first; 'tis Goneril. I here take my
- oath before this honourable assembly, she kicked the
- poor king her father.
FOOL:
Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?
KING LEAR:
She cannot deny it.
FOOL:
Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.
KING LEAR:
And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim
- What store her heart is made on. Stop her there!
- Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place!
- False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?
EDGAR:
Bless thy five wits!
KENT:
O pity! Sir, where is the patience now,
- That thou so oft have boasted to retain?
EDGAR:
[Aside]
- My tears begin to take his part so much,
- They'll mar my counterfeiting.
KING LEAR:
The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and
- Sweet-heart, see, they bark at me.
EDGAR:
Tom will throw his head at them. Avaunt, you curs!
- Be thy mouth or black or white,
- Tooth that poisons if it bite;
- Mastiff, grey-hound, mongrel grim,
- Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
- Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail,
- Tom will make them weep and wail:
- For, with throwing thus my head,
- Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
- Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and
- fairs and market-towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
KING LEAR:
Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds
- about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that
- makes these hard hearts?
-
[To EDGAR]
- You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred; only I
- do not like the fashion of your garments: you will
- say they are Persian attire: but let them be changed.
KENT:
Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.
KING LEAR:
Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains:
- so, so, so. We'll go to supper i' he morning. So, so, so.
FOOL:
And I'll go to bed at noon.
-
[Re-enter GLOUCESTER]
GLOUCESTER:
Come hither, friend: where is the king my master?
KENT:
Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits are gone.
GLOUCESTER:
Good friend, I prithee, take him in thy arms;
- I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him:
- There is a litter ready; lay him in 't,
- And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet
- Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master:
- If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
- With thine, and all that offer to defend him,
- Stand in assured loss: take up, take up;
- And follow me, that will to some provision
- Give thee quick conduct.
KENT:
Oppressed nature sleeps:
- This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses,
- Which, if convenience will not allow,
- Stand in hard cure.
-
[To the Fool]
- Come, help to bear thy master;
- Thou must not stay behind.
GLOUCESTER:
Come, come, away.
-
[Exeunt all but EDGAR]
EDGAR:
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
- We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
- Who alone suffers suffers most i' the mind,
- Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
- But then the mind much sufferance doth o'er skip,
- When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
- How light and portable my pain seems now,
- When that which makes me bend makes the king bow,
- He childed as I father'd! Tom, away!
- Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,
- When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,
- In thy just proof, repeals and reconciles thee.
- What will hap more to-night, safe 'scape the king!
- Lurk, lurk.
-
[Exit]
ACT III, SCENE VII.
Gloucester's castle.
[Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GONERIL, EDMUND, and Servants]
REGAN:
Hang him instantly.
GONERIL:
Pluck out his eyes.
CORNWALL:
Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our
- sister company: the revenges we are bound to take
- upon your traitorous father are not fit for your
- beholding. Advise the duke, where you are going, to
- a most festinate preparation: we are bound to the
- like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent
- betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister: farewell, my
- lord of Gloucester.
-
[Enter OSWALD]
- How now! where's the king?
OSWALD:
My lord of Gloucester hath convey'd him hence:
- Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
- Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
- Who, with some other of the lords dependants,
- Are gone with him towards Dover; where they boast
- To have well-armed friends.
CORNWALL:
Get horses for your mistress.
GONERIL:
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
CORNWALL:
Edmund, farewell.
-
[Exeunt GONERIL, EDMUND, and OSWALD]
- Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
- Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.
-
[Exeunt other Servants]
- Though well we may not pass upon his life
- Without the form of justice, yet our power
- Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
- May blame, but not control. Who's there? the traitor?
-
[Enter GLOUCESTER, brought in by two or three]
REGAN:
Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.
CORNWALL:
Bind fast his corky arms.
GLOUCESTER:
What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider
- You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.
CORNWALL:
Bind him, I say.
-
[Servants bind him]
REGAN:
Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!
GLOUCESTER:
Unmerciful lady as you are, I'm none.
CORNWALL:
To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find--
-
[REGAN plucks his beard]
GLOUCESTER:
By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done
- To pluck me by the beard.
REGAN:
So white, and such a traitor!
GLOUCESTER:
Naughty lady,
- These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin,
- Will quicken, and accuse thee: I am your host:
- With robbers' hands my hospitable favours
- You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?
CORNWALL:
Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?
REGAN:
Be simple answerer, for we know the truth.
CORNWALL:
And what confederacy have you with the traitors
- Late footed in the kingdom?
REGAN:
To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king? Speak.
GLOUCESTER:
I have a letter guessingly set down,
- Which came from one that's of a neutral heart,
- And not from one opposed.
CORNWALL:
Where hast thou sent the king?
REGAN:
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril--
CORNWALL:
Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.
GLOUCESTER:
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.
REGAN:
Wherefore to Dover, sir?
GLOUCESTER:
Because I would not see thy cruel nails
- Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister
- In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.
- The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
- In hell-black night endured, would have buoy'd up,
- And quench'd the stelled fires:
- Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.
- If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time,
- Thou shouldst have said 'Good porter, turn the key,'
- All cruels else subscribed: but I shall see
- The winged vengeance overtake such children.
CORNWALL:
See't shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
- Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.
GLOUCESTER:
He that will think to live till he be old,
- Give me some help! O cruel! O you gods!
REGAN:
One side will mock another; the other too.
CORNWALL:
If you see vengeance,--
First Servant:
Hold your hand, my lord:
- I have served you ever since I was a child;
- But better service have I never done you
- Than now to bid you hold.
First Servant:
If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
- I'd shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?
CORNWALL:
My villain!
-
[They draw and fight]
First Servant:
Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.
First Servant:
O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
- To see some mischief on him. O!
-
[Dies]
CORNWALL:
Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
- Where is thy lustre now?
GLOUCESTER:
All dark and comfortless. Where's my son Edmund?
- Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature,
- To quit this horrid act.
REGAN:
Out, treacherous villain!
- Thou call'st on him that hates thee: it was he
- That made the overture of thy treasons to us;
- Who is too good to pity thee.
GLOUCESTER:
O my follies! then Edgar was abused.
- Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!
Second Servant:
I'll never care what wickedness I do,
- If this man come to good.
Third Servant:
If she live long,
- And in the end meet the old course of death,
- Women will all turn monsters.
Second Servant:
Let's follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam
- To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
- Allows itself to any thing.
Third Servant:
Go thou: I'll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
- To apply to his bleeding face. Now, heaven help him!
-
[Exeunt severally]
ACT IV, SCENE I.
The heath.
[Enter EDGAR]
Old Man:
O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and
- your father's tenant, these fourscore years.
GLOUCESTER:
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
- Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
- Thee they may hurt.
Old Man:
Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER:
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
- I stumbled when I saw: full oft 'tis seen,
- Our means secure us, and our mere defects
- Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
- The food of thy abused father's wrath!
- Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
- I'ld say I had eyes again!
Old Man:
How now! Who's there?
EDGAR:
[Aside]
- O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at
- the worst'?
- I am worse than e'er I was.
Old Man:
'Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR:
[Aside]
- And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
- So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Old Man:
Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER:
Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man:
Madman and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER:
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
- I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
- Which made me think a man a worm: my son
- Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
- Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard
- more since.
- As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
- They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR:
[Aside]
- How should this be?
- Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
- Angering itself and others.--Bless thee, master!
GLOUCESTER:
Is that the naked fellow?
GLOUCESTER:
Then, prithee, get thee gone: if, for my sake,
- Thou wilt o'ertake us, hence a mile or twain,
- I' the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;
- And bring some covering for this naked soul,
- Who I'll entreat to lead me.
Old Man:
Alack, sir, he is mad.
GLOUCESTER:
'Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.
- Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
- Above the rest, be gone.
Old Man:
I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have,
- Come on't what will.
-
[Exit]
GLOUCESTER:
Sirrah, naked fellow,--
EDGAR:
Poor Tom's a-cold.
-
[Aside]
- I cannot daub it further.
GLOUCESTER:
Come hither, fellow.
EDGAR:
[Aside]
- And yet I must.--Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
GLOUCESTER:
Know'st thou the way to Dover?
EDGAR:
Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. Poor
- Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: bless
- thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! five
- fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as
- Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of
- stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of
- mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids
- and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master!
GLOUCESTER:
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues
- Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
- Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still!
- Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
- That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
- Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
- So distribution should undo excess,
- And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
GLOUCESTER:
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
- Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
- Bring me but to the very brim of it,
- And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
- With something rich about me: from that place
- I shall no leading need.
EDGAR:
Give me thy arm:
- Poor Tom shall lead thee.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE II.
Before ALBANY's palace.
[Enter GONERIL and EDMUND]
GONERIL:
Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband
- Not met us on the way.
-
[Enter OSWALD]
- Now, where's your master'?
OSWALD:
Madam, within; but never man so changed.
- I told him of the army that was landed;
- He smiled at it: I told him you were coming:
- His answer was 'The worse:' of Gloucester's treachery,
- And of the loyal service of his son,
- When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot,
- And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out:
- What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
- What like, offensive.
GONERIL:
[To EDMUND]
- Then shall you go no further.
- It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
- That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs
- Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
- May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
- Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:
- I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
- Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant
- Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
- If you dare venture in your own behalf,
- A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;
-
[Giving a favour]
- Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
- Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:
- Conceive, and fare thee well.
EDMUND:
Yours in the ranks of death.
GONERIL:
My most dear Gloucester!
-
[Exit EDMUND]
- O, the difference of man and man!
- To thee a woman's services are due:
- My fool usurps my body.
OSWALD:
Madam, here comes my lord.
-
[Exit;]
-
[Enter ALBANY]
GONERIL:
I have been worth the whistle.
ALBANY:
O Goneril!
- You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
- Blows in your face. I fear your disposition:
- That nature, which contemns its origin,
- Cannot be border'd certain in itself;
- She that herself will sliver and disbranch
- From her material sap, perforce must wither
- And come to deadly use.
GONERIL:
No more; the text is foolish.
ALBANY:
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
- Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
- Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?
- A father, and a gracious aged man,
- Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear would lick,
- Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded.
- Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
- A man, a prince, by him so benefited!
- If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
- Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
- It will come,
- Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
- Like monsters of the deep.
GONERIL:
Milk-liver'd man!
- That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
- Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
- Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st
- Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd
- Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
- France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
- With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
- Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and criest
- 'Alack, why does he so?'
ALBANY:
See thyself, devil!
- Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
- So horrid as in woman.
ALBANY:
Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame,
- Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitness
- To let these hands obey my blood,
- They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
- Thy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend,
- A woman's shape doth shield thee.
GONERIL:
Marry, your manhood now--
-
[Enter a Messenger]
Messenger:
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead:
- Slain by his servant, going to put out
- The other eye of Gloucester.
ALBANY:
Gloucester's eye!
Messenger:
A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse,
- Opposed against the act, bending his sword
- To his great master; who, thereat enraged,
- Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead;
- But not without that harmful stroke, which since
- Hath pluck'd him after.
ALBANY:
This shows you are above,
- You justicers, that these our nether crimes
- So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
- Lost he his other eye?
Messenger:
Both, both, my lord.
- This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
- 'Tis from your sister.
GONERIL:
[Aside]
- One way I like this well;
- But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
- May all the building in my fancy pluck
- Upon my hateful life: another way,
- The news is not so tart.--I'll read, and answer.
-
[Exit]
ALBANY:
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?
Messenger:
Come with my lady hither.
Messenger:
No, my good lord; I met him back again.
ALBANY:
Knows he the wickedness?
Messenger:
Ay, my good lord; 'twas he inform'd against him;
- And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
- Might have the freer course.
ALBANY:
Gloucester, I live
- To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the king,
- And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend:
- Tell me what more thou know'st.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE III.
The French camp near Dover.
[Enter KENT and a Gentleman]
KENT:
Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back
- know you the reason?
Gentleman:
Something he left imperfect in the
- state, which since his coming forth is thought
- of; which imports to the kingdom so much
- fear and danger, that his personal return was
- most required and necessary.
KENT:
Who hath he left behind him general?
Gentleman:
The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.
KENT:
Did your letters pierce the queen to any
- demonstration of grief?
Gentleman:
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
- And now and then an ample tear trill'd down
- Her delicate cheek: it seem'd she was a queen
- Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
- Sought to be king o'er her.
KENT:
O, then it moved her.
Gentleman:
Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
- Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
- Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
- Were like a better way: those happy smilets,
- That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
- What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
- As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief,
- Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,
- If all could so become it.
KENT:
Made she no verbal question?
Gentleman:
'Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of 'father'
- Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart:
- Cried 'Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
- Kent! father! sisters! What, i' the storm? i' the night?
- Let pity not be believed!' There she shook
- The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
- And clamour moisten'd: then away she started
- To deal with grief alone.
KENT:
It is the stars,
- The stars above us, govern our conditions;
- Else one self mate and mate could not beget
- Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?
KENT:
Was this before the king return'd?
KENT:
Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear's i' the town;
- Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
- What we are come about, and by no means
- Will yield to see his daughter.
Gentleman:
Why, good sir?
KENT:
A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,
- That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her
- To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
- To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting
- His mind so venomously, that burning shame
- Detains him from Cordelia.
Gentleman:
Alack, poor gentleman!
KENT:
Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not?
Gentleman:
'Tis so, they are afoot.
KENT:
Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear,
- And leave you to attend him: some dear cause
- Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
- When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
- Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you, go
- Along with me.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE IV.
The same. A tent.
[Enter, with drum and colours, CORDELIA, Doctor, and Soldiers]
CORDELIA:
Alack, 'tis he: why, he was met even now
- As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
- Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
- With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
- Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
- In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
- Search every acre in the high-grown field,
- And bring him to our eye.
-
[Exit an Officer]
- What can man's wisdom
- In the restoring his bereaved sense?
- He that helps him take all my outward worth.
Doctor:
There is means, madam:
- Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
- The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
- Are many simples operative, whose power
- Will close the eye of anguish.
CORDELIA:
All blest secrets,
- All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
- Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
- In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him;
- Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life
- That wants the means to lead it.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
Messenger:
News, madam;
- The British powers are marching hitherward.
CORDELIA:
'Tis known before; our preparation stands
- In expectation of them. O dear father,
- It is thy business that I go about;
- Therefore great France
- My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
- No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
- But love, dear love, and our aged father's right:
- Soon may I hear and see him!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE V.
Gloucester's castle.
[Enter REGAN and OSWALD]
REGAN:
But are my brother's powers set forth?
REGAN:
Himself in person there?
OSWALD:
Madam, with much ado:
- Your sister is the better soldier.
REGAN:
Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?
REGAN:
What might import my sister's letter to him?
OSWALD:
I know not, lady.
REGAN:
'Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
- It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out,
- To let him live: where he arrives he moves
- All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,
- In pity of his misery, to dispatch
- His nighted life: moreover, to descry
- The strength o' the enemy.
OSWALD:
I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.
REGAN:
Our troops set forth to-morrow: stay with us;
- The ways are dangerous.
OSWALD:
I may not, madam:
- My lady charged my duty in this business.
REGAN:
Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
- Transport her purposes by word? Belike,
- Something--I know not what: I'll love thee much,
- Let me unseal the letter.
OSWALD:
Madam, I had rather--
REGAN:
I know your lady does not love her husband;
- I am sure of that: and at her late being here
- She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks
- To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.
REGAN:
I speak in understanding; you are; I know't:
- Therefore I do advise you, take this note:
- My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd;
- And more convenient is he for my hand
- Than for your lady's: you may gather more.
- If you do find him, pray you, give him this;
- And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
- I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.
- So, fare you well.
- If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
- Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
OSWALD:
Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
- What party I do follow.
REGAN:
Fare thee well.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE VI.
Fields near Dover.
[Enter GLOUCESTER, and EDGAR dressed like a peasant]
GLOUCESTER:
When shall we come to the top of that same hill?
EDGAR:
You do climb up it now: look, how we labour.
GLOUCESTER:
Methinks the ground is even.
EDGAR:
Horrible steep.
- Hark, do you hear the sea?
EDGAR:
Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect
- By your eyes' anguish.
GLOUCESTER:
So may it be, indeed:
- Methinks thy voice is alter'd; and thou speak'st
- In better phrase and matter than thou didst.
EDGAR:
You're much deceived: in nothing am I changed
- But in my garments.
GLOUCESTER:
Methinks you're better spoken.
EDGAR:
Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful
- And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!
- The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
- Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
- Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
- Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
- The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
- Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
- Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
- Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
- That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
- Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more;
- Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
- Topple down headlong.
GLOUCESTER:
Set me where you stand.
EDGAR:
Give me your hand: you are now within a foot
- Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon
- Would I not leap upright.
GLOUCESTER:
Let go my hand.
- Here, friend, 's another purse; in it a jewel
- Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies and gods
- Prosper it with thee! Go thou farther off;
- Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
EDGAR:
Now fare you well, good sir.
GLOUCESTER:
With all my heart.
EDGAR:
Why I do trifle thus with his despair
- Is done to cure it.
GLOUCESTER:
[Kneeling]
- O you mighty gods!
- This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,
- Shake patiently my great affliction off:
- If I could bear it longer, and not fall
- To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
- My snuff and loathed part of nature should
- Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!
- Now, fellow, fare thee well.
-
[He falls forward]
EDGAR:
Gone, sir: farewell.
- And yet I know not how conceit may rob
- The treasury of life, when life itself
- Yields to the theft: had he been where he thought,
- By this, had thought been past. Alive or dead?
- Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir! speak!
- Thus might he pass indeed: yet he revives.
- What are you, sir?
GLOUCESTER:
Away, and let me die.
EDGAR:
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
- So many fathom down precipitating,
- Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
- Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound.
- Ten masts at each make not the altitude
- Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:
- Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again.
GLOUCESTER:
But have I fall'n, or no?
EDGAR:
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
- Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged lark so far
- Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.
GLOUCESTER:
Alack, I have no eyes.
- Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,
- To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort,
- When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage,
- And frustrate his proud will.
EDGAR:
Give me your arm:
- Up: so. How is 't? Feel you your legs? You stand.
GLOUCESTER:
Too well, too well.
EDGAR:
This is above all strangeness.
- Upon the crown o' the cliff, what thing was that
- Which parted from you?
GLOUCESTER:
A poor unfortunate beggar.
EDGAR:
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
- Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
- Horns whelk'd and waved like the enridged sea:
- It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,
- Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
- Of men's impossibilities, have preserved thee.
GLOUCESTER:
I do remember now: henceforth I'll bear
- Affliction till it do cry out itself
- 'Enough, enough,' and die. That thing you speak of,
- I took it for a man; often 'twould say
- 'The fiend, the fiend:' he led me to that place.
KING LEAR:
No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the
- king himself.
EDGAR:
O thou side-piercing sight!
KING LEAR:
Nature's above art in that respect. There's your
- press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a
- crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard. Look,
- look, a mouse! Peace, peace; this piece of toasted
- cheese will do 't. There's my gauntlet; I'll prove
- it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well
- flown, bird! i' the clout, i' the clout: hewgh!
- Give the word.
GLOUCESTER:
I know that voice.
KING LEAR:
Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! They flattered
- me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my
- beard ere the black ones were there. To say 'ay'
- and 'no' to every thing that I said!--'Ay' and 'no'
- too was no good divinity. When the rain came to
- wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when
- the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I
- found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are
- not men o' their words: they told me I was every
- thing; 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.
GLOUCESTER:
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
- Is 't not the king?
KING LEAR:
Ay, every inch a king:
- When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
- I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause? Adultery?
- Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
- The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly
- Does lecher in my sight.
- Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son
- Was kinder to his father than my daughters
- Got 'tween the lawful sheets.
- To 't, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
- Behold yond simpering dame,
- Whose face between her forks presages snow;
- That minces virtue, and does shake the head
- To hear of pleasure's name;
- The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to 't
- With a more riotous appetite.
- Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
- Though women all above:
- But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
- Beneath is all the fiends';
- There's hell, there's darkness, there's the
- sulphurous pit,
- Burning, scalding, stench, consumption; fie,
- fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet,
- good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination:
- there's money for thee.
GLOUCESTER:
O, let me kiss that hand!
KING LEAR:
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
GLOUCESTER:
O ruin'd piece of nature! This great world
- Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know me?
KING LEAR:
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny
- at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I'll not
- love. Read thou this challenge; mark but the
- penning of it.
GLOUCESTER:
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.
EDGAR:
I would not take this from report; it is,
- And my heart breaks at it.
GLOUCESTER:
What, with the case of eyes?
KING LEAR:
O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your
- head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in
- a heavy case, your purse in a light; yet you see how
- this world goes.
GLOUCESTER:
I see it feelingly.
KING LEAR:
What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes
- with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond
- justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in
- thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which
- is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen
- a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
KING LEAR:
And the creature run from the cur? There thou
- mightst behold the great image of authority: a
- dog's obeyed in office.
- Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
- Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
- Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
- For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
- Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
- Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
- And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
- Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
- None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em:
- Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
- To seal the accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes;
- And like a scurvy politician, seem
- To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now:
- Pull off my boots: harder, harder: so.
EDGAR:
O, matter and impertinency mix'd! Reason in madness!
KING LEAR:
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
- I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester:
- Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
- Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
- We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
GLOUCESTER:
Alack, alack the day!
Gentleman:
O, here he is: lay hand upon him. Sir,
- Your most dear daughter--
KING LEAR:
No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even
- The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;
- You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;
- I am cut to the brains.
Gentleman:
You shall have any thing.
KING LEAR:
No seconds? all myself?
- Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
- To use his eyes for garden water-pots,
- Ay, and laying autumn's dust.
KING LEAR:
I will die bravely, like a bridegroom. What!
- I will be jovial: come, come; I am a king,
- My masters, know you that.
Gentleman:
You are a royal one, and we obey you.
Gentleman:
A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
- Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter,
- Who redeems nature from the general curse
- Which twain have brought her to.
Gentleman:
Sir, speed you: what's your will?
EDGAR:
Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?
Gentleman:
Most sure and vulgar: every one hears that,
- Which can distinguish sound.
EDGAR:
But, by your favour,
- How near's the other army?
Gentleman:
Near and on speedy foot; the main descry
- Stands on the hourly thought.
EDGAR:
I thank you, sir: that's all.
Gentleman:
Though that the queen on special cause is here,
- Her army is moved on.
EDGAR:
I thank you, sir.
-
[Exit Gentleman]
GLOUCESTER:
You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me:
- Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
- To die before you please!
EDGAR:
Well pray you, father.
GLOUCESTER:
Now, good sir, what are you?
EDGAR:
A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows;
- Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
- Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,
- I'll lead you to some biding.
GLOUCESTER:
Hearty thanks:
- The bounty and the benison of heaven
- To boot, and boot!
-
[Enter OSWALD]
OSWALD:
A proclaim'd prize! Most happy!
- That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh
- To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,
- Briefly thyself remember: the sword is out
- That must destroy thee.
GLOUCESTER:
Now let thy friendly hand
- Put strength enough to't.
-
[EDGAR interposes]
OSWALD:
Wherefore, bold peasant,
- Darest thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence;
- Lest that the infection of his fortune take
- Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.
EDGAR:
Ch'ill not let go, zir, without vurther 'casion.
OSWALD:
Let go, slave, or thou diest!
EDGAR:
Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk
- pass. An chud ha' bin zwaggered out of my life,
- 'twould not ha' bin zo long as 'tis by a vortnight.
- Nay, come not near th' old man; keep out, che vor
- ye, or ise try whether your costard or my ballow be
- the harder: ch'ill be plain with you.
OSWALD:
Slave, thou hast slain me: villain, take my purse:
- If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
- And give the letters which thou find'st about me
- To Edmund earl of Gloucester; seek him out
- Upon the British party: O, untimely death!
-
[Dies]
EDGAR:
I know thee well: a serviceable villain;
- As duteous to the vices of thy mistress
- As badness would desire.
GLOUCESTER:
What, is he dead?
EDGAR:
Sit you down, father; rest you
- Let's see these pockets: the letters that he speaks of
- May be my friends. He's dead; I am only sorry
- He had no other death's-man. Let us see:
- Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not:
- To know our enemies' minds, we'ld rip their hearts;
- Their papers, is more lawful.
-
[Reads]
- 'Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have
- many opportunities to cut him off: if your will
- want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered.
- There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror:
- then am I the prisoner, and his bed my goal; from
- the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply
- the place for your labour.
- 'Your--wife, so I would say--
- 'Affectionate servant,
- 'GONERIL.'
- O undistinguish'd space of woman's will!
- A plot upon her virtuous husband's life;
- And the exchange my brother! Here, in the sands,
- Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified
- Of murderous lechers: and in the mature time
- With this ungracious paper strike the sight
- Of the death practised duke: for him 'tis well
- That of thy death and business I can tell.
GLOUCESTER:
The king is mad: how stiff is my vile sense,
- That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling
- Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:
- So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs,
- And woes by wrong imaginations lose
- The knowledge of themselves.
EDGAR:
Give me your hand:
-
[Drum afar off]
- Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum:
- Come, father, I'll bestow you with a friend.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE VII.
A tent in the French camp. LEAR on a bed asleep,
[soft music playing; Gentleman, and others attending.]
[Enter CORDELIA, KENT, and Doctor]
CORDELIA:
O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,
- To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
- And every measure fail me.
KENT:
To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid.
- All my reports go with the modest truth;
- Nor more nor clipp'd, but so.
CORDELIA:
Be better suited:
- These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
- I prithee, put them off.
KENT:
Pardon me, dear madam;
- Yet to be known shortens my made intent:
- My boon I make it, that you know me not
- Till time and I think meet.
CORDELIA:
Then be't so, my good lord.
- To the Doctor
- How does the king?
Doctor:
Madam, sleeps still.
CORDELIA:
O you kind gods,
- Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
- The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
- Of this child-changed father!
Doctor:
So please your majesty
- That we may wake the king: he hath slept long.
CORDELIA:
Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed
- I' the sway of your own will. Is he array'd?
Gentleman:
Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep
- We put fresh garments on him.
Doctor:
Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
- I doubt not of his temperance.
Doctor:
Please you, draw near. Louder the music there!
CORDELIA:
O my dear father! Restoration hang
- Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
- Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
- Have in thy reverence made!
KENT:
Kind and dear princess!
CORDELIA:
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
- Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
- To be opposed against the warring winds?
- To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
- In the most terrible and nimble stroke
- Of quick, cross lightning? to watch--poor perdu!--
- With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog,
- Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
- Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
- To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
- In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
- 'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
- Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.
Doctor:
Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.
CORDELIA:
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
KING LEAR:
You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave:
- Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
- Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
- Do scald like moulten lead.
CORDELIA:
Sir, do you know me?
KING LEAR:
You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?
CORDELIA:
Still, still, far wide!
Doctor:
He's scarce awake: let him alone awhile.
KING LEAR:
Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
- I am mightily abused. I should e'en die with pity,
- To see another thus. I know not what to say.
- I will not swear these are my hands: let's see;
- I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured
- Of my condition!
CORDELIA:
O, look upon me, sir,
- And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:
- No, sir, you must not kneel.
KING LEAR:
Pray, do not mock me:
- I am a very foolish fond old man,
- Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
- And, to deal plainly,
- I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
- Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
- Yet I am doubtful for I am mainly ignorant
- What place this is; and all the skill I have
- Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
- Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
- For, as I am a man, I think this lady
- To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA:
And so I am, I am.
KING LEAR:
Be your tears wet? yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not:
- If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
- I know you do not love me; for your sisters
- Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
- You have some cause, they have not.
CORDELIA:
No cause, no cause.
KING LEAR:
Am I in France?
KENT:
In your own kingdom, sir.
KING LEAR:
Do not abuse me.
Doctor:
Be comforted, good madam: the great rage,
- You see, is kill'd in him: and yet it is danger
- To make him even o'er the time he has lost.
- Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
- Till further settling.
CORDELIA:
Will't please your highness walk?
Gentleman:
Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
Gentleman:
Who is conductor of his people?
KENT:
As 'tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.
Gentleman:
They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl
- of Kent in Germany.
KENT:
Report is changeable. 'Tis time to look about; the
- powers of the kingdom approach apace.
Gentleman:
The arbitrement is like to be bloody. Fare you
- well, sir.
-
[Exit]
KENT:
My point and period will be throughly wrought,
- Or well or ill, as this day's battle's fought.
-
[Exit]
ACT V, SCENE I.
The British camp, near Dover.
[Enter, with drum and colours, EDMUND, REGAN, Gentlemen, and Soldiers.]
REGAN:
Our sister's man is certainly miscarried.
EDMUND:
'Tis to be doubted, madam.
REGAN:
Now, sweet lord,
- You know the goodness I intend upon you:
- Tell me--but truly--but then speak the truth,
- Do you not love my sister?
EDMUND:
In honour'd love.
REGAN:
But have you never found my brother's way
- To the forfended place?
EDMUND:
That thought abuses you.
REGAN:
I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
- And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers.
EDMUND:
No, by mine honour, madam.
REGAN:
I never shall endure her: dear my lord,
- Be not familiar with her.
EDMUND:
Fear me not:
- She and the duke her husband!
-
[Enter, with drum and colours, ALBANY, GONERIL, and Soldiers]
GONERIL:
[Aside]
- I had rather lose the battle than that sister
- Should loosen him and me.
ALBANY:
Our very loving sister, well be-met.
- Sir, this I hear; the king is come to his daughter,
- With others whom the rigor of our state
- Forced to cry out. Where I could not be honest,
- I never yet was valiant: for this business,
- It toucheth us, as France invades our land,
- Not bolds the king, with others, whom, I fear,
- Most just and heavy causes make oppose.
EDMUND:
Sir, you speak nobly.
REGAN:
Why is this reason'd?
GONERIL:
Combine together 'gainst the enemy;
- For these domestic and particular broils
- Are not the question here.
ALBANY:
Let's then determine
- With the ancient of war on our proceedings.
EDMUND:
I shall attend you presently at your tent.
REGAN:
Sister, you'll go with us?
REGAN:
'Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.
GONERIL:
[Aside]
- O, ho, I know the riddle.--I will go.
- As they are going out, enter EDGAR disguised
EDGAR:
If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor,
- Hear me one word.
EDGAR:
Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.
- If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
- For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
- I can produce a champion that will prove
- What is avouched there. If you miscarry,
- Your business of the world hath so an end,
- And machination ceases. Fortune love you.
ALBANY:
Stay till I have read the letter.
EDGAR:
I was forbid it.
- When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
- And I'll appear again.
ALBANY:
Why, fare thee well: I will o'erlook thy paper.
-
[Exit EDGAR]
-
[Re-enter EDMUND]
EDMUND:
The enemy's in view; draw up your powers.
- Here is the guess of their true strength and forces
- By diligent discovery; but your haste
- Is now urged on you.
ALBANY:
We will greet the time.
-
[Exit]
EDMUND:
To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
- Each jealous of the other, as the stung
- Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
- Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd,
- If both remain alive: to take the widow
- Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
- And hardly shall I carry out my side,
- Her husband being alive. Now then we'll use
- His countenance for the battle; which being done,
- Let her who would be rid of him devise
- His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
- Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
- The battle done, and they within our power,
- Shall never see his pardon; for my state
- Stands on me to defend, not to debate.
-
[Exit]
ACT V, SCENE II.
A field between the two camps.
[Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours,
KING LEAR, CORDELIA, and Soldiers, over the stage; and exeunt]
[Enter EDGAR and GLOUCESTER]
EDGAR:
Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
- For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
- If ever I return to you again,
- I'll bring you comfort.
EDGAR:
Away, old man; give me thy hand; away!
- King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en:
- Give me thy hand; come on.
GLOUCESTER:
No farther, sir; a man may rot even here.
EDGAR:
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
- Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
- Ripeness is all: come on.
GLOUCESTER:
And that's true too.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE III.
The British camp near Dover.
[Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours,
EDMUND, KING LEAR and CORDELIA, prisoners; Captain, Soldiers, & c]
EDMUND:
Some officers take them away: good guard,
- Until their greater pleasures first be known
- That are to censure them.
CORDELIA:
We are not the first
- Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst.
- For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
- Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.
- Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
KING LEAR:
No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
- We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
- When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
- And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
- And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
- At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
- Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
- Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
- And take upon's the mystery of things,
- As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
- In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
- That ebb and flow by the moon.
EDMUND:
Come hither, captain; hark.
- Take thou this note;
-
[Giving a paper]
- go follow them to prison:
- One step I have advanced thee; if thou dost
- As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
- To noble fortunes: know thou this, that men
- Are as the time is: to be tender-minded
- Does not become a sword: thy great employment
- Will not bear question; either say thou'lt do 't,
- Or thrive by other means.
Captain:
I'll do 't, my lord.
EDMUND:
About it; and write happy when thou hast done.
- Mark, I say, instantly; and carry it so
- As I have set it down.
Captain:
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;
- If it be man's work, I'll do 't.
-
[Exit]
-
[Flourish. Enter ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, another Captain, and Soldiers]
ALBANY:
Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant strain,
- And fortune led you well: you have the captives
- That were the opposites of this day's strife:
- We do require them of you, so to use them
- As we shall find their merits and our safety
- May equally determine.
EDMUND:
Sir, I thought it fit
- To send the old and miserable king
- To some retention and appointed guard;
- Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,
- To pluck the common bosom on his side,
- An turn our impress'd lances in our eyes
- Which do command them. With him I sent the queen;
- My reason all the same; and they are ready
- To-morrow, or at further space, to appear
- Where you shall hold your session. At this time
- We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;
- And the best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed
- By those that feel their sharpness:
- The question of Cordelia and her father
- Requires a fitter place.
ALBANY:
Sir, by your patience,
- I hold you but a subject of this war,
- Not as a brother.
REGAN:
That's as we list to grace him.
- Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded,
- Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers;
- Bore the commission of my place and person;
- The which immediacy may well stand up,
- And call itself your brother.
GONERIL:
Not so hot:
- In his own grace he doth exalt himself,
- More than in your addition.
REGAN:
In my rights,
- By me invested, he compeers the best.
GONERIL:
That were the most, if he should husband you.
REGAN:
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
GONERIL:
Holla, holla!
- That eye that told you so look'd but a-squint.
REGAN:
Lady, I am not well; else I should answer
- From a full-flowing stomach. General,
- Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
- Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:
- Witness the world, that I create thee here
- My lord and master.
GONERIL:
Mean you to enjoy him?
ALBANY:
The let-alone lies not in your good will.
EDMUND:
Nor in thine, lord.
ALBANY:
Half-blooded fellow, yes.
REGAN:
[To EDMUND]
- Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.
ALBANY:
Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee
- On capital treason; and, in thine attaint,
- This gilded serpent
-
[Pointing to Goneril]
- For your claim, fair sister,
- I bar it in the interest of my wife:
- 'Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
- And I, her husband, contradict your bans.
- If you will marry, make your loves to me,
- My lady is bespoke.
ALBANY:
Thou art arm'd, Gloucester: let the trumpet sound:
- If none appear to prove upon thy head
- Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
- There is my pledge;
-
[Throwing down a glove]
- I'll prove it on thy heart,
- Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
- Than I have here proclaim'd thee.
GONERIL:
[Aside]
- If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.
EDMUND:
There's my exchange:
-
[Throwing down a glove]
- what in the world he is
- That names me traitor, villain-like he lies:
- Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
- On him, on you, who not? I will maintain
- My truth and honour firmly.
EDMUND:
A herald, ho, a herald!
ALBANY:
Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,
- All levied in my name, have in my name
- Took their discharge.
REGAN:
My sickness grows upon me.
ALBANY:
She is not well; convey her to my tent.
-
[Exit Regan, led]
-
[Enter a Herald]
- Come hither, herald,--Let the trumpet sound,
- And read out this.
Captain:
Sound, trumpet!
-
[A trumpet sounds]
Herald:
[Reads]
- 'If any man of quality or degree within
- the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund,
- supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold
- traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the
- trumpet: he is bold in his defence.'
EDMUND:
Sound!
-
[First trumpet]
Herald:
Again!
-
[Second trumpet]
ALBANY:
Ask him his purposes, why he appears
- Upon this call o' the trumpet.
Herald:
What are you?
- Your name, your quality? and why you answer
- This present summons?
EDGAR:
Know, my name is lost;
- By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit:
- Yet am I noble as the adversary
- I come to cope.
ALBANY:
Which is that adversary?
EDGAR:
What's he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?
EDMUND:
Himself: what say'st thou to him?
EDGAR:
Draw thy sword,
- That, if my speech offend a noble heart,
- Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
- Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
- My oath, and my profession: I protest,
- Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
- Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
- Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor;
- False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
- Conspirant 'gainst this high-illustrious prince;
- And, from the extremest upward of thy head
- To the descent and dust below thy foot,
- A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou 'No,'
- This sword, this arm, and my best spirits, are bent
- To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
- Thou liest.
ALBANY:
Save him, save him!
GONERIL:
This is practise, Gloucester:
- By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
- An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd,
- But cozen'd and beguiled.
GONERIL:
Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
- Who can arraign me for't.
ALBANY:
Most monstrous! oh!
- Know'st thou this paper?
GONERIL:
Ask me not what I know.
-
[Exit]
ALBANY:
Go after her: she's desperate; govern her.
EDMUND:
What you have charged me with, that have I done;
- And more, much more; the time will bring it out:
- 'Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
- That hast this fortune on me? If thou'rt noble,
- I do forgive thee.
EDGAR:
Let's exchange charity.
- I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
- If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me.
- My name is Edgar, and thy father's son.
- The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
- Make instruments to plague us:
- The dark and vicious place where thee he got
- Cost him his eyes.
EDMUND:
Thou hast spoken right, 'tis true;
- The wheel is come full circle: I am here.
ALBANY:
Methought thy very gait did prophesy
- A royal nobleness: I must embrace thee:
- Let sorrow split my heart, if ever I
- Did hate thee or thy father!
EDGAR:
Worthy prince, I know't.
ALBANY:
Where have you hid yourself?
- How have you known the miseries of your father?
EDGAR:
By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale;
- And when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!
- The bloody proclamation to escape,
- That follow'd me so near,--O, our lives' sweetness!
- That we the pain of death would hourly die
- Rather than die at once!--taught me to shift
- Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance
- That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
- Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
- Their precious stones new lost: became his guide,
- Led him, begg'd for him, saved him from despair;
- Never,--O fault!--reveal'd myself unto him,
- Until some half-hour past, when I was arm'd:
- Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
- I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
- Told him my pilgrimage: but his flaw'd heart,
- Alack, too weak the conflict to support!
- 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
- Burst smilingly.
EDMUND:
This speech of yours hath moved me,
- And shall perchance do good: but speak you on;
- You look as you had something more to say.
ALBANY:
If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;
- For I am almost ready to dissolve,
- Hearing of this.
EDGAR:
This would have seem'd a period
- To such as love not sorrow; but another,
- To amplify too much, would make much more,
- And top extremity.
- Whilst I was big in clamour came there in a man,
- Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
- Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
- Who 'twas that so endured, with his strong arms
- He fastened on my neck, and bellow'd out
- As he'ld burst heaven; threw him on my father;
- Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
- That ever ear received: which in recounting
- His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
- Began to crack: twice then the trumpets sounded,
- And there I left him tranced.
ALBANY:
But who was this?
Gentleman:
Help, help, O, help!
EDGAR:
What kind of help?
EDGAR:
What means that bloody knife?
Gentleman:
'Tis hot, it smokes;
- It came even from the heart of--O, she's dead!
ALBANY:
Who dead? speak, man.
Gentleman:
Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister
- By her is poisoned; she hath confess'd it.
EDMUND:
I was contracted to them both: all three
- Now marry in an instant.
ALBANY:
Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead:
- This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble,
- Touches us not with pity.
-
[Exit Gentleman]
-
[Enter KENT]
- O, is this he?
- The time will not allow the compliment
- Which very manners urges.
KENT:
I am come
- To bid my king and master aye good night:
- Is he not here?
EDMUND:
Yet Edmund was beloved:
- The one the other poison'd for my sake,
- And after slew herself.
ALBANY:
Even so. Cover their faces.
EDMUND:
I pant for life: some good I mean to do,
- Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,
- Be brief in it, to the castle; for my writ
- Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia:
- Nay, send in time.
ALBANY:
Run, run, O, run!
EDGAR:
To who, my lord? Who hath the office? send
- Thy token of reprieve.
EDMUND:
Well thought on: take my sword,
- Give it the captain.
ALBANY:
Haste thee, for thy life.
-
[Exit EDGAR]
EDMUND:
He hath commission from thy wife and me
- To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
- To lay the blame upon her own despair,
- That she fordid herself.
KING LEAR:
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
- Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
- That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!
- I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
- She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
- If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
- Why, then she lives.
KENT:
Is this the promised end
EDGAR:
Or image of that horror?
KING LEAR:
This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
- It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
- That ever I have felt.
KENT:
[Kneeling]
- O my good master!
KING LEAR:
Prithee, away.
EDGAR:
'Tis noble Kent, your friend.
KING LEAR:
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
- I might have saved her; now she's gone for ever!
- Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
- What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft,
- Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
- I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Captain:
'Tis true, my lords, he did.
KING LEAR:
Did I not, fellow?
- I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
- I would have made them skip: I am old now,
- And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
- Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.
KENT:
If fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
- One of them we behold.
KING LEAR:
This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?
KENT:
The same,
- Your servant Kent: Where is your servant Caius?
KING LEAR:
He's a good fellow, I can tell you that;
- He'll strike, and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.
KENT:
No, my good lord; I am the very man,--
KING LEAR:
I'll see that straight.
KENT:
That, from your first of difference and decay,
- Have follow'd your sad steps.
KING LEAR:
You are welcome hither.
KENT:
Nor no man else: all's cheerless, dark, and deadly.
- Your eldest daughters have fordone them selves,
- And desperately are dead.
KING LEAR:
Ay, so I think.
ALBANY:
He knows not what he says: and vain it is
- That we present us to him.
EDGAR:
Very bootless.
-
[Enter a Captain]
Captain:
Edmund is dead, my lord.
ALBANY:
That's but a trifle here.
- You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
- What comfort to this great decay may come
- Shall be applied: for us we will resign,
- During the life of this old majesty,
- To him our absolute power:
-
[To EDGAR and KENT]
- you, to your rights:
- With boot, and such addition as your honours
- Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
- The wages of their virtue, and all foes
- The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!
KING LEAR:
And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!
- Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
- And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
- Never, never, never, never, never!
- Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
- Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
- Look there, look there!
-
[Dies]
EDGAR:
He faints! My lord, my lord!
KENT:
Break, heart; I prithee, break!
KENT:
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much
- That would upon the rack of this tough world
- Stretch him out longer.
EDGAR:
He is gone, indeed.
KENT:
The wonder is, he hath endured so long:
- He but usurp'd his life.
ALBANY:
Bear them from hence. Our present business
- Is general woe.
-
[To KENT and EDGAR]
- Friends of my soul, you twain
- Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
KENT:
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
- My master calls me, I must not say no.