Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork in- vade The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; Lear. Kent, on thy life, no more. Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn Thy safety being the motive. Lear. Out of my sight! If aught within tha. ittle seeming⚫ substance, Bur. I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes, + Take her, or leave her? Bur. Pardon me, royal Sir; Election makes not up on such conditions. I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, I would not from your love make such a stray, Kent. See better, Lear; and let me still re-Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'a The true blank + of thine eye. Lear. Now, by Apollo, Kent. Now, by Apollo, king, [main, [Laying his Hand upon his Sword. Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat, Lear. Hear me, recreant! Since thou hast sought to make us break our YOW, To avert your liking a more worthier way, France. This is most strange ! That she, that even but now was your best object, Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd | affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty, (Which we durst never yet,) and, with strain'd' do't before I speak, that you make known To come betwixt our sentence and our power; It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day follow-That I am glad I have not, though not to have it, ing, Thy banish trunk be found in our dominions, Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thus thou wilt appear, [To REGAN and GONERIL. That good effects may spring from words of love.- Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu; [Exit. Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. Lear. My lord of Burgundy, Bur. Most royal majesty, I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd, Lear. Right noble Burgundy, stands; Cor. Peace be with Burgundy! France. Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich, Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd: My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.- Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of our's, and our fair France: Shall buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.-- Bid them farewell, Cordella, though unkind: Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see (Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, Cor. The jewels of our father with wash'd Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are; To your professed bosoms I commit him: I would prefer him to a better place. Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Be to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you Cor. Time shall unfold what plaited cun- Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. France. Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt FRANCE und CORDELIA. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of us both. I what most nearly appertains to think our father will hence to-night. Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. Gon. 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. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and souudest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leave. taking between France and him. Pray yon, let us bit together: If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Enter GLOSTER. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! Aud France in And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his news? Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the Letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? Glo. No? What needed then that terrible despatch 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. Edm. I beseech you, Sir, pardon me : it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'erread; for so much as I have perused, 1 find it not fit for your over-looking. Glo. Give me the letter, Sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part! understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, be wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. Glo. [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, met 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 kim, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.Humph-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? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's Gon. We must do something, and i'the heat. the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. [Exeunt. Enter EDMUND, with a Letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy My services are bound: Wherefore should I Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but, I hope his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the sou, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. 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? Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it Scene II. shall please you to suspend your indignation [tions of ancient amities; divisions in state, against my brother, till you can derive from him menaces and maledictions against king and better testimony of his intent, you shall run a nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of certain course: where, if you violently pro- friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, ceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it and I know not what. 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 writ this to feel iny affection to your honour and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so f Edm. 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. Gle. He cannot be such a monster. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? Edm. Come, come, when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all. Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him; and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and en-heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so tirely loves him.-Heaven and earth!-Ed-rageth in him, that with the mischief of your mund, seek him out: wind me into him, I pray person it would scarcely allay. you: frame the business after your own wisdom: 1 would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. § Edm. I will seek him, Sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. 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 between son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: there's the king falls from bias of nature; 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 [Exit. offence, honesty !-Strange! strange! Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) 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 bis 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 the I am, had Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent + forbearance, till the speed 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 you, go; there's my key:-If you do stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. 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. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? [Exit. Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; He flashes into one gross crime or other, us [ing in maidenliest star On every trifle :-When he returns from hunt the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.I will not speak with him; say, I am sick :— 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, EAg. How now, brother Edmund? What seneas contemplation are you in ? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? Edia. I promise you, the effects he writes of cceed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolu • Whereas. If you come slack of former services, Stew. Very well, madam. among you: The usual address to a lord. ↑ Design. Descend from my dignity by privately listening, to What grows of it, no matter; advise your selbe sure of the truth. 1 Manage. Following. •⚫ Traitors. + The constellation so named. 11 These sounds are unnatural and offensive in music. lows so: For cohorts some editors read courts. † Temperate. I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, Į kindness appears, as well in the general depen That I may speak :-I'll write straight to my dants, as in the duke himself also, and your sister, daughter. To hold my very course :-Prepare for dinner. [Exeunt. 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 qualify'd in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou? Lear. Hal say'st 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 is wrong'd. Lear. Thou but remember'st 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 these two days. Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, Sir, the fool hath much pined away. Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well. -Go you, and tell my daughter I would speak with her.-Go you, call hither my fool. Re-enter STEWARD. O you Sir, you Sir, come you hither: Who am Stew. My lady's father. Lear. My lady's father? my lord's knave: you whoresom dog! you slave! you cur! Stew. I am none of this, my lord; I beseech you, pardon me. Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you ras[Striking him. cal? Stew. I'll not be struck, my lord. Kent. Nor tripped neither; you base football player. [Tripping up his Heels. 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 the STEWARD out. Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy service. Kent. Why, fool? Fool. Why? For taking one's part that is out of favour: Nay, an thou canst not smile as the Kent. Not so young, Sir, to love a woman for take my coxcomb: Why, this fellow has banwind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly: There, singing; nor so old, to dote on her for anyish'd two of his daughters, and did the third a thing: I have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me: thou shalt serve me; if blessing against his will; if thou follow him, like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part nuncle? 'Would I had two coxcombs, and two thou must needs wear my coxcomb.-How now, from thee yet.-Dinner, ho, dinner!-Where's my kuave? my fool? Go you, and call my fool danghters! hither: Enter STEWARD. Yon, you, Sirrah, where's my daughter? 1 Stew. So please you,[Erit. Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.-Where's my fool, ho!-I think the world's asleep.-How now? where's that mongrel? Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why, my boy? Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my coxcombs myself: There's mine; beg another of thy daughters. Lear. Take heed, Sirrah; the whip. must be whipp'd out, when Lady, the brach, ý Lear. A pestilent gall to me! Fool. Mark it, nuncle: Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Scene IV. KING LEAR. And thou shalt have more Than two tens to a score, Lear. 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? Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing. Fool. Pr'ythee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to; he will not believe a fool. Lear. A bitter fool! [To KENT. Feel. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool! Lear. No, lad; teach me. Fool. That lord, that counsel'd thee The sweet and bitter fool Will presently appear; The other found out there. 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 Mould have part on't: and ladies too, they will not let me bave all fool to myself; they'll be snatching.-Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. 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 thine ass on thy back over 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 whipp'd that first finds it so. [Singing. Fools had ne'er less grace in a year; Lear. When were you wont to be so full of Fool. I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mother: for when thou gavest them the rod, and put'st down thine own breeches, Then they for sudden joy did weep, [Singing. That such a king should play bo-peep. Pr'ythee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can thou and thy Fool. I marvel, what kin daughters are: they'll have me whipp'd for Speaking true, thou'lt have me whipp'd for ying; and, sometimes, I am whipp'd for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind of thing, than a fool and yet I would not be thee, Buscle; thou hast pared thy wit o'both sides, and left nothing in the middle: Here comes cue o'the parings. Enter GONERIL. Lear. How now, daughter! what makes that frontlet + on 1 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 Ot without a figure: I am better that thou art now; I am a fool, thou art noth • Favour. + Part of a woman's head-dress, to which Lear comA cypher. pares her frowning brow. ing.-Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so He that keeps nor crust nor crum, That's a sheal'd peascod. * [Pointing to LEAR. Gon. Not only, Sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth I had thought, by making this well known un- To have found a safe redress; but now grow By what yourself too late have spoke and done, fault Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal, ‡ So, Fool. For you trow, nuncle, The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, Lear. Are you our daughter? Gon. Come, Sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught; and put away these dispositions, which 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. Lear. Does any here know me ?-Why this is not Lear: does Lear walk thus ? speak thus ? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, or his discernings are lethargied.-Sleeping or waking ?-Ha! sure, 'tis not so.-Who is it that can tell me who I am?-Lear's shadow? 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 fa- Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman? This admiration is much o'the favour ¶ Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires ; Men so disordered, so debauch'd, and bold, Lear. Darkness and devils!- Gon. You strike my people; and your disorder'd rabble Make servants of their betters. |