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+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?
+EDMUND
+No, my lord.
+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.
+GLOUCESTER
+I shall, my liege.
+Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EDMUND
+
+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!
+CORDELIA
+Nothing.
+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.
+KENT
+Good my liege,--
+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.
+KING LEAR
+O, vassal! miscreant!
+Laying his hand on his sword
+
+ALBANY 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.
+KENT
+Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt appear,
+Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
+To CORDELIA
+
+The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
+That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said!
+To REGAN and GONERIL
+
+And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
+That good effects may spring from words of love.
+Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
+He'll shape his old course in a country new.
+Exit
+
+Flourish. Re-enter GLOUCESTER, with KING OF FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and Attendants
+
+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 LEAR
+Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
+Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
+That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
+Without our grace, our love, our benison.
+Come, noble Burgundy.
+Flourish. Exeunt all but KING OF FRANCE, GONERIL, REGAN, and CORDELIA
+
+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!
+KING OF FRANCE
+Come, my fair Cordelia.
+Exeunt KING OF FRANCE and CORDELIA
+
+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
+
+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.
+GLOUCESTER
+It is his.
+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?
+EDGAR
+None at all.
+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.
+EDGAR
+Armed, brother!
+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
+
+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?
+OSWALD
+Yes, madam.
+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.
+OSWALD
+Well, madam.
+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
+
+SCENE IV. A hall in the same.
+Enter KENT, disguised
+KENT
+If but as well I other accents borrow,
+That can my speech defuse, my good intent
+May carry through itself to that full issue
+For which I razed my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent,
+If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,
+So may it come, thy master, whom thou lovest,
+Shall find thee full of labours.
+Horns within. Enter KING LEAR, Knights, and Attendants
+
+KING LEAR
+Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.
+Exit an Attendant
+
+How now! what art thou?
+KENT
+A man, sir.
+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?
+KENT
+Service.
+KING LEAR
+Who wouldst thou serve?
+KENT
+You.
+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's that?
+KENT
+Authority.
+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.
+KING LEAR
+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.
+KENT
+Why, fool?
+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!
+KING LEAR
+Why, my boy?
+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.
+KING LEAR
+Do.
+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?
+Fool
+Lear's shadow.
+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?
+KING LEAR
+I'll tell thee:
+To GONERIL
+
+Life and death! I am ashamed
+That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;
+That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,
+Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!
+The untented woundings of a father's curse
+Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,
+Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck ye out,
+And cast you, with the waters that you lose,
+To temper clay. Yea, it is come to this?
+Let is be so: yet have I left a daughter,
+Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
+When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
+She'll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find
+That I'll resume the shape which thou dost think
+I have cast off for ever: thou shalt,
+I warrant thee.
+Exeunt KING LEAR, KENT, and Attendants
+
+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?
+OSWALD
+Yes, madam.
+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.
+GONERIL
+Nay, then--
+ALBANY
+Well, well; the event.
+Exeunt
+
+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?
+KING LEAR
+Ay, boy.
+Fool
+Then, I prithee, be merry; thy wit shall ne'er go
+slip-shod.
+KING LEAR
+Ha, ha, ha!
+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?
+KING LEAR
+No.
+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?
+KING LEAR
+No.
+Fool
+Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
+KING LEAR
+Why?
+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.
+KING LEAR
+How's that?
+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.
+KING LEAR
+Come, boy.
+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.
+EDMUND
+How comes that?
+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?
+EDMUND
+Not a word.
+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.
+EDMUND
+I hear my father coming: pardon me:
+In cunning I must draw my sword upon you
+Draw; seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.
+Yield: come before my father. Light, ho, here!
+Fly, brother. Torches, torches! So, farewell.
+Exit EDGAR
+
+Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion.
+Wounds his arm
+
+Of my more fierce endeavour: I have seen drunkards
+Do more than this in sport. Father, father!
+Stop, stop! No help?
+Enter GLOUCESTER, and Servants with torches
+
+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.'
+GLOUCESTER
+Strong and fasten'd villain
+Would he deny his letter? I never got him.
+Tucket within
+
+Hark, the duke's trumpets! I know not why he comes.
+All ports I'll bar; the villain shall not 'scape;
+The duke must grant me that: besides, his picture
+I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
+May have the due note of him; and of my land,
+Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means
+To make thee capable.
+Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, and Attendants
+
+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.
+CORNWALL
+Is he pursued?
+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
+
+SCENE II. Before Gloucester's castle.
+Enter KENT and OSWALD, severally
+OSWALD
+Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?
+KENT
+Ay.
+OSWALD
+Where may we set our horses?
+KENT
+I' the mire.
+OSWALD
+Prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me.
+KENT
+I love thee not.
+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.
+REGAN
+My sister may receive it much more worse,
+To have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
+For following her affairs. Put in his legs.
+KENT is put in the stocks
+
+Come, my good lord, away.
+Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER and KENT
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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?
+KENT
+No, my lord.
+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.
+KENT
+Yes.
+KING LEAR
+No, I say.
+KENT
+I say, yea.
+KING LEAR
+No, no, they would not.
+KENT
+Yes, they have.
+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.
+KENT
+Why, fool?
+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?
+Fool
+Not i' the stocks, fool.
+Re-enter KING LEAR with GLOUCESTER
+
+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!
+Fool
+Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels
+when she put 'em i' the paste alive; she knapped 'em
+o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cried 'Down,
+wantons, down!' 'Twas her brother that, in pure
+kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.
+Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOUCESTER, and Servants
+
+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!
+CORNWALL
+Fie, sir, fie!
+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.
+KING LEAR
+You! did you?
+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?
+REGAN
+What need one?
+KING LEAR
+O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
+Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
+Allow not nature more than nature needs,
+Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
+If only to go warm were gorgeous,
+Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
+Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,--
+You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
+You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
+As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
+If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
+Against their father, fool me not so much
+To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
+And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
+Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
+I will have such revenges on you both,
+That all the world shall--I will do such things,--
+What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
+The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep
+No, I'll not weep:
+I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
+Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
+Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
+Exeunt KING LEAR, GLOUCESTER, KENT, and Fool
+
+Storm and tempest
+
+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
+
+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
+
+KENT
+Who's there?
+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.
+KING LEAR
+True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
+Exeunt KING LEAR and KENT
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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
+
+KING LEAR
+Let me alone.
+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.
+EDGAR
+[Within] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!
+The Fool runs out from the hovel
+
+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.
+KENT
+What art thou that dost grumble there i' the straw?
+Come forth.
+Enter EDGAR disguised as a mad man
+
+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
+
+KING LEAR
+Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer
+with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.
+Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou
+owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep
+no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on
+'s are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself:
+unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare,
+forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings!
+come unbutton here.
+Tearing off his clothes
+
+Fool
+Prithee, nuncle, be contented; 'tis a naughty night
+to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were
+like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the
+rest on's body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.
+Enter GLOUCESTER, with a torch
+
+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?
+KING LEAR
+What's he?
+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.
+EDGAR
+Tom's a-cold.
+GLOUCESTER
+In, fellow, there, into the hovel: keep thee warm.
+KING LEAR
+Come let's in all.
+KENT
+This way, my lord.
+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
+
+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
+
+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
+
+SCENE VII. Gloucester's castle.
+Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GONERIL, EDMUND, and Servants
+CORNWALL
+Post speedily to my lord your husband; show him
+this letter: the army of France is landed. Seek
+out the villain Gloucester.
+Exeunt some of the 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
+Cunning.
+REGAN
+And false.
+CORNWALL
+Where hast thou sent the king?
+GLOUCESTER
+To Dover.
+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.
+REGAN
+How now, you dog!
+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.
+REGAN
+Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus!
+Takes a sword, and runs at him behind
+
+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!
+REGAN
+Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
+His way to Dover.
+Exit one with GLOUCESTER
+
+How is't, my lord? how look you?
+CORNWALL
+I have received a hurt: follow me, lady.
+Turn out that eyeless villain; throw this slave
+Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace:
+Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm.
+Exit CORNWALL, led by REGAN
+
+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
+EDGAR
+Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,
+Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst,
+The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
+Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
+The lamentable change is from the best;
+The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
+Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!
+The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
+Owes nothing to thy blasts. But who comes here?
+Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an Old Man
+
+My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
+But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
+Lie would not yield to age.
+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?
+Old Man
+Ay, my lord.
+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?
+EDGAR
+Ay, master.
+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
+
+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.
+GONERIL
+O vain fool!
+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
+
+ALBANY
+What news?
+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.
+ALBANY
+He is not here.
+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
+
+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?
+Gentleman
+No.
+KENT
+Was this before the king return'd?
+Gentleman
+No, since.
+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
+
+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
+
+SCENE V. Gloucester's castle.
+Enter REGAN and OSWALD
+REGAN
+But are my brother's powers set forth?
+OSWALD
+Ay, madam.
+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?
+OSWALD
+No, madam.
+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.
+OSWALD
+I, madam?
+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
+
+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?
+GLOUCESTER
+No, truly.
+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.
+EDGAR
+Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes here?
+Enter KING LEAR, fantastically dressed with wild flowers
+
+The safer sense will ne'er accommodate
+His master thus.
+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.
+EDGAR
+Sweet marjoram.
+KING LEAR
+Pass.
+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.
+KING LEAR
+Read.
+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?
+GLOUCESTER
+Ay, sir.
+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!
+KING LEAR
+When we are born, we cry that we are come
+To this great stage of fools: this a good block;
+It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe
+A troop of horse with felt: I'll put 't in proof;
+And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law,
+Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
+Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants
+
+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.
+Gentleman
+Good sir,--
+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.
+KING LEAR
+Then there's life in't. Nay, if you get it, you
+shall get it with running. Sa, sa, sa, sa.
+Exit running; Attendants follow
+
+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.
+EDGAR
+Hail, gentle sir.
+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
+Out, dunghill!
+EDGAR
+Ch'ill pick your teeth, zir: come; no matter vor
+your foins.
+They fight, and EDGAR knocks him down
+
+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
+
+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.
+CORDELIA
+Very well.
+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?
+KING LEAR
+You must bear with me:
+Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.
+Exeunt all but KENT and Gentleman
+
+Gentleman
+Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
+KENT
+Most certain, sir.
+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.
+EDMUND
+Know of the duke if his last purpose hold,
+Or whether since he is advised by aught
+To change the course: he's full of alteration
+And self-reproving: bring his constant pleasure.
+To a Gentleman, who goes out
+
+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?
+GONERIL
+No.
+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.
+ALBANY
+I'll overtake you. Speak.
+Exeunt all but ALBANY and EDGAR
+
+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
+
+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.
+GLOUCESTER
+Grace go with you, sir!
+Exit EDGAR
+
+Alarum and retreat within. Re-enter EDGAR
+
+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
+
+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
+Take them away.
+KING LEAR
+Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
+The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
+He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
+And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
+The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
+Ere they shall make us weep: we'll see 'em starve
+first. Come.
+Exeunt KING LEAR and CORDELIA, guarded
+
+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.
+GONERIL
+An interlude!
+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.
+REGAN
+Sick, O, sick!
+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.
+ALBANY
+A herald, ho!
+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
+
+Herald
+Again!
+Third trumpet
+
+Trumpet answers within
+
+Enter EDGAR, at the third sound, armed, with a trumpet before him
+
+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.
+EDMUND
+In wisdom I should ask thy name;
+But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
+And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
+What safe and nicely I might well delay
+By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:
+Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;
+With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;
+Which, for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,
+This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
+Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!
+Alarums. They fight. EDMUND falls
+
+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.
+ALBANY
+Shut your mouth, dame,
+Or with this paper shall I stop it: Hold, sir:
+Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:
+No tearing, lady: I perceive you know it.
+Gives the letter to EDMUND
+
+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?
+EDGAR
+Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in disguise
+Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service
+Improper for a slave.
+Enter a Gentleman, with a bloody knife
+
+Gentleman
+Help, help, O, help!
+EDGAR
+What kind of help?
+ALBANY
+Speak, man.
+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.
+EDGAR
+Here comes Kent.
+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?
+ALBANY
+Great thing of us forgot!
+Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's Cordelia?
+See'st thou this object, Kent?
+The bodies of GONERIL and REGAN are brought in
+
+KENT
+Alack, why thus?
+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.
+ALBANY
+The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.
+EDMUND is borne off
+
+Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following
+
+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?
+ALBANY
+Fall, and cease!
+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!
+EDGAR
+Look up, my lord.
+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.
+ALBANY
+The weight of this sad time we must obey;
+Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
+The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
+Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
+Exeunt, with a dead march
\ No newline at end of file