Kent.

The same ;

Your servant Kent: Where is your servant Caius?
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 ;-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay,

Have follow'd your sad steps.

Lear.

You are welcome hither. Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark, and

deadly.

Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves,

And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is

That we present us to him.

Edg.

Very bootless.

Enter an Officer.

Off. Edmund is dead, my lord.
Alb.

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:-You, to your rights;

[To Edgar and Kent.

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!

Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd 99! No, no, no life : Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no

more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button 99: Thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, -look,-her lips,

Look there, look there!

Edg.

[He dies.

He faints!-My lord, my lord,

Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break!

Edg.

Look up, my lord.

Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates

him,

That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.

Edg.

O, he is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence.---Our present business Is general woe. Friends of my soul, you twain

[To Kent and Edgar.

Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls, and I must not say, no.

Alb. 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.

ΑΝΝΟΤATIONS

UPON

KING LEAR.

1

CURIOSITY in neither-] Curiosity, for exactest scrutiny. The sense of the whole sentence is, The qualities and properties of the several divisions are so weighed and balanced against one another, that the exactest scrutiny could not determine in preferring one share to the other.

WARBURTON.

2 What shall Cordelia do?] In the folio, What shall Cordelia speak?

3 Which the most precious square of sense possesses;] By the square of sense, we are, here, to understand the four nobler senses, viz. the sight, hearing, taste, and smell. For a young lady could not, with decency, insinuate that she knew of any pleasures which the fifth afforded. This is imagined and expressed with great propriety and delicacy. But the Oxford editor, for square, reads spirit.

WARBURTON.

This is acute; but perhaps square means only compass, comprehension.

JOHNSON.

* Hold thee, from this,] i. e. from this time.

STEEVENS.